The mind in words' The truth below the lexical level

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The mind in words. The truth below the lexical
level  

• Dr. Marija Maya Brala
• Faculty for Translators and Interpreters
• University of Trieste, Italy
• Faculty of Philosophy
• University of Rijeka, Croatia
• email bralam_at_sslmit.univ.trieste.it

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Two central themes

• ONTOLOGY
• systematic account of referring and
  understanding
• everything there is to build language on i.e.
  everything there is to anchor language to
• specification of conceptualisation

• SEMANTICS
• the study of meaning
• where do we look for meaning?
• in the human brain!

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In the MIND

• TASK defining that part of the human cognitive
  endowment which serves as the building blocks of
  language
• IN PRACTICAL TERMS defining and describing what
  is shared between the human language faculty and
  other sub-systems of the human cognitive system
  (Talmy, 2000).
• QUESTION which subsystems of human cognition are
  easily comparable with language?
• ANSWER The domain of space!

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SPATIAL LANGUAGE

• Infinite sizes, shapes and possible relations
  have to be sqeezed into a very limited set of
  linguistic labels ? the pb. of categorisation
• The issue of mapping between cognitive
  information about space and linguistic form
• Cognitive vs. linguistic determinants in
  childrens spatial language (e.g. Bowerman
  Choi, 1991)

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SEMANTIC DECOMPOSITION

• An attempt to formalise prepositional meaning
  crosslinguistically on a cognitive,
  experientialist basis
• Universal semantic primitives
• semantic atoms, appear in words in different
  combinatorial patterns, seen as being grounded in
  our experience as bodily beings, possibly shared
  with other subsystems of the human cognition (cf.
  Talmy, 2000)

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SPATIAL PREPOSITIONS

• Lexicalise a relation between F and G
• A closed-class
• A difference in the kinds of meaning that can be
  expressed by the open-class vs. the closed-class
  forms (cf. Talmy, 1983, Slobin, 1985)
• Problem universality of the human cognitive
  system vs. language specificity and relativity
• Solution 2 levels of language universal
  components combined differently
• Prepositions functional rather than locational

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The 3 embodied experience domains

• DIMENSIONALITY
• 1DIM, 2DIM, CIRCLE, 3DIM (VOLUME)
• ORIENTATION (only presence or absence)
• ATTACHMENT
• ATTACHMENT, 1SIDE BOUNDED ATTACHMENT
• Prepositions a mapping between a linguistically
  contingent set of visual (and other) percepts,
  and a universal (biologically predetermined,
  inborn?) set of conceptual units (semantic
  primes).

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• Support from below
• 1DIM, ORIENT, ATTCH
• Marks on a surface
• 1DIM, -ORIENT, ATTCH
• Clingy attachment
• 2DIM, -ORIENT, ATTCH
• Hanging over/against
• 2DIM, ORIENT
• Fixed attachment
• 2DIM, ORIENT, ATTCH
• Point-to-point attachment
• 2DIM, OR, ATTCH

• Encircle with contact
• CIRCLE, -ORIENT, ATTACH
• Impaled/spitted on
• 3DIM F, -ORENT, ATTACH
• Pierces through
• 3DIM G, -ORIENT, ATTACH
• Partial inclusion
• 3DIM, -ORIENT, 1SDBOUNDATTACH
• Inclusion
• 3DIM