The axiological dimension of lexical meaning

Besides perceptual properties and the more conceptual and abstract properties, a fundamental aspect of lexical meaning is provided by the axiological dimension, that is, the attribution of values of various kinds to the lexical configuration. This is perhaps one of the most difficult areas to grasp, given the inherent haziness of the concepts of value and valorization. The axiological dimension assumes at least in part the role played by the old concept of connotation, which, as we have already hinted, is ambiguous and liable to cause confusion. Clearly, though, a mere terminological substitution is not much use in clarifying the issue; it seems 10 be more productive to consider the problem from the point ol view ol the various sources Item whi< h tin attribution ol value may derive.

In general, semiotii theory tends to exclude subjective and individual valori

zations, which are seen as private systems of symbolic attribution, on the grounds that they are not pertinent. These determinations, which correspond to the indi­vidual connotations already mentioned, are not considered relevant at a systematic level, but could possibly be the subject of a specific psycho-semiotics.¹⁷ Although this position is congruent with the policy of delimiting meaning only through intersubjective and socially shared components, it is not without its problems, because it excludes an important source of valorization processes, imposing an excessively rigid separation between subjective and social significations. However, the origin of the axiological dimension is seen to lie in social valorizations, in those "collective appreciations" which Hjelmslev was the first to point out.

io.$.i. Collective appreciations

Developing the Saussurian concept of value in a new direction, Hjelmslev sus­tained that each semantic field is based not only on intrasystemic meaning rela­tions (Saussurian value), but also on the evaluations adopted by a given commu­nity, and on the social opinion that it expresses. In this way the same physical "thing," to use Hjelmslev's expression, may receive very different semantic descrip­tions depending on the culture that is considered.¹⁸

It is important to underline that in Hjelmslev's view, social evaluations are not a kind of additional meaning, secondary connotations that are superimposed on the "real" basic meaning. On the contrary, they are an integral part of the linguistic meaning, and indeed have priority over the so-called denotative mean­ing. Moreover, the concept of value extends to all semantic areas, even those, like natural kinds, which seem to be less culturalized and more objectively defined. As Hjelmslev shows, this objectivity is an illusion because valorization, depending as it does on an evaluative attitude that deeply affects the forms and modalities of a culture, pervades all areas, even those that are apparently natural. Note that dif­ferent valorizations are not necessarily reflected in the form of the content. As Hjelmslev ([1954] 1959) observes elsewhere, Russian and Italian both possess a word for elephant even though an elephant occupies a very different role in these cultures than it does in an Indian or African one. This suggests that a purely structural analysis of the form of the content (and therefore of Saussurian value understood as a positional relation between forms) is not sufficient, thus seem­ing to indicate the need to move toward a more "substantialist" analysis (in Hjelmslev's sense) of content.

io.$.2. The thymic

In contrast to Hjelmslev, who derives value from collective appreciations and so­cial opinion, Greimas introduces the semic category of proprioceptivity, which, we will remember, results front the perception of one's own body and is rooted in

the deepen level <>l pnlsion.il investment, The principal source and origin of the

axiological dimension is at this very deep level of the articulation of content. To refer to it, Greimas introduces the thymic category (motivated by the word thymia understood as "humor, basic affective disposition"), which serves to articulate the semanticism directly linked to the corporeal perception of the subject. The thymic category is composed of the contrasting pair euphoria/dysphoria (comparable to the Freudian pair pleasure/displeasure) and has an essential role in the transforma­tion of semantic microuniverses into axiologies. In fact, projected onto the semi-otic square of contrary and contradictory terms, connotating one side euphori-cally and the othet dysphorically, it produces the positive or negative valorization of each of the terms in the elementary structure of signification (Greimas and Courtes 1979: 396)

Seen in this way, value originates at a very deep level of semantic structure coinciding with an area of basic pulsional investment linked to corporeal percep­tion, which is then articulated on the plane of linguistic manifestation through the positive/negative (euphoric/dysphoric) opposition. At the basis of meaning it­self, there is thus an initial attribution of values that are not meanings but emo­tions and sensations connected with the most elementary and deep levels of our perceptual organization, such as corporeal perception. Note that the reference to the corporeal does not relate to an individual dimension, nor can the thymic be interpreted as an idiosyncratic system of valorization; rooted in a substratum of very deep experience close to the bios, its depth guarantees universality.

10.5.3. Tertiary qualities

It might be interesting at this point to attempt to draw a parallel between semioi ic theorization and the tertiary qualities of the Anglo-Saxon philosophical tradition, which have been widely picked up on by Gestalt psychology. According to 1 ,ocke, in addition to primary and secondary qualities, there is a dispositional quality which includes faculties, habits, capacities, virtues, and tendencies constructed by possibilities of the object itself. To primary and secondary qualities "might be added a third sort which are allowed to be barely powers, though they are as much real qualities in the subject as those which I, to comply with the common way of speaking, call . . . secondary qualities" (Locke 1975: 135). Tertiary qualities allude to properties that can be found in things and events, but which are not reducible either to perception or to conceptualization. As Bozzi observes,

tertiary qualities seem to be rooted in the innermost resonance box of the sen­tient subject, even though they too appear to be topographically situated in ex­ternal things. . . .Tertiary qualities are strongly present in die segments of the world which we have something to do with, even if it is not easy to describe their nature or find what it is thai supports 1 hem. (Bo/./.i 1990: 100; my translation)

But what exactly are tertiary qualities? In some respects (hey are similar to valori ration phenomena or perhaps, more precisely, to symbolic Correlation! between

certain expressive features and certain items oi semantic content which constitute

values. Examples of this are attributions of particular states of mind to particular colors: good humor for red and sadness for black. Or again, particular correlations between the tensivity of certain movements and their phoric dimension: the slow­ness or speed of a movement may convey calm or agitation. In brief, I would define tertiary qualities as a symbolic expressivity inscribed in the natural world.

If black is lugubrious, red is vivacious. The shade of a large tree is restful and relaxing. A note in diminished seventh is tense and chilling. A slow rising gesture is solemn. We are not here merely attaching stereotyped adjectives to simple things: in those things there are characteristics that attract precisely those adjec­tives, and these characteristics are not of a verbal or associative nature, bur are perceptual ingredients inside the things themselves. (Ibid.; my italics)

Perhaps the most peculiar aspect of the approach of Gestalt theorists to these phenomena is that they collocate them "within the things themselves." According to Koffka (1935: 7) "each thing says what it is ... a fruit says 'Eat me; water says 'Drink me'; thunder says 'Fear me'; and woman says 'Love me."' The position of Gibson (1979: 138) is similar: "these values are vivid and essential features of the experience itself. . . the handle 'wants to be grasped', and things 'tell us what to do with them.'" Tertiary properties are thus located in the experienced object, in the same perceptual space as all the other properties such as colot, form, move­ment, and sonority, and are in no way projections of feelings or the result of associations. The expressivity of the natural world claims an absolute ptiority here and seems to be constituted as a kind of basic "thymism" directly inscribed in world entities, rather than in cotporeal perception as it is for Greimas.

The parallel with the thymic categoty is not a mere pretext; tertiary qualities also articulate their expressivity, we could say their value, according to an opposi­tion of attraction/repulsion (which relates to the euphoria/dysphoria pairing). Gibson substitutes the term tertiary properties with that of affordances, echoing the German Aufforderungscharacter, namely, "the character of an invitation—but extensively also of repulsion—used by Kurt Lewin to indicate positive and nega­tive valencies that connote objects in the environment and guide behavior" (Bozzi 1990: 104; my translation). The collection of positive and negative valencies that emerge from the affordances are, as has been said, in the experienced object and in the various elements that make up the environment, thus constituting a system of attractions and tepulsions that are inscribed in the world. However, this strong realist option, which is fiercely sustained by Gestalt psychology, is hand to inscribe in a dichoromous opposition between objective and subjective, but cuts across these tetms, rewriting the subject/object telation in a new way.

An important fact about the affordances of the environment is that they are in a sense objective, real, and physical, unlike values and meanings, which are often supposed to be subjective, phenomenal) and mental. But, actually, an affordanceis neither an objective property nor a subjective property; or it is both if you like. An afumlance cuts across the dichotomy ol .subjective-objective, and helps us to

understand its inadequacy. It is equally a fact of the environment and a fact of behavior. It is both physical and psychical, yet neither. An affordance points both ways, to the environment and to the observer. (Gibson 1979: 129)

In this petspective the usual positions of subject and object are shifted and radi­cally reformulated; organisms do not project complex sets of private sensorial of emotional experiences onto an external and objective world; rather all the entities distributed in the world are linked to all other objects, some of which are essential carriers of affordances for the others.

If we reconsider the thymic category in this light, it proves no longer to originate in the cotporeal perception of the subject, from which it is then pro­jected to the external world; rather, it is rooted in meaningfulness that is consti­tutive of the world, which then affects the subject and its corporeity.¹⁹ We could perhaps think of affordances as intentionalities already inscribed in the figures of the world (think of the examples cited by Koffka and Gibson) which have their own phoric value of attraction or repulsion, and that form a complex system of interactions between entities in the wotld. Corporeal perception would thus seem not only to cause investment of value, but also to some extent respond to values present in the environment, a perspective which may suggest an ethological read­ing of value, given that affordances understood in this way are probably based on deep archetypes linked to universals of survival (predation, flight, nutriment, se­curity, and so forth).

Pathemic semes

We now need to ask to what extent this level of meaning comes into a description of the linguistic meaning of individual tetms. Is lugubriousness a semantic prop­erty of black? I believe that this problem, and similat ones in linguistic semantics, must be resolved on a linguistic basis. The deciding criterion should be, in my view, the following: whete conventionalized extensions of a certain property are tegistered in the semantic system of a given language,' this property should be part of the meaning of the term in question. In fact, we have a great many metaplmri cal and dysphoric extensions of black. Considet expressions like:

My future looks black. I am in a black mood. Black humor

in which the meaning of the adjective is not a chromatic quality, but an emotive tonality. None of these expressions could be understood if ibis tonality were not registered in the semantics of the term and did not constitute an integral pari ol competence. Once again, llie lesl for verifying the adequacy ol ibe semantic rep resentaiion is comprehension anil the practical process ol interpretation.

The phoric component of value can be directly inscribed in the lexical mean­ing of many terms, as in the pairs slim/skinny, or thrifty/stingy. Their semantic difference can only be explained by drawing on an axiological component based on the euphoric/dysphoric opposition. It is important to stress the inadequacy in these cases of a classic connotative model which would account for these phe­nomena in terms of additional connotations superimposed onto the basic mean­ing. Valorization is here a primary element of semantic organization, not a second­ary meaning that could be erased, and is conveyed by specific semes that we could call pathemic semes.

In other cases, lexical units include in their meaning a pathemic compo­nent whose euphoric or dysphoric axiology derives from an element that could be called enunciative perspectivization. Think of the difference between noun phrases like a violent bbw and a painful blow. An implicit point of view is in­scribed in each expression regarding the subject of the enunciation: in the first case the blow is oriented according to the perspective of the person who inflicts it, in the second to that of the person who receives it. Pathemic aspects of this kind can often be found at a lexical level, above all in qualifying adjectives; frightening, terrifying, and terrible, to give just a few examples, qualify an event or entity, but at the same time presuppose a subject who experiences the feeling of fear or terror, thus constructing an implicit relation of subject and object. If something is terri­fying or frightening, it must necessarily be so in relation to an implicit subject who feels that emotion and who is textually inscribed by that lexical choice.

io.$.$. The heterogeneity of semes and the stratification of content

The analysis carried out thus far regarding the different nature of the properties comprising the semantic universe of a language reveals an intrinsic heterogeneity of constitutive semes, which not only include different qualities, but seem also to refer to different levels of pertinence and depth. To put it in more Hjelmslevian terms, the substance of content is stratified according to a hierarchy of levels,

whose extreme levels (which are also the most important and noted ones) are the physical level on the one hand and the level of apperception and evaluation or collective appreciation on the other. (Hjelmslev [1957] 1959)

The most interesting aspect of the stratification of content is the priority of the axiological or evaluative level, which is stressed by Hjelmslev on numerous occa­sions.

Clearly, it is evaluative description that imposes itself before all else in the sub­stance of the content. It is not through a physical description of signified things that one can usefully characterize the semantic use adopted by a linguistic com­munity and belonging to the language that one wants to describe; on the con­trary, this can be obtained through the evaluations adopted by this community.

the collective appreciations, social opinion. (Hjelmslev [1954] 1959) It is the level of collective appreciation which constitutes the constant presup­posed (selected) by the other levels, including the physical level (which, as we know, may be absent), and which by itself enables (amongst other things) a scientifically valid account of "metaphor." (Hjelmslev [1957] 1959)

Metaphors in effect constitute an important area for verifying the priority and immediacy of the evaluative level which, as I argued earlier, is directly pertinent from a linguistic point of view, and the only one, according to Hjelmslev, which is simultaneously important on both the linguistic and the anthropological planes. The priority of value is also sustained by Greimas, albeit not on the anthro­pological and social plane that Hjelmslev focuses on. According to Greimas, the thymic may be thought of as a precondition of meaning, and its priority is onto-logical, in relation to the very possibility of meaning. It constitutes the deepest level of semanticism, affecting the fundamental, elementary structures of signifi­cation with its euphoric and dysphoric values. This position is very similar to that of Gestalt psychologists who claimed that tertiary properties have priority over all others. (According to Wertheimer, black is lugubrious prior even to being black.) At the very foundation of meaning, at its deepest level, prior perhaps to any con­vention and code, we find a pulsional intentionality made up of emotions and sensations rooted in our corporeal, perceptual, and psychic organization and in the valencies which, perhaps already inscribed in the forms of the natural world, color our world with values, affects, attraction, and repulsion.

10.6 Semantic structure and linguistic classes

As yet largely unexplored is the relation between the articulation of the semantic system and its possible differentiated distribution in the various parts of speech. Is thete a regularity between items of expressable content and a tendency for them to be codified in certain linguistic classes rathet than others? In other words, do linguistic classes have a semantic basis? And to what extent can models which ate valid, for example, for nominal semantics, be extended to other parts of speech? As far as the first of these questions is concerned, the general tendency in linguistics and cognitive semantics is certainly oriented toward the search for a semantic motivation for linguistic categories; a number of important contribu­tions have already been made to this end, especially in terms of the different distribution of content between open classes and closed classes. The important work of Talmy (1983, 1988a) has clearly shown that there are precise limits on the type of semantic information conveyed respectively by the lexicon and by gram­mar. In Talmy's terms, information conveyed by the lexicon consists of semantic elements codified in open classes (roots of nouns, verbs, and adjectives), while grammaticali/.ed content is expressed by closed classes (prepositions, pronouns, articles, particles, and all inflectional morphemes). These two components of the

linguistic system carry out radically different functions: while closed classes supply the fundamental structure of the language, its structural skeleton, open classes convey elements that are more properly content. This involves a precise qualitative distribution of the information codified in language, because only some items of content can be grammaticalized, while others never are. In particular, the grammaticalized content expressed in the closed classes is topological and non-Euclidean, while content relating to the phenomenological aspect of entities (col­ors, form, size, and absolute dimensions, that is, figurative semes in Greimas' terminology) is never conveyed by closed-class elements. Closed-class elements re­lating to spatial determination (prepositions, deictics such as this, that, here, there, etc.) are neutral in relation to the form, physical appearance, size, and modality of movement of the entities they apply to, and express abstract schematic relations which are topological and relative, never absolute.²⁰ The specific perceptual quali­ties of an object (we could say its exteroceptive semes)—form, size, and general figurative configuration—are, on the other hand, expressed by open-class elements such as nouns and adjectives. For instance, absolute distances are expressed by various systems of numerals, colors by adjectives, and forms by the open class of nouns. Thus, alongside the small number of closed-class terms, such as spatial prepositions, which refer to a relatively few abstract schematic structures of a topological nature, we have a very large number of nouns for specifying the in­numerable forms of objects.²¹

It is interesting to observe that these different fields of specialization of the lexical and grammatical components of the language configure an opposition be­tween perceptual-sensory properties (such as form, size, color, absolute distance, etc.) and structural properties connected to topological schemes that are not based on the sensible properties of the object, but rather on schemata of deep images which may be linked to corporeal structuring.

The search for a semantic basis for linguistic categories undoubtedly charac­terizes the whole cognitive approach to the study of meaning, and also extends to the characterization of the different semantic configurations underlying classes that are formally definable as verbs, nouns, and adjectives. The work of Langacker (1987), Haiman (1985), and Wierzbicka (1985) all moves in this direction; none of them reduce the syntactic to the semantic, but rather all are concerned with the identification of a more adequate principle of semantic motivation which can ac­count for the close connection between form and meaning. To argue that linguis­tic categories have a motivated basis is to claim that they have an ontological foundation which in each case refers to an experiential base, even though this is not necessarily identifiable at the same level. According to Givon (1979, 1984), for example, the main grammatical classes reflect a scale of temporal stability of de­noted phenomena: at one end of the scale we find experiences which are relatively stable in time, linguistically codified as nouns, and at the other end there are experiences of rapid change, that is, events and actions, typically codified as verbs, a linguistic class whose existence is closely dependent on time. Between the two

extremes there are experiences of intermediate stability, linguistically represented in the class of adjectives. Givon (1979) also observes that although there are both concrete and abstract nouns, the latter are always derived, generally from verbs. This would seem to suggest that the basic semantic configuration for the nominal class is that which codifies physically determined and spatially delimited entities. In this way, the difference between semantic categories like abstract and concrete derives from distinct ontological bases (a perspective similar to the one I have delineated). Thus it is possible to motivate the different formats of the vari­ous lexical classes by starting from the different experiential saliencies underly­ing them.

The hypothesis of Brandt (1995) is similar; in his view, nominal, verbal, and adjectival classes stabilize different semantic worlds, respectively those of percep­tion, communication, and imagination, which roughly correspond to the fields of physical experience, social experience, and psychological experience. There would thus be a physio-semantics, source of the sub-language of states, expressed by nouns; a socio-semantics, source of the sub-language of events, expressed by verbs; and finally, a psycho-semantics expressed by adjectives and adverbs. Naturally this tripartite division must be taken as a working proposal, but it may constitute a starting point for a more detailed analysis of the semantic-ontological bases of linguistic categories, an area which is as yet largely unexplored.

The more specific problem of the possible extension of the prototype model can be framed in this context. Can the notion of typicality, which has proved useful for the categorial structure of concrete nouns, also be applied to other parts of speech such as verbs and adjectives? The issue is controversial. Some argue that prototype semantics is essentially a nominal semantics; however, studies like Coleman and Kay 1981, Jackendoff 1985, and Fillmore and Atkins 1992 suggest the possibility of extending prototypic analysis to predicates. Pulman (1983) also rec­ognizes a difference in the degree of typicality of actions expressed by verbs, ' and this is confirmed in more recent works on other semantic fields, such as verbs ol perception, which reveal phenomena of differentiated saliency.²⁴ According to Kleiber (1990: 129), however, the intuitive pertinence of a hierarchical structure within nominal and verbal classes is not the same. In his view, one of the dilficul ties of extending the prototype model to non-nominal classes is that often refer­ence is being made to the situation which the predicate denotes rather than CO the prototype of a category. An example of this is the case of adjectives of scale like big, small, good, bad, and so on. Clearly, we cannot talk about a single prototypical meaning for bigot goodifwe do not specify the category of referent to which the adjective is applied each time. A big ant and a big mountain do not have the same prototypical dimensions.

In general, one can agree with Kleiber that there is an intuitive difference in the meaning of" prototypical case when applied to classes such as natural kinds and when applied to adjectives of scale or verbs and the complex scenes that these relate to. I hinted at this problem in chapter 8 when introducing the concepts of

frame and scene used by Fillmore. Scenes represent complex situations that de­scribe the context of regularity of a certain action, rather than the central exem­plar of a category.

The idea of a typical scene allows us to grasp a fundamental characteristic of linguistic functioning linked to the effect of distortion that I have already dis­cussed: the relation between our experience of reality and the words with which we speak about it is neither a biunique correspondence nor a precise mirroring. This distorting gap, which cannot constitutively be eliminated, gives rise to a se­ries of procedures of local "readjustment"; processes of analogical extension are one of the most important examples of this, in that they allow the application of a description which is valid for the typical or regular situation to anomalous or deviant situations. Let's consider the meaning of a verb like run. It has been said that the prototypical situation for run is a running man rather than a running crab. Certainly, one could easily object, as Kleiber does, that it is improbable that the categorization of a token of run is made each time on the basis of a compari­son with the prototype of a running man. But the assertion can be reformulated: if "a human being runs" can be considered the typical case of run, it is because this phrase refers to a situation for which we have direct and phenomenologically founded knowledge. Verbs of movement come into the class that I have called natural actions because of an affinity with natural kinds, the linguistic description of which is impossible without referring to the underlying physical-perceptual experience. Run does not only mean "move rapidly" but refers to a particular form of corporeal movement that is understandable only in relation to our upright po­sition and to our having two legs.²⁵

It is, therefore, on the basis of our corporeal experience, the structure of our body, and its vertical position that we know what run means for a human being; starting with this primary meaning we broaden the use of the same expression to describe the movement of a crab or a millipede. A crab or a millipede certainly does not run like a human; this is one of those cases which are continually found in linguistic use where the applicability of a word is extended beyond its typical conditions. In these cases, the distortion of the linguistic description is, so to speak, adjusted, following analogous reasoning procedures: if a crab runs, we imagine that it is moving in a way which has similar features to the way a human runs, even though we know that this similarity is only partial and limited, given the structural difference between the body of a crab and our own.

I believe that many of the equivocations present in discussions like this one would be clarified if, instead of arguing in essentialist terms about the prototype as the best exemplar of the category, the inferential perspective I have indicated were to be adopted. In this perspective, the typical case becomes the hook, and point of departure, for possible inferences, an abductive tool onto which can be grafted an interpretative procedure.

Even if we come up with a new word to indicate the way a crab runs, just as we have trot and gallop for a horse, it would be hard to denominate uniquely the way each animal species rims. Our mnemonic resources would impede i(. Pioce-

The Many Dimensions of Meaning

dures of analogical extension are not a choice but a fundamental necessity in order to live with the distortion implicit in linguistic functioning. Thus the intrinsic limitation of language is made up for by its almost limitless flexibility. The num­ber of words at our disposition will always be limited and woefully inadequate to describe the multiplicity of the real: the world contains more things than we will ever be able to name, and our experience is constantly confronted with the limits of our words. But at the same time our language always seems able to transgress its own limits, and also our own.

NOTES

Three Approaches to Meaning

1. Just think of the concept of representamen in Peirce, which is already a sign and not a pure signifier.

2. Referential semantics is a deliberately generic term referring to all those theories which are based in some way on notions of reference and truth.

3. There are innumerable works in English, beginning with the anthology edited by Rorty (1967).

4. There are certain differences on this point within the analytic camp; one cannot talk of an anti-psychological approach in the case of philosophers like Quine or Grice. However, in general terms, one can say that cognitive aspects of meaning are not the cen­tral concern of the analytic philosophers.

5. This is the principle of compositionality formulated by Frege ([1892a] 1952), ac­cording to which the meaning of complex expressions is determined by the meaning of the simpler ones within them. On the basis of this principle, it can be established that the meaning of an expression depends on its contribution to the meaning of the sentence which it is part of.

6. The concept of model is used here in a quite different way to the meaning it usually has in a scientific context. Model-theoretic semantics sets out to assign to each expression in language a given interpretation which can be seen as a model of that expres­sion. No version of model-theoretic semantics effectively interprets a language in relation to the world; at most it illustrates a kind of model, making use of set theory and showing how it is possible to systematically correlate expressions and sets of objects (elements and sets). The function of correlation (interpretation) and the domain of base objects are called "models." For example, if a noun is correlated to an element and a predicate is correlated to a set of elements, the sentence which is formed by correlating the noun and the predicate will be considered true if and only if the element correlated to the noun belongs to the set correlated to the predicate.

7. VS. Kaplan 1977.

8. Kripke never actually explains this point hilly, but the most widely accepted in­terpretation ol his position points in this direction,

9. In the history ol semiolic thought the idea was certainly not a new one. ( loiisider, in particular, the Stoic model if. Males 195).

Notes to Pages 10-15

10. In these cases the overall truth value of a statement like John believes that Mary loves him does not depend on the truth or falsity of the completive Mary loves him, which is an opaque context. John may believe to be true what is in reality false, but as die state­ment regards the beliefs of John, it is only the truth of these that determines the truth conditions of the sentence. In other words, the truth value of statements which occur in an opaque context does not contribute to determining the truth value of the sentence of which they are part.

11. The term possible world comes from Leibniz.

12. See, among others, the works of Barbara Partee (1979, 1982, 1989), Emmon Bach (1989), Lauri Karttunen, and Stanley Peters.

13. According to Chomsky, not all syntactic differences involve a semantic differ­ence, while Montague believes that all syntactic differences have a corresponding semantic difference.

14. Other model theories do not use the concept of possible worlds. Of these, it is worth noting the situational semantics of Barwise and Perry (1983); they use the notion of situation, which corresponds approximately to a limited portion of the actual world. The main difference lies in the inherently partial nature of situations compared to the complete­ness of possible worlds.

15. For a discussion of this point, see, for example, Partee 1982.

16. It has been observed that the definition of intensional isomorphism is too pow­erful, given that any difference in the form of expressions makes synonymy impossible. The mother of my mother and my grandmother could not be considered synonymous because their inrernal structure is different. Carnap resolved this problem by considering some syn­tactic differences inessential. In order to be able to distinguish between inessential and essential differences, it is necessary to reduce linguistic expressions to their normal form, a kind of underlying form which reveals the structural identity even of expressions which have a superficially different form. This approach is very similar to the one adopted in generative grammar, where identical deep structures are assigned to expressions which have superficially different surface forms. From this point of view, one could regard the level of deep structure in generative terms as the level at which intensional isomorphism corre­sponds to synonymy.

17. Generative semantics was based on a program theoretically very close to the idea of intensional isomorphism, that of providing a representation such that identity and dif­ference in linguistic form could predict identity and difference in meaning.

18. Montague argued that propositions are sets of possible worlds, properties are sets of individuals which possess that property, and individuals are the set of all the sets which have that individual among their members.

19. For a discussion of this point, see Bonomi 1987 and Marconi 1981.

20. Bonomi, for example, is extremely critical about this issue and, paraphrasing an observation by Lewis according to which a semantics without truth conditions is not se­mantics, states that "semantics without an adequate treatment of the lexicon is not seman­tics" (Bonomi 1987: 69; my translation).

21. For example, cf. Bach 1989.

22. Cf, for example, the Prague School, the theory of M. A. K. Halliday, linguistic argument theory (cf. Anscombre and Ducrot 1983), besides of course Grice's theory of implicature.

23. Note that here we are talking about resemblance and not identity; this introduces the idea of a gradual and graded dimension of resemblances and differences which is im­possible in model-theoretic semantics, whose notions are caregorial and discrete. I will not immediately go into the need for shaded and non-categorial notions in the treatment of the semantics of natural languages, seeing that half of this book is devoted to a discussion of this problem.

Notes to Pages 16-24

24. The kind of truth which we refer to in natural language and its treatment in linguistics and semiotics will be discussed in section 1.4.3.

25. Course in General Linguistics ([1906-1911] 1983), henceforth referred to as CGL.

26. "The word has not only a meaning but also—above all—a value. And that is something quite different" (CGL: 114; my italics). "In a sign, what matters more than any idea or sound associated with it is what other sounds surround it" {CGL: 118, my italics). Here, although there is a claim for the priority of the differential aspect of value, a com­ponent of the signification relation, that is, reference to concepts, still seems to be present.

27. In particular, cf. Bally 1909 and 1932.

28. Cf. De Mauro 1965, Godel 1957.

29. Naturally, a similar problem also arises in terms of diachronic identity.

30. In particular, the oppositional component has an indispensable role in the repre­sentation of grammatical elements and closed sets such as prepositions or grammatical morphemes.

31. Associative relations were subsequently more commonly called paradigmatic re­lations. I will use the two terms without distinction.

32. According to Saussure, the site of associative relations lies in the brain, and such relations are part of the intetior store that constitutes language in each individual.

33. Saussure's example of the first kind of affinity is that between enseignement and armement or changement, because of the presence of the same suffix. An affinity of mean­ing is present in enseignement, education, and instruction, and a phonic affinity in enseigne­ment and justement. It is interesting to note that recent studies of the mental lexicon find that all these critetia are drawn on; the associaive criteria also find confirmation in empiri­cal data deriving from studies of errors and slips, which may be based on mix-ups due to morphological, semantic, or phonological affinities. On slips as interference between two simultaneously present words, see also Meringer and Mayer 1895.

34. On this point, cf. Eco 1984: 114.

35. For a detailed description, cf. Lyons 1977 and Cruse 1986.

36. In logical terms, the relation of hyponymy is defined as inclusion in a class, even if this definition presents the same problematic aspects already noted for the distinction between extension and intension. A more neutral definition from this point of view could be that of unilateral implication.

37. This is also the idea that undetlies natural taxonomies of kind and specific differ­ence, usually represented by tree diagtams and binary branching.

38. See the data on the vertical organization of categories detailed in section 4.2.

39. Cf., for example, Baldinger 1980 and Gauger 1972.

40. Cf. E. Clark 1992. She argues for the existence of a pragmatic principle of contrast and shows how this governs lexical usage. The choice of a term is normally interpreted, on the basis of pragmatic implicature, as being contrastively motivated. The structuralist as­sumption that different forms contrast different meanings is transposed here onto a prag­matic plane as an interprerative principle of speakers.

41. Cf. Greimas 1966.

42. Semantic oppositions seem to be acquired very precociously; indeed, the process is completed at around the age of three.

43. In the many distinctions proposed to classify semantic oppositions, it is gener­ally customary to distinguish between gradable oppositions {hot/cold, big/large) which are also called antonymous relations, and non-gradable or complementary relations (such as true/false, alinc/dcad, and so on). There are also converse pairs which presuppose an asym­metrical relation such as father/son, husband/wife, before/after. For a detailed treatment, sec-Lyons 1977 and ('ruse 1986.

44. In fact, there !■• .1 iiuihci level beyond ib.и (ii physical miasuremiml namely visual perception and its relation to linguistic structure. The lad 1I1.11 the color spectrum

Notes to Pages 25-28

has a precisely definable physical structure still does not tell us whether our perception and categorization of that spectrum is determined by the linguistic structure we possess (the thesis of linguistic relativism) or whether there are perceptual constants independent of language, linked to the psychophysiological constitution of our visual apparatus (the thesis currently sustained by cognitive research, cf. Berlin and Kay 1969).

45. At the beginning of the thirteenth century this conceptual field was covered by three terms, wisheit, kunst, and list, while a century later the lexical field had been trans­formed into wisheit, kunst, and wizzen. All of these terms also exist in modern German {Weisheit, Kunst, List, Wissen), but their reciprocal relations are different in comparison to either thirteenth- or fourteenth-century German.

46. According to Lyons (1977), the reality which Trier speaks of would seem to cor­respond to the substance of Hjelmslevian content. It seems to me rather to correspond to the concept of matter, in that it is a pre-linguistic, still-unstructured continuum. What seems to be missing in Triers analysis is the articulation of the substance of content as a level of organization which linguistic form imposes on the unstructured continuum.

47. Besides the work of Trier, that of Porzig (1934) also deserves mention. He was the other great theorist of semantic fields, interested above all in the syntagmatic relations which form a kind of series of micro-fields (see, for example, the relation between bite and teeth, blond and hair, climb and mountain). These privileged relations were to be treated in generative linguistics as selective restrictions linked to the representation of each single term. For each single lexical entry there is a specification of the possibilities of combination with other lexemes. Porzig attempted to treat these relations generally, even though these semantics restrictions are naturally extremely varied and heterogeneous: alongside very gen­eral terms like do or good there are many highly specific ones like fry or rancid. Porzigs approach was to treat these phenomena as progressive generalizations in linguistic use. All terms thus have an initial concrete and specific meaning which is then applied to wider contexts through successive extensions. Extension is based on processes of generalization and abstraction, that is, basic mechanisms of metaphoric extension. Leaving to one side possible judgements of this approach, it is interesting to note how it questions the assump­tion of the arbitrariness of the sign, given that in this perspective metaphoric extension is motivated by a general principle of extension from the concrete to the abstract. This is a very similar position to the one advanced by Lakoff and Johnson 1980.

48. Cf, in particular, Fillmore 1985 and Fillmore and Atkins 1992.

49. The characteristics of the contrastive aspect of frames and their similarities and differences with semantic fields will be examined more closely in section 8.3.2.

50. There are a great variety of positions: alongside radically critical views like that of Lakoff (1987), there are also those who, like Jackendoff, explicitly acknowledge a conti­nuity with the Chomskian generative tradition.

51. Certainly, as far as semantics is concerned, this assumption has not had much of a follow-up because the study of meaning has never formed a central part of Chomskian research. Nevertheless, the cognitive assumption at the heart of cognitive semantics lies well within the Chomskian tradition.

52. This is the path taken by, among others, Fillmore, Lakoff, and Rosch. For a review of generative semantics, see Cinque 1979.

53. It is impossible to list everyone working in this field; some of the most well-known are Lakoff, Talmy, Fillmore, Jackendoff, Langacker, Fauconnier, Johnson-Laird, and Winograd, but this list is merely indicative and in no way comprehensive.

54. The following chapter is dedicated to a discussion of this point.

55. Naturally there are divergent positions regarding the specific treatment of each of these points.

56. In the eighties, there was considerable discussion about the compatibility of model-theoretic semantics and cognitive semantics. In 1982, Barbara Partce suggested two

Notes to Pages 30—35

possible responses: the separatist and the common goal positions. According to the separa­tist position, which is very similar to Fillmore's, the two versions of semantics have different aims, assumptions, and validity criteria. The common goal position, on the other hand, regards cognitive semantics and truth-functional semantics as parts of a common enter­prise, even though, as Partee herself admits, it is not easy to see how this common ground is to be established. Within the composite panorama of cognitive semantics today, there are various different positions, ranging from the radical criticism of Lakoff (1988, 1987), Wilks (1988), and Winograd and Flores (1986) to much less extreme positions like those of Johnson-Laird (1983) and Fauconnier (1985). Both of the latter, for example, presuppose an intermediate cognitive and mental level between world states and linguistic expressions. This approach is compatible with the outcome of some recent work in formal semantics such as the theory of discourse representation (TDR) by Hans Kamp (1982). For a more detailed discussion, see Santambrogio and Violi (1988), and in general all the articles found in Eco, Santambrogio, and Violi (1988).

57. In particular, cf. Jackendoff 1983, 1987, 1991, 1992; Talmy 1983, 1988a; Langacker 1987, 1991.

58. I am thinking here above all of Fillmore and to some extent of Lakoff.

59. Cf. Eco 1976 and 1984. For a discussion of the concept of encyclopedia in the semiotics of Eco, cf. Violi 1992. The issue will in any case be discussed in chapter 7.

60. For a recent version of these positions, see Rastier 1987, 1991.

61. In particular, cf. Fillmore 1976a and 1976b.

62. Cf. also Clark and Chase 1972.

63. According to Marr, there are three distinct levels of representation of visual infor­mation, which range from the retinal apparatus to the final information codified in our spatial understanding. The first level (primal sketch) is responsible for the identification of the boundaries and edges of elements and their groupings. The second level (2V2 sketch), not yet three-dimensional but already possessing depth, organizes space into regions; finally, in the third level (3D model) the complete, three-dimensional representation of the object occurs.

64. At the level of corporeal representation, one can hypothesize that components like the opposition between tension/distension may be found; this is a central opposition for both the musical faculty and body movements, and is also very important for the level of the linguistic faculty most directly linked to the expression of emotions and affective states. The identification of the affective component in spoken language takes place above all at the level of intonation, a level traversed by phoric tensivity, that is, by the contrast between tension and distension and the relative phoric attributions. This is also a central problem in semiotic thinking (see the whole of Fonagy's work, in particular Fonagy 1983). Semiotics identifies tensivity and phoria as the two fundamental concepts constituting "the set of preconditions for the emergence of signification" (cf. Pezzini 1994: 154; my translation). Note that the semiotic approach, when talking about "preconditions of signification," also alludes to a not directly conceptual or conceptualized level, which is in fact the same as Jackendoff s hypothesis regarding the level of corporeal representation.

65. On this point, cf. above all Talmy 1983, 1988a, 1996; Jackendoff 1987, [992; Landau and Jackendoff 1993.

66. The objectivist ontology which underlies model-theoretic semantics is thus sub­stituted by a constructivist approach: the world is not given as such but is the result ol a construction both at the level of perception and of conceptual categorization. This position does not preclude the existence of objective qualitative structures, which are not necessarily physical, in the perceived world. This is consistent with what is sustained in the ecological approach to perception ol "Gibson (1979) and in the model of Marr (1982). For a general discussion of these issues, which also covers the role ol abstractive categorization processes, cf. Lakoff 1987.

Notes to Pages 36-48

67. Discussion of this point always refers exclusively to the visual components of representation. Fot aspects of non-visual perception (tactile, gustatory, and olfactory per­ception), research is a long way behind and data are not yet available in any quantity.

68. This still linguistically determined, more surface aspect has been seen by some as a limitation of Fillmore's case theory (cf. Petitot 1985).

69. Here too it would be interesting to render explicit the references to the philo­sophic tradition, in particular the relation between image schemata and the notion of tran­scendental schematism in Kant.

70. Cf. also Sweetser 1990 and the catastrophe-theoretic semantics inspired by the theories of Rene Thom (Petitot 1985, 1992; Wildgen 1981, 1982).

71. Cf. Gruber 1976, Anderson 1971.

72. Cf. Violi 1991.

73. One cannot generalize in absolute terms; for example, this certainly cannot be said of the work of Fillmore.

74. For discussion and criticism on this point, cf. Violi 1996a.

75. For a discussion of the universalist and relativist issue in cognitive semantics, cf. Lakoff 1987, chapter 18.

76. Cf. Thom 1988; Petitot 1990, 1992; Brandt 1992, 1994, 1995, and Wildgen 1982.

77. On this point, cf. Geeraerts 1988a.

78. Cf. Chafe and Nichols 1986.

79. See, for example, the entry for "truth" in the Dictionary of Greimas and Courtes (1979): "It is worth emphasizing that the 'true' is situated within discourse, because it is made true by discourse itself, that is, it excludes any relation with (or validation from) an external referent" (my translation).

80. Obviously, cold indicates a property which is relative, and so the objectivity of It is cold is only apparent, because an enunciating subject is always presupposed. In other words, one could say that It is cold is a function with two variables, f(x,y), in the same way that I am cold is (I am indebted to Ivan Fonagy for this observation). There still remains the fact that the two formulations are very different from the point of view of the meaning conveyed. In terms of enunciation theory the difference is captured through the concept of enunciated enunciation.

81. On the basis of this assumption, it is possible to give an account of the continual semantic "adjustment" occurring in linguistic use: very often the terms which we use are not entirely appropriate, and in a model-theoretic semantic perspective this would modify the truth values of the utterance in which they appear. For example, if one held out a pencil and said Here's a pen!, the sentence would be logically false but "pragmatically" true as a response to a request for a pen.

82. From this point of view the concept of the cognitive dimension is situated at a different level from the intralinguistic dimension and the extralinguistic dimension: in prin­ciple, there are no theoretical reasons why the cognitive point of view cannot apply both to intra- and extralinguistic analysis. In practice, however, both structural and philosophi­cal semantics have in their own different ways "expelled" the conceptual dimension.

83. From a developmental point of view, one could hypothesize that linguistic com­munication is a more perfected and evolved form of ostensive-inferential communication, unique to the human species.

84. By this I am in no way claiming that lexical meanings can vary indefinitely ac­cording to each context of use (or experience). On the contrary, linguistic meanings relate to the structured and regular dimension of our experiences, according to an idea very simi­lar to that of habit in Pierce. This issue will be developed in chapter 8.

85. A similar position is also adopted by Wierzbicka (1972), which I will return to later.

86. For an analysis of verbs ol movement, see also Violi 1996b.

87. Another area is expressions concerning spatiality. See Violi 1991.

Notes to Pages 48-60

88. See in particular the work of Marconi (1997). There will be further discussion of this point in 7.5.4.