Contextual modulation of meaning

The examples of noun-incorporation we have just seen show the meaning of words and other morphemes varying according to their collocation, the immediate linguistic context in which they occur. This sort of variation is found throughout language. We can see a similar phenomenon in English, where the meanings of verbs seem to vary slightly depending on the noun which they govern. If I cut my foot, for example, I am doing some thing that is rather different from what I am doing when I cut the grass, or when I cut a cake, cut someone’s hair, cut the wood, cut a diamond, cut a deck of cards, cut a disc or cut a notch. The nature of the event, the means by which it is accomplished, its typical object, and the extent to which it is deliberate may all vary in these different uses. Despite this variation, we have the strong sense that essentially the ‘same’ meaning of cut is involved in all those cases (in other words, we do not usually think of this verb as polysemous; see 5.3). Cruse (1986: 52) refers to this phenomenon as the contextual modulation of meaning. The degree of semantic ‘distance’ gets even greater if we consider more ‘extended’ meanings, like cut a deal, cut corners, cut a paragraph or cut prices.

This type of phenomenon poses an interesting descriptive and theoretical problem: do the differences in meaning of the different collocations arise compositionally or not? Are the meanings of the collocations just the results of the combinations of the meanings of their parts, or are the whole collocations themselves the meaning bearing units? In other words, which of the following two possibilities gives the best semantic description of English:

• one which lists the meanings of cut, foot, grass, cake, hair, etc., and sees the specific meanings of the collocations cut one’s foot, cut the grass, cut a cake, etc., as derived compositionally from the meanings of the parts; or

• one which just lists all the different collocations in which cut appears, and specifies a different meaning for the entire collocation?

We will examine each possibility in turn.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

مجموعة مشاتل الكفيل ترفد مشاتلها بأكثر من 28 طنًّا من النباتات

شعبة التوجيه الديني النسوي تُحيي ذكرى شهادة الإمام الصادق (عليه السلام)

قسم الشؤون الدينية يحيي ذكرى شهادة الإمام الصادق (عليه السلام)

قسم الشؤون الفكرية يصدر العدد 17 من سلسلة السيرة للرسائل والأطاريح الجامعية

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

الكمية اليومية المثلى من القهوة لصحة نفسية أفضل

معدل ضربات القلب المثالي لحرق الدهون وتحسين القدرة البدنية

هواية تعزز صحة ونشاط الدماغ بشكل ملحوظ

كيف يمكن للصيام أن يطيل العمر؟!

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

وسائد الفرامل: علامات تلفها وأسبابها وكيف تحمي سيارتك

لماذا منطقة الخليج في الشرق الاوسط غنية بالنفط والغاز؟

روسيا.. ابتكار هلام يزيد إنبات البذور

كارثة بيئية في العراق.. نفوق 1000 طن من الأسماك ؟!

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Mismatches between grammatical and phonological words

Words and morphemes

The units of meaning

Word-based and meaning-based approaches to definition

The history of the dictionary

Meaning and use

Meanings as brain states

Meanings as concepts/mental representations

Breaking the circle

Object language and metalanguage

Levels of meaning

Compositionality