6. A "lexicographic portrait" of forgetting

This study aims to provide a detailed analysis of the English verb ‘forget’. It examines its three main clausal complement types (to-complement, e.g. I forgot to lock the door, that-complement, e.g. I forgot that the door was locked, andwh-complement, e.g. I forgot where I put the key), NP-complements, and several more specialised constructions. The picture which emerges is of a set of interrelated lexicogrammatical constructions, each with a specific meaning, forming a polysemic lexical “family”. Although the study concentrates on English alone, the semantic differences between the various constructions it has identified make it rather clear that one cannot expect a similar range of meanings to “map across” to apparently similar lexemes in other languages. The method of semantic analysis is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach.

Published online: 14 November 2007
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.21.08god