Riemer Nick. The Semantics of Polysemy: Reading Meaning in English and Warlpiri

Mouton de Gruyter, 2005. — xvi, 487 p. — (Cognitive Linguistics Research). — ISBN: 3-11-018397-8.This book, addressed primarily to students and researchers in semantics, cognitive linguistics, English, and Australian languages, is a comparative study of the polysemy patterns displayed by percussion/impact ('hitting') verbs in English and Warlpiri (Pama-Nyungan, Central Australia). The opening chapters develop a novel theoretical orientation for the study of polysemy via a close examination of two theoretical traditions under the broader cognitivist umbrella: Langackerian and Lakovian Cognitive Semantics and Wierzbickian Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Arguments are offered which problematize attempts in these traditions to ground the analysis of meaning either in cognitive or neurological reality, or in the existence of universal synonymy relations within the lexicon. Instead, an interpretative rather than a scientific construal of linguistic theorizing is sketched, in the context of a close examination of certain key issues in the contemporary study of polysemy such as sense individuation, the role of reference in linguistic categorization, and the demarcation between metaphor and metonymy. The later chapters present a detailed typology of the polysemous senses of English and Warlpiri percussion/impact (or P/I) verbs based on a diachronically deep corpus of dictionary citations from Middle to contemporary English, and on a large corpus of Warlpiri citations. Limited to the operations of metaphor and of three categories of metonymy, this typology posits just four types of basic relation between extended and core meanings. As a result, the phenomenon of polysemy and semantic extension emerges as amenable to strikingly concise description.Cognition and linguistic scienceMeaning and interpretation
Meaning and conceptualization: Cognitive semantics
Meaning, definition and paraphrase
NSM and meaning
Definition and semantic theory
Grounding meaning
NSM-specific issues
More general issues
Implications
Evidence for polysemyThe natural tendency of semantic description
Proposed evidence of semantic structure
Categorization, semantic relations and referent typicality
A four-category theory of polysemyThe present account
The basic P/I scenario
Four types of semantic ‘extension’
Metaphor and metonymy: boundary issues
Applications I: EnglishThe domain of P/I in English
Sources of examples
Some methodological preliminaries
Polysemous extensions of English P/I verbs
Summary of means of extension: strike
Applications II: WarlpiriA brief grammatical sketch
Three types of ‘polysemy’
Result Orientation in Warlpiri verbs
The domain of P/I in Warlpiri
Pakarni
Pinyi
Luwarni
Pantirni
Pajirni
Katirni
Parntarni
Conclusion: description and explanation in semantics