[Lexicog] quantification of actions and states

[Ron Moe]

The last two weeks I've been analyzing quantity words in English (many,
much, few, little, more, less, all, some, none, both, most, least, almost,
only, whole, complete). I was having a lot of difficulty until I realized
that English allows actions, processes, and states to be conceptualized as
things. This enables us to quantify them:

I was having a _lot_ of trouble figuring it out. She's changed a _lot_.
I spent _much_ of the time reading.
I love him _more_ than ever.
Public opinion is an _increasingly_ important factor.
The movie was _less_ exciting than I expected.
Did you do it _all_?
I did _some_ of it. The food has lost _some_ of its taste.
_None_ of the work we do is difficult. I don't like your disrespect--I'll
have _none_ of it.
I'm _mostly_ finished.
I'm _almost_ done. We're _almost_ there. The house _almost_ caught fire.
I'm _only_ an amateur.
He messed up the _whole_ job.
The police made a _complete_ search. He's _completely_ fearless.
many times, much of the time, a little more time, all the time, both times,
the only time, the whole time

It appears that this is a very basic and far-reaching conceptual metaphor in
English. But I'm wondering if it is universal. Natural Semantic Metalanguage
(NSM) makes the claim that basic quantification is universal--that the
concepts 'one, two, many/much, all, some, more' are universal semantic
primitives. I would expect that the quantification of things and people is
universal (two houses, two brothers, many houses, many brothers). I suspect
that quantification can be extended to actions and events to a limited
extent (I did two things, two things happened). I doubt that the
quantification of emotions is universal (more love, less exciting, all my
fear, all my fears). I wonder if time is universally quantifiable. I wonder
if an event is quantifiable (partly done, almost done, completely done). I
wonder if the senses are quantifiable (some hearing loss, partially blind).

Some of these concepts may be handled differently in other languages. NSM
also has an intensifier 'very'. It can modify emotions (very fearful, not
very loving), distance (very near=almost there), time (very long time), and
other states/qualities (very difficult, very tasty, very different). Other
languages may use other metaphors or other devices to modify actions,
processes, and states.

Does anyone know of any studies of this subject? If not, it would make a
great PhD dissertation for someone interested in lexical semantics,
universals of semantics, and conceptual metaphors.

Ron Moe



 
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