Seeing clearly: Frame Semantic, Psycholinguistic, and Cross ...

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 7
part on the de nition of qualia in Pustejovsky 1995 (Ch. 6) (without, however, subscrib-
ing to Pustejovsky's contention that all the information relevant for such interaction can
appropriately be t into the same four categories for all lexical units).
Concepts, Categories, and De nitions
For purposes of this dissertation, I will follow Rosch (1978) in de ning categories as
sets of objects sharing certain properties (equivalent to \extensional meaning") and concepts
as the supposed mental constructs underlying the division of things into categories (roughly
equivalent to\intensional meaning"). As will soon be seen, this is an oversimpli cation,
but it should be adequate for the moment. Psychologists today, while more willing than
behaviorists were to speak of the reality ofmental objects and processes, are cautious about
extrapolating from experimental results to underlying causes, hence the phrase \supposed
mental construct".
The Western philosophical tradition, stretching back to Aristotle, has generally
assumed that a concept can best be de ned in terms of necessary and su cient conditions
for membership in the category. Although anyone who has tried it knows that the art of
writing a de nition is far from easy, this tradition forms the basis not only of much of
lexicography (i.e. de nitions in terms of genus and di erentia) but also folk theories of
natural and cultural kinds, and hence, the extensions of words; e.g. \It can't be a skunk
because a skunk has a white stripe down its back."
Basic categories and Co-occurrence
It is a fundamental fact about all language that the basic pairings between form
and meaning in the lexicon are arbitrary; this had been known for centuries before Saussure
made it explicit and formal. The great contribution of cognitive linguistics has been to
remind us that we should not overstate the arbitrariness of language; that processes such
as semantic composition, metaphor, metonymy, and historical change are not only parts of
the everyday use of language, but also part of cognition in general, and therefore function
in accord with general principles that also apply to non-linguistic cognition, such as those
that govern learning and recall. With regard to lexical semantics, this implies that the
combination of meanings conveyed by a polysemous word will not be an arbitrary set;