《CL: Current application and future perspectives (Gitte Kristiansen et al.)》选篇总结

Polysemy and the lexicon

(John R. Tylor, p. 51-80)

Abstract

In this paper I take issue with the standard view of polysemy as the association of a singe word-form with a multitude of distinct meanings. First, I review different approaches to polysemy, concluding that it may not be legitimate to attempt to determine just how many meanings a word has, and what these meanings might be. I suggest that such a programme may be the outgrowth of a particular conception of language, which I characterize as the “dictionary+grammar book” model. This model is undermined by the pervasiveness of the idiomatic in language. The matter is illustrated by a corpus-based study of the experession all over. The expression has a range of uses which cannot be derived on the basis of independently identifiable meanings of its parts. All over, in turn, participates in larger expressions whose semantic values likewise cannot be compositionally derived. The “creative” extention of these idiomatic uses is also documented. These findings lend support to the view that knowing a word involves knowing the usage range of the word, rather than through the association of the word with a fixed number of determinate meanings.
本文质疑的是传统的看待多义的观点：将多义视为一个词汇形式于多个不同意义的连结。首先，通过回顾之前的看待多义现象的观点，总结得出尝试确定一个词汇形式有多少不同意义，以及这些不同意义都是什么，这一做法可能是没什么用的。语言中广泛出现的习语式用法更是说明了这一做法的无用（因为这些用法中的词汇语义无法通过多义现象来解释。）以all over为例，运用语料库手段检索发现，这一表达具有许多无法通过成分组合得到的意义。此外，all over作为一个整体参与更大的语言表达。这些习语式用法也能够被创造性延伸。这些研究的结论是：学习一个词汇是通过学习一系列关于该词汇的使用，而不是通过将词汇与一系列意义相连结。

Concluding remarks

Speakers acquiring English do not acquire the lexicon word by word, nor, for any given word, do they acquire a finite number of discrete meaning packages. Neither, a fortiori, do they understand complex expressions by making choices amongst the various meanings . It is more plausible to assume that speakers understand these expressions because they have learned them as such. To state the meaning of a word abstracting away from the action performed on the book, it not only a difficult task, it is also an artificial one. A speaker of language does not learn a list words and a list of rules for combining words. A speaker has learned a vast number of word uses, some more frequent than others to be sure, and some more idiomatic than others.

Questions:

1. -如果词汇多义现象（即确定某一词形有多少意义）在推导短语意义（根据本文）或推导句子意义（认知语义学denys the principle of compositionality）是没用的，那么词汇多义现象的作用在哪里？（或是，词汇多义现象的必要性体现在哪里？，进一步，词汇多义现象如果不发挥作用，那么它为何存在？）
   -猜测：词汇多义现象在儿童语言习得中发挥着作用，即儿童词汇义习得时不是像文中说的一样是通过学习词语使用来习得的，是由单个词的学习习得的，因而词汇具有多义现象，同时多义现象的prototypicality也得到了理据。
2. 儿童与成人的语义认知和处理路径分别是怎样的？儿童的语义认知和处理路径与成人是否有差异？

Possible conclusions:

1. 语言表达是一种思维认知现象这一观点在儿童语言习得和使用中得到了证实和拓展。
2. 人们对多义现象的认识更加加深了一步。