Ling 423/640G: Cognitive Linguistics

Ben Bergen

 

Meeting 2: Language and the mind

August 28, 2008

 

1. Questions

 

·      Administrative issues?

·      Left-over questions, comments, or observations from last time?

 

2. How to scientifically study the mind and language

 

Evidence

• The place of intuition
• Convergent evidence
• Indirect measures

 

What theories of mind and language should be like

• The generalization commitment: seek general principles
• The layer cake principle: try to get all the pieces right

 

The cognitive commitment

• Build on what's known about how the mind supports other sorts of cognitive behavior
• Seek evidence on the psychological reality of claimed mechanisms

 

3. Cognitive semantics

 

Conceptual structure and meaning are embodied (the truth isn't out there)

• Am I in front of the class?

 

Linguistic meaning is encyclopedic

• The meaning of safe

 

Meaning is a process of construction

• What makes something a good beating?

 

4. A taste of the first part of the class

 

Polysemy

The verb fly has different meanings. What are some of these, and what does this say about word meaning (how specific/general word meanings are; how many meanings a word can have; how these are related)?

 

Prototypes

Is a visor a hat? Is a plastic cheese wedge that you wear on your head a hat? Does it depend on the context? What does this tell you about the members of categories?

 

Metonymy

What does Descartes is on my top shelf mean? What does this say about what words like this refer to?