17.106, Review: Semantics/Ling Theories: Riemer (2005)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-17-106. Fri Jan 13 2006. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 17.106, Review: Semantics/Ling Theories: Riemer (2005)

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What follows is a review or discussion note contributed to our 
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1)
Date: 11-Jan-2006
From: Zouhair Maalej < zmaalej at gnet.tn >
Subject: The Semantics of Polysemy 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 16:36:01
From: Zouhair Maalej < zmaalej at gnet.tn >
Subject: The Semantics of Polysemy 
 

AUTHOR: Riemer, Nick 
TITLE: The Semantics of Polysemy
SUBTITLE: Reading Meaning in English and Warlpiri
SERIES: Cognitive Linguistics Research 
PUBLISHER: Mouton de Gruyter
YEAR: 2005
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-2087.html 

Zouhair Maalej, Department of English Language and Literature, 
University of Manouba-Tunis

SYNOPSIS

Riemer offers a cross-linguistic cognitive semantic view of polysemy 
based on a typology of metaphoric and metonymic relations in keeping 
with the problematics of general cognitive science. Apart from the 
Introduction and the Conclusion, the book offers six chapters, of which 
the first two are a review and a repudiation of cognitive semantics and 
the Natural Semantic Metalanguage as currently practiced, with the 
rest of the chapters presenting evidence for polysemy (chapter 3), a 
theory for polysemy (chapter 4), and two case studies, one about 
English (chapter 5) and the other Warlpiri (chapter 6).  

Ch 1: Cognition and linguistic science
Riemer presents the objective of his monograph as consisting in 
analyzing polysemy in English and Warlpiri's percussion (hitting) verbs 
using ordinary language paraphrase in cognitive semantics, where 
polysemy is seen as a function of three metonymic and one 
metaphoric relation. However, the author disagrees with pairing 
semantic structure and conceptualization within cognitive semantics, 
and elaborates a distinction between the observability of phono-
morpho-syntactic features of language and the non-observable nature 
of semantic phenomena, concluding that semantics has no data that 
constitute its object of investigation.  

The author devotes the rest of the chapter to discussing his 
disagreement with cognitive semantics in pairing meaning and 
conceptualization. Riemer argues that to meet scientificity a theory 
needs to satisfy two conditions: causal explanation condition and 
empirical identity condition. It fails to satisfy the former as the theory 
does not attempt to characterize the causal succession of cognitive 
states which result in linguistic tokens (p. 27). Riemer qualifies the 
latter as ''at a prescientific point in its development'' (p. 28).  

Ch 2: Meaning, definition and paraphrase
Riemer presents the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) 
framework of Wierzbicka and co-workers. Riemer sees NSM as a 
model of definitional enterprise, presented as a ''refinement'' on 
modern dictionaries. In proposing universally intertranslatable and 
indefinable semantic primitives, the NSM meant to evade charges of 
ethnocentrism, by developing a maximally culture-neutral methodology 
and objective terminology. Instead, it fell into semantic primitives that 
are not to be found in each culture

Ch 3: Evidence for polysemy
As a way of evidencing the existence of polysemy, Riemer rejects 
Allwood's (2003) proposal of a continuum between the two as 
a ''meaning potential'' for lexical items in favor of the distinction 
between monosemy and polysemy. Riemer also rejects Tuggy's 
(1999) assumption that polysemy is the default case in accounts of 
meaning. Furthermore, Riemer looks at the various criteria advanced 
in defense of polysemy such as logical, syntagmatic, syntactic, 
paradigmatic, and definitional tests, and rejects all of them as defining 
criteria. The second half of the chapter serves to defining the author's 
own conception of polysemy as based on metaphor and metonymy, 
and captured in G (glosses), with M (manifest) and S (sensory) as 
subparts.

Ch 4: A four-category theory of polysemy
Riemer isolates four categories that are claimed to account for English 
and Warlpiri's polysemy of P/I (percussion-impact) vocabulary, namely: 
(i) Metaphorical applications of the core verbal meaning, 
(ii) Effect metonymies: metonymic extensions to the effect of the action 
of the verb, 
(iii) Context metonymies: metonymic extensions to the context in which 
the action of the verb occurs, and 
(iv) Constituent metonymies: metonymic extensions by selection of a 
constituent of the verbal event.

Ch 5: Applications I: English
Riemer isolates eight metaphoric profiles of polysemy in English in a 
diachronic perspective: 
(i) using words is subjecting them to P/I, 
(ii) consciousness is a surface; thoughts and percepts are impactors, 
(iii) attaining a desired result is hitting a surface, 
(iv) detrimental interaction is P/I, 
(v) requests are acts of P/I, 
(vi) arriving at a location is P/I, 
(vii) emotional attraction is physical impact, and 
(viii) metaphors with touch. 

Riemer also isolates six metonymic profiles: 
(i) motion induced in surface by P/I, 
(ii) change of state caused in surface by P/I, 
(iii) change of mental/experiential state caused in surface by P/I, 
(iv) change of physical structure cause in surface by P/I, 
(v) surface brought into being by P/I, and 
(vi) surface brought into being and made to move by P/I. 

Another two profiles include context metonymies, where the 
metonymic extension derives from the context, and constituent 
metonymies.

Ch 6: Applications II: Warlpiri
Riemer distinguishes three types of polysemy for Warlpiri, but argues 
that only two of them (structural and lexical) are relevant for his 
purposes. Structural and lexical polysemies occur across metaphor 
and metonymy (effect, context, and constituent metonymies). In the 
analysis of Walpiri hitting verbs, the constituent type metonymy seems 
to be less frequent than metaphor and effect and contextual 
metonymies.

CRITICAL EVALUATION

On a positive note, Riemer's book is one of the very few (cognitive) 
semantic contributions to Warlpiri, a Pama-Nyunga language spoken 
by several thousand people in the Northern territory of Australia. 
Riemer's contribution to the theory of polysemy through the study of 
Warlpiri counts as an extension of polysemy to include not only 
metaphor as motivation but, more importantly, metonymy as a 
conceptual phenomenon.

However, on a negative note, it seems that the refutational apparatus 
on which Riemer built his disagreement with CS is not well-founded. 
For instance, attributing a ''property correspondence'' (p. 33) theory of 
meaning to CS is displaced. Work within prototype theory by Rosch 
(1978) and on ICMs by Lakoff (1982, 1987) dealt with the repudiation 
of this necessary and sufficient feature theory of meaning, arguing 
that meanings are fuzzier and more indeterminate than has been 
thought. Idealized cognitive models presuppose their non-idealized 
counterparts, suggesting that meanings are not fixed but negotiable in 
discourse contexts as Riemer himself rightly argued. On the other 
hand, concepts are not argued within CS to be reflections of the 
properties of real-world phenomena; concepts are more a function of 
experience with categories in the world (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999), and 
can be argued to include a subjective dimension that makes this 
experience with categories quite unique. Riemer should not much 
disagree that a survivor in a car accident must have, as part of the 
packaging of the concept of car, some of his lived experience with the 
car and the accident that may not be available in the cognitive 
environment of every other individual not having experienced the 
same sad event.

Riemer's distinction between micro-, macro-, and intermediate-level 
categorizations is useful and interesting, but it is not the case that 
cognitive semanticists ignored the micro-level, which is basic-level 
category in prototype theory. Lakoff & Turner (1989: p. 113) argue 
that ''metaphorical understanding is grounded in semantically 
autonomous conceptual structure.'' However, they point out that, 
although semantically autonomous concepts are conventionally 
understood nonmetaphorically, they may be understood 
metaphorically if they have a complex internal structure. And they 
mention DOG as part of the autonomous class of OBJECTS, pointing 
out that we do talk about ''a dog's wagging his tail as flagging it, a 
dog's loyalty and friendship, which are human traits (Lakoff & Turner, 
1989: p. 112).

To end this critical evaluation, it should be noted that the conclusion to 
the book is a theoretical discussion of semantics, where no summary 
of the findings can be found. 

REFERENCES

Allwood, J. (2003). Meaning potentials and context: Some 
consequences for the analysis of variation in meaning. In H. 
Cuyckens, R. Dirven & J. R. Taylor (Eds.), Cognitive Approaches to 
Lexical Semantics (pp. 29-65). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Lakoff, G. (1982). Categories: An essay in cognitive linguistics. In The 
Linguistic Society of Korea (Ed.), Linguistics in the Morning Calm (pp. 
139-193). Seoul: Hanshin Publishing Company.

Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What 
categories reveal about the mind. Chicago/London: The University of 
Chicago Press.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The 
embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. New York: Basic 
Books.

Lakoff, G., & Turner, M. (1989). More than cool reason: A field guide 
to poetic metaphor. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.

Rosch, E. (1978). Principles of categorization. In E. Rosch & B. B. 
Lloyd (Eds.), Cognition and categorization (pp. 27-48). Hillsdale, New 
Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

Tuggy, D. (1999). Linguistic evidence for polysemy in the mind: A 
response to William Croft and Dominiek Sandra. Cognitive Linguistics, 
10(4), 343-368. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

The reviewer is an associate professor of linguistics. His interests 
include cognitive linguistics and metaphor, cognitive pragmatics, 
cognitive psychology, experimental psycholinguistics, anthropology, 
critical discourse analysis, etc. He teaches two undergraduate 
courses in psycholinguistics and undergraduate and postgraduate 
courses in critical discourse analysis. He also teaches two 
postgraduate courses titled Critical Metaphor Analysis and Cognitive 
Poetics.





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