Zero, Null Individuals, and Nominal Semantics in Cantonese

Crosslinguistic Variation

It has been convincingly argued that English zero provides evidence for introducing null individuals into the ontology of natural language (Bylinina & Nouwen 2018). We examine ‘zero’ in Cantonese, where it provides evidence that such null individuals are a matter of crosslinguistic variation. Cantonese zero has a more restricted distribution. It occurs widely in a number of contexts, but it is systematically ruled out with ordinary classifiers. These facts, coupled with assumptions about the nature of measurement and nominal semantics, demonstrate despite its extensive use in the language, zero is impossible in precisely the uses that require null individuals. Cantonese seems to be telling us that such null individuals are simply absent from its ontology, implying an interesting difference in natural language metaphysics between the languages—and perhaps a different perspective on what theoretical shape crosslinguistic variation can take.

The Oxford Handbook of Event Structure

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199685318.001.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

Keyword(s):

Natural Language ◽

Event Structure ◽

Small Set ◽

Crosslinguistic Variation ◽

Relationship Of ◽

The Relationship ◽

Event Variable ◽

Area Of Study

This volume offers an introduction to current research in event structure, the study of the role of events in grammar. This area of study breaks down into several interrelated questions: How do we perceive events? How do events as objects of perception relate to linguistic event descriptions? What structural distinctions can we make among events, and how are these distinctions reflected grammatically? How do events relate to their participants? To what extent does syntax constrain the grammar of event descriptions? The handbook reflects the growth of this field, from three foundational hypotheses: that action sentences are predicates of event variables (Davidson), that verb meanings can be divided into a small number of aspectual classes (Vendler), and that verb meanings can be partly decomposed into a small set of recurring primitives (Lakoff, McCawley). Part I considers the implications of the Davidsonian event variable for aspects of natural language metaphysics; Part II considers the relationship of event structure to morphosyntax; Part III focuses on crosslinguistic variation in event descriptions; and Part IV covers less narrowly grammatical aspects of event structure.

Descriptive Metaphysics, Natural Language Metaphysics, Sapir-Whorf, and All That Stuff: Evidence from the Mass-Count Distinction

The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition Logic and Communication ◽

10.4148/biyclc.v6i0.1570 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Francis Jeffry Pelletier

Keyword(s):

Natural Language ◽

ADAPTATION OF BORROWINGS IN THE NATURAL LANGUAGE METAPHYSICS (To the problem statement)

Herald of Omsk University ◽

10.24147/1812-3996.2021.26(4).68-72 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 26 (4) ◽

pp. 68-72

Author(s):

D. V. Konishevskii ◽

N. V. Kushnareva ◽

I. Yu. Lavrinenko

Keyword(s):

Natural Language ◽

Problem Statement ◽

Beyond Meaning: A Journey Across Language, Perception and Experience - Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology ◽

Natural Language Metaphysics

10.1007/978-3-030-46317-5_14 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 115-124

Author(s):

Gaetano Fiorin ◽

Denis Delfitto

Keyword(s):

Natural Language ◽

Lexical “portraying” of cognitive concepts

E3S Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/e3sconf/202128408002 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 284 ◽

pp. 08002

Author(s):

Irina Zhirova ◽

Olga Dmitrieva ◽

Dmitriy Lukin ◽

Elena Anashkina

Keyword(s):

Natural Language ◽

Cognitive Linguistics ◽

Cultural Elements ◽

New Type ◽

Definition Of ◽

Similarity And Difference ◽

The Given ◽

Subsequent Comparison ◽

National Corpus

The article is devoted to the cognitive emotiological concept of pride. The relevance of the study lies in the fact that the compilation of conceptual lexical “portraits” and their subsequent comparison in different languages will reveal the similarity and difference in the natural language metaphysics of the compared cultures. Developed new author’s technique of “lexical portraying” of the concept determines the novelty of the research. The linguistic material of the research was the data from the corpus dictionaries “British National Corpus (BNC)” and “Russian National Corpus (RNC)” which represent a collection of grammatically marked texts. The first part of the article highlights the relevance of the study, defines the term “emotiological concept”, as well as provides general and specific for this area of research discussion issues from the field of cultural and cognitive linguistics. The authors analyze the interpretation of the term “concept”, the scope and content of this meaning and the ways of its description. The second part of the article is devoted to the study of the cognitions of “a proud man” and “a prideful man”. The authors conclude that the actualization of emotional feelings occurs under the influence of both external (socially conditioned) and internal (psychological) factors – the “provocateurs”. The third part presents the results of the cognitive analysis of the concepts “pride” and “гордость”. To provide this the authors refer to the definition of the realeme (a unit of the given lexical system). The ontogeny of the characterological behavioral qualities of “a proud man” and “a prideful man” is traced, and the amount of semantic and pragmatic information is established. Based on the analysis of the empirical vocabulary data and the considered connotations of lexical units “pride” and “гордость”, the authors propose a new type of “lexical portraying” and provide in the article the sample of one for the concepts “pride” and “гордость”. The developed etymological entry of the concept indicates 1) the cognitive elements of the concept, 2) the socio-cultural elements of the concept, 3) the semantics of the concept and 4) the syntax of the concept. The article dwells on emphasizing the fact that it is the cognitive elements that are universal for both Russian and English, while sociocultural, semantic, and syntactic elements might not always coincide in different natural language metaphysics. In conclusion, the authors summarize the data of the study and outline the promising areas of work in the field of concept science and cognitive linguistics.

Studies in Logic and the Foundations of Mathematics - Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science VII, Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science ◽

Natural Language Metaphysics

10.1016/s0049-237x(09)70714-1 ◽

1986 ◽

pp. 573-595 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Emmon Bach

Keyword(s):

Natural Language ◽

Roles and the compositional semantics of role-denoting relational adjectives

ZAS Papers in Linguistics ◽

10.21248/zaspil.60.2018.456 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 60 ◽

pp. 91-108 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Curt Anderson ◽

Sebastian Löbner

Keyword(s):

Natural Language ◽

Social Roles ◽

Formal Analysis ◽

World Knowledge ◽

Frame Semantics ◽

Compositional Semantics ◽

Lexical Knowledge ◽

General Semantics ◽

Philosophical Understanding

The semantics of adjectives related to nominals denoting societal roles, such aspresidential (from president), have remained understudied. We examine the semantics of whatwe call role-denoting relational adjectives, providing a formal analysis using the notion of aframe, a unified representation for lexical knowledge, world knowledge, and context. The frameswe propose are based on a constructivist philosophical understanding of social roles, leading usto posit a multi-tiered ontology of events and individuals. Using frames and our ontology, weprovide a general semantics for role-denoting relational adjectives and roles.Keywords: modification, adjectives, relational adjectives, events, non-intersective adjectives,roles, natural language metaphysics, frame semantics.