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Part of
Analogy and Contrast in Language: Perspectives from Cognitive Linguistics
Edited by Karolina Krawczak, Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk and Marcin Grygiel
[Human Cognitive Processing 73] 2022
► pp. 245–282

Chapter 8
Emergent categories

Quantifying analogically derived similarity in usage

| Université Paris 8, Saint-Denis – Vincennes

This study considers the methodological implications of the usage-based model (Langacker 1987) for a description of prototype-structured categorisation (Lakoff 1987). The usage-based model places repeated analogical judgements at the heart of language processing as well as positing that the repetition of this process, across speech events, is responsible for grammatical competence. Semasiological structure represents one of the most challenging types of conceptual categorisation and is the focus of the case study on the semantics of the lexeme time in contemporary American English. The study examines the methodological adequacy of the Behavioural Profile Approach (Dirven et al. 1982; Geeraerts et al. 1994; Gries 2003) in accounting for that complexity in a cognitively plausible manner. It is shown how the method quantifiably accounts for the emergent many-to-many structures interpretable as structured polysemy.

Keywords: behavioural profiles, categorisation, corpus linguistics, polysemy, time, usage-based model
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Categorical complexity and the usage-based model
  • 2.Problem: Two methodological hurdles
    • 2.1Formal complexity and variation
    • 2.2Meaning complexity and variation
    • 2.3Methodological proposal. The behavioural profile approach
  • 3.Analysis: Contemporary language and usage-features
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2Analysis
      • 3.2.1Formal features
      • 3.2.2Semantic features
        • 3.2.2.1Configurational structure: Boundedness; Dividedness; and Plexity
        • 3.2.2.2Aktionsart, aspect and temporal distribution
        • 3.2.2.3Telicity and event type
        • 3.2.2.4Extension
        • 3.2.2.5Figurativity
        • 3.2.2.6Force dynamics
        • 3.2.2.7Discrete and principled sense
  • 4.Results: Non-discrete usage-based polysemy
    • 4.1Meaning as emergent patterns of usage
    • 4.2Many-to-many form-meaning usage-patterns and structure
  • 5.Discussion: Emergent structure
    • 5.1Summary: Reified discrete meanings vs. distributed meaning patterns
    • 5.2Implications: Behavioural profiles and cognitive plausibility
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 27 October 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.73.08gly
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