On the conceptual basis of English adjectives denoting mental characteristics of human beings

The paper focuses on the cognitive foundation of English adjectives that denote mental characteristics of human beings. Several cognitive models have been advanced in an attempt to account for the semantic structure underlying the lexical category in question. After reviewing these models, a method for determining which of them most accurately captures the “cognitive reality” of English adjectival “deep structure” is proposed. The paper concludes with arguments for the inclusion of additional “motion attributes” to Lakoff’s ICM (1987), namely, “guide’s support” and “speed”.

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Preserving the world for Christ

Scottish Journal of Theology ◽

10.1017/s0036930607003845 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 61 (1) ◽

pp. 64-82 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Barry Harvey

Keyword(s):

Human Life ◽

Human Society ◽

Conceptual Basis ◽

Human Beings ◽

City Of God ◽

Common Life ◽

The Past ◽

The World

AbstractThe practices, habits and convictions that once allowed the inhabitants of Christendom to determine what they could reasonably do and say together to foster a just and equitable common life have slowly been displaced over the past few centuries by new configurations which have sought to maintain an inherited faith in an underlying purpose to human life while disassociating themselves from the God who had been the beginning and end of that faith. In the end, however, these new configurations are incapable of sustained deliberations about the basic conditions of our humanity. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology provides important clues into what it takes to make and keep human life human in such a world. The first part of this essay examines Bonhoeffer's conception of the last things, the things before the last, and what binds them together. He argues that the things before the last do not possess a separate, autonomous existence, and that the positing of such a breach has had disastrous effects on human beings and the world they inhabit. The second part looks at Bonhoeffer's account of the divine mandates as the conceptual basis for coping with a world that has taken leave of God. Though this account of the mandates has much to commend it, it is hindered by problematic habits of interpretation that leave it vacillating between incommensurable positions. Bonhoeffer's incomplete insights are thus subsumed within Augustine's understanding of the two orders of human society set forth in City of God.

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How Thumbelina Knows

10.20944/preprints201608.0039.v1 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Giorgio De Michelis

Keyword(s):

Knowledge Management ◽

Observation Point ◽

Education Level ◽

Digital Tools ◽

Direct Access ◽

Conceptual Basis ◽

Human Beings ◽

Digital Revolution ◽

Management Processes ◽

Access To Knowledge

In this paper I take the book by Michel Serres “Thumbelina” as the occasion for a reflection on the conceptual basis of knowledge management, as it was built by Ikujiro Noanka and co-workers. The direct access to knowledge that Thumbelina practices together with her peers is, in fact, for me, a god observation point to bring the reflection of Nonaka further, towards the discovery of a new understanding of knowledge and knowing processes. If the digital revolution is third step after writing and printing, in the soft changes in the relations between human beings and knowledge, then it poses in an urgent manner the problem to deepen our understanding of what knowledge and intelligence are and to change our practice at the education level and to design new digital tools to support our knowledge management processes.

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The Cognitive Aspect of English Polysemantic Adjectives

Vestnik NSU Series Linguistics and Intercultural Communication ◽

10.25205/1818-7935-2021-19-1-15-29 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 19 (1) ◽

pp. 15-29

Author(s):

Marina B. Antonova

Keyword(s):

Old English ◽

Cognitive Linguistics ◽

Point Of View ◽

Conceptual Basis ◽

Human Beings ◽

Conceptual Foundation ◽

Conceptual Metaphors ◽

Cognitive Aspect ◽

Evaluative Meaning ◽

Internal Level

This paper presents an analysis of the deep language factors that predetermine polysemy of English adjectives denoting moral and mental qualities of human beings. In line with a well-established point of view in cognitive linguistics, this study treats the semantics of a word as a two-level phenomenon possessing the semantic (external) level and the conceptual (internal) level. Given polysemy belongs to the external level, this study aims to reveal the internal language factor allowing for umbrella adjectives to develop meanings of moral and mental qualities. This is the first research that has analyzed English adjectives from this perspective; it is proposed to unearth the deep language foundation of polysemy by modeling the conceptual foundation of polysemantic adjectives, which is undertaken via analysis of their etymological data. The choice of the adjectives encoding moral and mental qualities is substantiated by the following reasons: first, these words name the major human characteristics, whose recognition and verbalization can be traced back to the Pre-Old English period; second, they denote abstract qualities unperceivable by senses but estimated due to their indirect manifestation in individuals’ judgments, conduct and activity; third, since these adjectives convey evaluation of the quality, they reflect cultural axiological standards. The findings show that the semantics of the English adjectives in question is governed by a certain set of conceptual metaphors. The commonality of the adjectives’ conceptual basis seems to be the internal language factor that accounts for polysemy, i.e. an ability for an adjective to comprise meanings of mental and moral characteristics. In addition, the results demonstrate that the unearthed concepts form oppositions, namely, LIFE - DEATH, MOTION - STILLNESS, FRIEND - FOE. The opposed concepts are endowed with the positive or negative value that appears to determine the evaluative meaning of the adjectives. Besides, the research has shown that, while participating in the formation of adjectival semantics, the concepts can demonstrate ambiguous value, which enables a concept to underlie both the positive and negative evaluative meanings of an adjective; therefore, an adjective may comprise meanings of mental and moral characteristics that are opposite in their evaluation.

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The Container Image Schema as the Conceptual Basis of English Adjectives’ Semantics

Journal of language and Education ◽

10.17323/jle.2020.9751 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 8-17

Author(s):

Marina Antonova

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Model ◽

Cognitive Models ◽

Research Needs ◽

Conceptual Basis ◽

Human Beings ◽

Novel Approach ◽

Image Schema ◽

The Moment

This paper focuses on the cognitive foundation of the semantics of English adjectives that denote mental and moral characteristics of human beings. Research into these adjectives seems a challenging task because they denote abstract qualities that cannot be perceived through vision, hearing, or touch; and here a question arises: How are abstract qualities interpreted in English encoded through adjectives? To answer it, this study follows the idea of two-level semantics, i.e. word semantics is treated as a two-level phenomenon that comprises the semantic (external) level and the conceptual (deep) one. This study is the first to address adjectival semantics from this perspective. Here a novel approach to revealing the cognitive foundation of adjectives is introduced: given that adjectives originated from old syncretic items and a word cognitive model forms at the moment of word creation, cognitive models underlying adjectives' semantics are unearthed via analysis of their etymological data. Our contribution is two-fold. First, the approach has revealed that the image schema CONTAINER guides semantics of an array of various adjectives independent of their morphemic structure or date of origin. The examples demonstrate that abstract human qualities are interpreted via the following container features: boundary, container substance, size, hardness/softness of a container shell, etc. The semantics of affixed or compound adjectives appear to stem from the integration of concepts represented by an affix and a root or two roots, respectively. Second, the findings show that the value given to every container feature appears to predetermine the evaluation conveyed by an adjective. Container features tend to possess ambivalent value, realizing the positive or negative one due to the interaction with a frame in which the CONTAINER is incorporated, therefore the same polysemantic adjective may develop both positive and negative meanings. To reveal the whole inventory of cognitive models that govern adjectival semantics in English, further research needs to be conducted.

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ANTHROPOCENTRISM IN THE FORMATION OF CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE ENGLISH ADJECTIVAL CATEGORY (A CASE STUDY OF ADJECTIVES DENOTING MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS AND APPEARANCE OF HUMAN BEINGS)

Kognitivnye Issledovaniya Yazyka ◽

10.20916/2071-9639-2016-27-91-98 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 27 ◽

pp. 91-98

Author(s):

M.B. Antonova ◽

Keyword(s):

Human Beings ◽

Conceptual Foundations ◽

Mental Characteristics

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“Melodious Madrigals”: A Study of Animal Musicians in Early Modern England

Ben Jonson Journal ◽

10.3366/bjj.2020.0274 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 27 (1) ◽

pp. 126-143

Author(s):

Caitlin Mahaffy

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

Animal Studies ◽

Early Modern England ◽

Environmental Stewardship ◽

Literary Texts ◽

Conceptual Basis ◽

Human Beings ◽

Cosmic Order ◽

Music Of The Spheres ◽

English Society

In early modern England, people believed in the music of the spheres, the notion that the foundations of cosmic order were a result of musical principles. The importance of music in early modern English society encouraged Renaissance thinkers to hear music in a variety of places, even within the noises of animals. I argue that numerous early modern literary texts, including works by Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Milton, indicate that animals are capable of hearing celestial music and that they are imitating the heavenly music through their own musical performance. Animals' imitation of celestial music raises the following questions: Could animal-created music be a kind of divine language? Do animals' natural musical capabilities indicate that they are more connected to the divine than human beings are? Such questions matter because animals were seen as expendable in early modern England and, therefore, this view of animals as possibly closer to the divine than human beings problematizes the widely held early modern belief that men are superior to beasts. This article contributes to the rapidly growing field of early modern animal studies by creating a connection between Renaissance views of animals and the conceptual basis for environmental stewardship in our own time.

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Application ofZ-Number Based Modeling in Psychological Research

Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience ◽

10.1155/2015/760403 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 2015 ◽

pp. 1-7 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Rafik Aliev ◽

Konul Memmedova

Keyword(s):

Academic Motivation ◽

Numerical Solutions ◽

Educational Achievement ◽

Psychological Research ◽

Information Modeling ◽

Human Beings ◽

Academic Motivation Scale ◽

Anxiety Test ◽

Beneficial Impact ◽

Mental Characteristics

Pilates exercises have been shown beneficial impact on physical, physiological, and mental characteristics of human beings. In this paper,Z-number based fuzzy approach is applied for modeling the effect of Pilates exercises on motivation, attention, anxiety, and educational achievement. The measuring of psychological parameters is performed using internationally recognized instruments: Academic Motivation Scale (AMS), Test of Attention (D2 Test), and Spielberger’s Anxiety Test completed by students. The GPA of students was used as the measure of educational achievement. Application ofZ-information modeling allows us to increase precision and reliability of data processing results in the presence of uncertainty of input data created from completed questionnaires. The basic steps ofZ-number based modeling with numerical solutions are presented.

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