Zur Entstehung und Entwicklung des begriffes „Konzept“ in der kognitiven Semantik

Author(s):  
Nedas Jurgaitis ◽  

The present article deals with the genesis of the notion “concept” in German cognitive semantics. The aim of the study is to present the origin and development of the notion “concept” from a diachronic perspective. The genesis of the notion “concept” in linguistics, particularly cognitive semantics, is an object of discussion. It reveals a connection between ancient ideas about word meaning and trends in modern linguistics. The roots of the notion can be traced back to ancient Greek philosophy – the concept debuts as a primal notion of mental experiences in Aristotle’s writings. However, the controversial translation of ancient works leaves room for scientific discussion regarding the prototype of the notion. In the Middle Ages, the word concept originated in European languages from Latin, later establishing itself in scientific discourse through the influence of Neo-Scholasticism, Frege’s conception of logic and the semiotic triangle, as well as the principle of the arbitrariness of linguistic signs. Finally, the notion concept gains importance in the transition from objective to the subjective perception of the meaning of linguistic units (the shift from structuralism to cognitivism) and becomes under the influence of cognitive psychology, the central term in cognitive linguistics in the 1970s and 1980s. The unconventional use of the notion in linguistic studies, on the one hand, makes meta-analyses of the semantics of certain concepts more difficult; on the other hand, it favours disciplinary and methodological diversity in today’s linguistic research.

Author(s):  
Gerda Haßler

The grammatization of European vernacular languages began in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance and continued up until the end of the 18th century. Through this process, grammars were written for the vernaculars and, as a result, the vernaculars were able to establish themselves in important areas of communication. Vernacular grammars largely followed the example of those written for Latin, using Latin descriptive categories without fully adapting them to the vernaculars. In accord with the Greco-Latin tradition, the grammars typically contain sections on orthography, prosody, morphology, and syntax, with the most space devoted to the treatment of word classes in the section on “etymology.” The earliest grammars of vernaculars had two main goals: on the one hand, making the languages described accessible to non-native speakers, and on the other, supporting the learning of Latin grammar by teaching the grammar of speakers’ native languages. Initially, it was considered unnecessary to engage with the grammar of native languages for their own sake, since they were thought to be acquired spontaneously. Only gradually did a need for normative grammars develop which sought to codify languages. This development relied on an awareness of the value of vernaculars that attributed a certain degree of perfection to them. Grammars of indigenous languages in colonized areas were based on those of European languages and today offer information about the early state of those languages, and are indeed sometimes the only sources for now extinct languages. Grammars of vernaculars came into being in the contrasting contexts of general grammar and the grammars of individual languages, between grammar as science and as art and between description and standardization. In the standardization of languages, the guiding principle could either be that of anomaly, which took a particular variety of a language as the basis of the description, or that of analogy, which permitted interventions into a language aimed at making it more uniform.


2021 ◽  
Vol 128 ◽  
pp. 01012
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Yakimova ◽  
Anastasiya Rusina ◽  
Olga Karpycheva

Assessment of the tourist attractiveness of a territory is an important analytical area in terms of identifying opportunities for development of regional tourism, as one of the most significant and promising sectors of the economy. This can be the basis for development of appropriate strategic regional programs. The existing scientific discussion in this area has contributed to emergence of a number of methodological approaches that can be used in practice. However, their critical analysis revealed a number of provisions, the improvement of which will make it possible to obtain more objective and relevant results, reflecting the possibility of the destination becoming an object of attraction for tourists. Firstly, the lack of a clear distinction between the categories of “tourist potential”, which reflects the objective state of the resources of the territory, and “tourist attractiveness”, which includes the estimated component of available resources from the perspective of a consumer of tourist services. This leads to the fact that the principle of the subjectivity of the assessment is practically not implemented, thus the possibility of focusing on market demands is not fully used, which implies use of segmentation and positioning tools. Secondly, the results obtained using the methods offered by the scientific community are often distorted by the subjective perception of the researcher, which is associated with use of a large volume of expert assessments. Thirdly, from our point of view, the number of estimated variables, the number of which may approach 100, is not always justified. This, on the one hand, reduces the degree of influence of each of them on the result, and, therefore, the significance, and on the other hand, makes it difficult for the analyst to collect the necessary information. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop a methodology that eliminates these disadvantages. The offered author’s development includes objective indicators that do not require involvement of experts in their assessment. The number of these indicators is limited and systematized by groups, in accordance with modern market demands: directly attracting tourists, ensuring the quality of stay and ensuring the availability of the territory. The relative form of the offered metrics shows the degree of difference in the selected variables of some territories in comparison with others, which in the future will make it possible to orient the tourism development in the region to target audiences whose needs can be satisfied by the resources available at the destination.


Author(s):  
Peter Coss

In the introduction to his great work of 2005, Framing the Early Middle Ages, Chris Wickham urged not only the necessity of carefully framing our studies at the outset but also the importance of closely defining the words and concepts that we employ, the avoidance ‘cultural sollipsism’ wherever possible and the need to pay particular attention to continuities and discontinuities. Chris has, of course, followed these precepts on a vast scale. My aim in this chapter is a modest one. I aim to review the framing of thirteenth-century England in terms of two only of Chris’s themes: the aristocracy and the state—and even then primarily in terms of the relationship between the two. By the thirteenth century I mean a long thirteenth century stretching from the period of the Angevin reforms of the later twelfth century on the one hand to the early to mid-fourteenth on the other; the reasons for taking this span will, I hope, become clearer during the course of the chapter, but few would doubt that it has a validity.


2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (01) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUSANNE WAGNER

While null subjects are a well-researched phenomenon in pro-drop languages like Italian or Spanish, they have not received much attention in non-pro-drop languages such as English, where they are traditionally associated with particular (written) genres such as diaries or are discussed under a broader umbrella term such as situational ellipsis. However, examples such as the one in the title – while certainly not frequent – are commonly encountered in colloquial speech, with first-person singular tokens outnumbering any other person.This article investigates the linguistic and non-linguistic factors influencing the (non-) realisation of first-person singular subjects in a corpus of colloquial English. The variables found to contribute to the observed variation are drawn from a variety of linguistic domains and follow up on research conducted in such different fields as first language acquisition (FLA), cognitive linguistics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics and language variation and change. Of particular interest is the finding regarding the link between null subjects and complexity of the verb phrase, which patterns in a clearly linear fashion: the more complex the verb phrase, the more likely is a null realisation. Not discussed in this form before, this finding, given its high significance and its robustness in light of alternative coding, may prove to be an important candidate for inclusion in future studies on (English) null subjects.


Linguistics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (6) ◽  
pp. 1197-1243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giorgio Francesco Arcodia

AbstractCoordinating compounds, i.e. complex word forms in which the constituent lexemes are in a coordination relation, may be divided into two classes: hyperonymic, in which the referent of the whole compound is the “sum” of the meanings of the constituent lexemes (Korowaiyumdefól‘(her) husband-wife, couple’; van Enk, Gerrit J., & Lourens de Vries. 1997.The Korowai of Irian Jaya: Their language in its cultural context. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 66), and hyponymic, where the compound designates a single referent having features of all the constituents (Englishactor-director). It has been proposed that languages choose either type as the one with the “tightest” marking pattern; whereas the crosslinguistic tendency is to have tighter hyperonymic compounds, most languages of Europe rather have tighter hyponymic compounds (Arcodia, Giorgio Francesco, Nicola Grandi, & Bernhard Wälchli 2010. Coordination in compounding. In Sergio Scalise & Irene Vogel (eds.),Cross-disciplinary issues in compounding, 177–198. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins). In this paper, we will test this assumption on noun-noun compounds in a sample of 20 Standard Average European languages and in a balanced sample of 60 non-SAE languages, arguing that the preference for hyperonymic compounds is best explained by the default referential function of nouns; in hyponymic compounds, on the other hand, nouns are used to indicate properties. We will then compare nominal and adjectival coordinating compounds, showing that for the latter the hyponymic compounding pattern is the dominant one, as adjectives are prototypical property-denoting words.


Traditio ◽  
1946 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Merlan

According to Aristotle all heavenly movement is ultimately due to the activity of forty-seven (or fifty-five) ‘unmoved movers'. This doctrine is highly remarkable in itself and has exercised an enormous historical influence. It forms part of a world-picture the outlines of which are as follows. The universe consists of concentric spheres, revolving in circles. The outermost of these bears the fixed stars. The other either bear planets or, insofar as they do not, contribute indirectly to the movements of the latter. Each sphere is moved by the one immediately surrounding it, but also possesses a movement of its own, due to its mover, an unmoved, incorporeal being. (It was these beings which the schoolmen designated as theintelligentiae separatae.) The seemingly irregular movements of the planets are thus viewed as resulting from the combination of regular circular revolutions. The earth does not move and occupies the centre of the universe. Such was Aristotle's astronomic system, essential parts of which were almost universally adopted by the Arabic, Jewish, and Christian philosophers of the Middle Ages.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Xitao Fu

<p>The typical view considers metonymy as an intra-domain mapping which involves the source providing mental access to the target within the domain, with PART-WHOLE as the prototypical relation. This commonly held view of metonymy in Cognitive Linguistics pays attention to what happens after the domain, or rather, the WHOLE, has been established. How the WHOLE is formed seems to be missing. Based on the research results of cognitive science, especially in cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and neuroscience, metonymy is tentatively argued to be an innate cognitive mechanism involving PART-WHOLE FORMING, PART-WHOLE/PART RELATING processes. The PART-WHOLE FORMING process establishes the WHOLE from the PART: It picks up some prominent element(s) in an interactive process to form a patterned experience, and the PART-WHOLE/PART RELATING process relates PART to PART, relating PART to the WHOLE and vice versa. The PART-WHOLE/PART RELATING process is made possible by the PART-WHOLE FORMING process. Metonymic operations usually precede metaphoric operation. Metaphor is essentially grounded on metonymy. Metonymy as a cognitive mechanism is most noticeably realized in language. It operates in various aspects of language and language use. The experience pattern (i.e. the WHOLE) formulated through the PART-WHOLE FORMING process is found to underpin the process of grammaticalization, the development of meaning prototype, and to motivate such daily language use as football nicknaming and to bring in certain cognitive and communicative functions. In the light of this view of metonymy, grammaticalization is considered from the conceptual perspective as a process from the general/global to the specific/local, or from focus on one specific aspect to focus on another particular aspect within the global WHOLE, rather than the usually held concrete-to-abstract process. This also applies to word meaning prototypes. Word meaning develops due to the dynamic of meaning prototypes. When considered from the conceptual perspective, meaning prototypes generally develop from the general/global to the specific/local with the change and specification of contextual situations. The cognitive analysis of football nicknames also suggests that metonymy is overwhelming and provides the requisite basis for metaphor. The PART-WHOLE FORMING and the PART-WHOLE/PART RELATING processes of metonymy as an inherent cognitive mechanism often interact in the mind, which is evidenced in language and may be best illustrated through analysis of interactive communication in general, and dialogic discourse in particular. Metonymy in interaction is embodied in its functions and operations in dialogue and its contribution to the dialogue as a discourse entity. Metonymy operates in dialogic discourse in various patterns of GENERAL-SPECIFIC scheme. It operates in the development of dialogue and helps structure the dialogic discourse, making it a coherent discourse entity; it makes meaning out of the local utterance and relates it to the whole dialogue; it underlies the decision-making process, helping make a final decision among alternatives. It also motivates the problem-solving process, helping formulate and organise replies to the questions posed by the counterpart in dialogic discourse, and facilitating the solution of daily problems.</p>


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer M Rodd

This chapter focuses on the process by which stored knowledge about a word’s form (orthographic or phonological) maps onto stored knowledge about its meaning. This mapping is made challenging by the ambiguity that is ubiquitous in natural language: most familiar words can refer to multiple different concepts. This one-to-many mapping from form to meaning within the lexicon is a core feature of word-meaning access. Fluent, accurate word-meaning access requires that comprehenders integrate multiple cues in order to determine which of a word’s possible semantic features are relevant in the current context. Specifically, word-meaning access is guided by (i) distributional information about the a priori relative likelihoods of different word meanings and (ii) a wide range of contextual cues that indicate which meanings are most likely in the current context.


2007 ◽  
pp. 169-183
Author(s):  
Irena Szczepankowska

In the article the Author poses a question concerning the understanding of the term "concept" (syn. "notion") in linguistics - its status as a subject of a semantic description ("concept" in relation to "meaning") and as an element of metalanguage. She confronts the earlier structuralist perspective originating from logic with more recent ones used in psychology and cognitive linguistics, in which the meaning of linguistic units is equated directly with a notion as a mental conceptualisation and in fact as a conceptualisation process. The most important novum in the cognitive understanding of a "concept" as a subject of linguistic description is, according to the Author, the renunciation of the classical perspective (a conceptual category as "a set of features reserved for a class of items") and demystification - especially with reference to popular categories - its ostensibly objective static nature. A notion is treated as an area of knowledge organised (profiled) in a special manner at the background of the whole network of cognitive relations, that is embracing also elements of emotions, valuation, perspective and interaction of conceptualisers. Creating notions and encoding them in language thus requires other methods of representing the meaning of linguistic units than those well-grounded in linguistics under the influence of logical semantics - so that the descriptions refer not only to the designatum but also to the cognising entity.


LingVaria ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-24
Author(s):  
Marek Kaszewski

Descriptions of Interjections in Selected Polish Dictionaries from 19th Century The author of the text analyses interjections present in three Polish dictionaries from the 19th century: the dictionaries by S.B. Linde, J.S. Bandtkie and A. Osiński, which are a part of a larger linguistic collection created in order to study and describe historical Polish interjections. The article takes into account the internal diversity of the historical class of interjections in the light of the lexicographers’ attempts to describe such units. Our attention is drawn to the lack of graphical normalization of interjections in the dictionaries, as well as the inconsistency of their marking and definition on the one hand, and the wide range of functional variants on the other. Differences in the manner of presentation of interjections in these dictionaries are also taken into account. Moreover, the author emphasizes the fact that they include a large number of animal-related (hunting) interjections. The study of the dictionary materials confirmed that their authors did not work out a method of a lexicographical description of these linguistic units.


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