Taylor John R. Linguistic Categorization: Prototypes in Linguistic Theory

2nd Edition. — Oxford University Press, 1995. — xv, 312 pages. — ISBN: 0199266646. ISBN: 0-19-870012-1; ISBN: 0-19-870013-X.The title of this book is intentionally ambiguous. In one of its senses, 'linguistic categorization' refers to the process by which people, in using language, necessarily categorize the world around them. When ever we use the word dog to refer to two different animals, or describe two different colour sensations by the same word, e.g. red, we are undertaking acts of categorization. Although different, the two entities are regarded in each case as the same.In the first place, then, this book is about the meanings of linguistic forms, and the categorization of the world which a knowledge of these meanings entails. But language itself is also part of the world. In speaking of nouns, verbs, phonemes, and grammatical sentences, linguists are undertaking acts of categorization. The title of the book is to be
understood in this second, reflexive sense. Just as a botanist is concerned with a botanical categorization of plants, so a linguist undertakes a linguistic categorization of linguistic objects. The second half of the book, in particular, will address the parallels between linguistic categorization in this second sense, and the categorization, through language, of the non-linguistic world. If, as will be argued, categories of linguistic objects are structured along the same lines as the more familiar semantic categories, then any insights we may gain into the categorization of the non-linguistic world may be profitably applied to the study of language structure itself.The theoretical background to the study is a set of principles and assumptions that have recently come to be known as 'cognitive linguistics'. Cognitive linguistics does not (yet) constitute a theoretical paradigm which is able to rival, even less to displace, the (still) dominant generative-transformational approach. The main points of divergence are, however, clear. Whereas generativists regard knowledge of language as an autonomous component of the mind, independent, in principle, from other kinds of knowledge and from other cognitive skills, cognitivists posit an intimate, dialectic relationship between the structure and function of language on the one hand, and non-linguistic skills and knowledge on the other. Language, being at once both the creation of human cognition and an instrument in its service, is thus more likely than not to reflect, in its structure and functioning, more general cognitive abilities. One of the most important of these cognitive abilities is precisely the ability to categorize, i.e. to see similarity in diversity. A study of categorization processes is thus likely to provide valuable insights into the meanings symbolized by linguistic forms. Furthermore, there is every reason to expect that the structural categories of language itself will be analogous, in many ways, to the categories which human beings perceive in the non linguistic world around them.The Categorization of Colour
Why colour terms?
Arbitrariness
An alternative approach: focal colours
Autonomous linguistics vs. cognitive linguistics
The Classical Approach to Categorization
Aristotle
The classical approach in linguistics: phonology
The classical approach in semantics
Prototype Categories: I
Wittgenstein
Prototypes: an alternative to the classical theory
Basic level terms
Why prototype categories?
A note on fuzziness
Some applications
Prototype Categories: II
Prototypes
Prototypes and schemas
Folk categories and expert categories
Hedges
Linguistic and Encyclopaedic Knowledge
Domains and schemas
Frames and scripts
Perspectivization
Frames and scripts in language comprehension
Fake
Real
Polysemy and Meaning Chains
Monosemous and polysemous categories
An illustration: Climb
Over
Some problems
Category Extension: Metonymy and Metaphor
Metonymy
Metaphor
Polysemous Categories in Morphology and Syntax
The diminutive
The past tense
A note on yes-no questions
Polysemous Categories in Intonation
The problem of intonational meaning
The meanings of falling and rising tones
High key
Grammatical Categories
Words, affixes, and clitics
Grammatical categories
The semantic basis of grammatical categories
Syntactic Constructions as Prototype Categories
Constructions
The possessive genitive
The transitive construction
The transitive construction: more marginal members
Metaphorical extension of syntactic constructions
A comparison with German
Concluding remarks
Prototype Categories in Phonology
Phoneme categories
The gradience of phoneme categories
The syllable as a construction
The Acquisition of Categories
Hypothesized acquisition routes
Grammatical categories
Conceptual development
Word meanings
Recent Developments (1995)
Overview of prototypicality
Prototypes and basic level terms
Polysemy and the two-level approach
Two illustrations: in and round
Polysemy and the network model
The historical perspective
Epilogue: on zebras and quaggas