Cognitive Linguistics Croft & Cruse 6 A dynamic construal approach to sense relations I: hyponymy and meronymy

6.1.1 Hyponymy Hyponymy is a relationship of inclusion within a larger set –More often encountered with nouns (koala: marsupial) than with verbs (punch: hit) and adjectives (maroon: red) –This means that the superordinate term is a proper part of the meaning of the hyponym, so marsupial is a proper part of the meaning of koala

6.1.2 Hyponymy and context But sometimes not all examples of the hyponym category are examples of the superordinate category, cf. “para- hyponymy” of dog: pet, where not all dogs are pets and construal plays a role

6.1.2 Hyponymy and context Hyponymy is a transitive relation because containment is also transitive, but sometimes transitivity seems to fail due to construal (car seat: seat, and seat: furniture, but not car seat: furniture)

6.1.3 Relations between lexical items Is hyponymy a relation between words or between construals of word meanings? Are there any context-independent relations? Probably not. We are always construing meaning relative to context.

6.1.4 Taxonymy This is the relationship in which “X is a kind of Y” (note that “a kind of” is one of Wierzbicka’s semantic primitives) Not all hyponyms are good taxonyms –Hyponyms large spoon, deep spoon are not “a kind of spoon” –Taxonyms teaspoon, soup spoon are “a kind of spoon”

6.1.4 Taxonymy, cont’d. Focal orientation: this is a perspective that the hyponym/taxonym and superordinate term must share so that the relationship works –A blonde is not a kind of woman because blonde has a hair color focal orientation that woman lacks

6.2 Lexical aspects of the part-whole relation Meronymy (aka partonymy) is a relation between meanings, not strictly a part- whole relation, which is a relation between individual entities Part-whole is motivated by the image- schema of containment Notice that some words are more autonomous than others, as in airplane parts vs. airplane pieces

Factors affecting the GOE (Goodness of Example) of parts These factors include: –Inclusion in boundaries –Sharing of substance –Clear discontinuity between part and whole –Internal cohesion of the part –Part has a definable function –Part is autonomous and can have replicas –The part is consistent with the type of the whole Some parts are segmentable (body parts) and some are systemic (nervous system) and thus less salient

Ultimate parts and ultimate wholes A part-whole chain prototypically has two endpoints. There may be a point beyond which it does not make sense to identify smaller parts (fingertip) Ultimate wholes may be variously construable (does pan include lid?)

Core parts Sometimes the core part is profiled, for example: stainless steel knife, where stainless steel refers only to the blade, not the whole object

Variable construal and the transitivity of the part-whole relation Some parts are more integrated into the whole than others (handle is more integrated into spoon than hand is to arm) Transitivity often fails because there are construals where the whole does not necessarily include the part (arm has hand, but arm does not have fingers) [I think that a lot of this is better resolved by referring to Langacker’s profile vs. base]

6.2.2 Meronymy “If A is a meronym of B in a particular context, then any member a of the extension of A either maps onto a specific member b of the extension of B of which it is construed as a part, or it potentially stands in an intrinsically construed relation of a part to some actual or potential member of B.” (Cruse’s third try…)

6.2.2 Meronymy, cont’d. Notice that meronymy differs across languages, for example the different ranges of words corresponding to arm, hand, finger