s - Wyższa Szkoła Filologiczna we Wrocławiu

214
Aleksander Szwedek
Their explanation is corroborated by my hypothesis of objectification according
to which abstract entities are conceptualized metaphorically in terms of physical
objects, the domain of which is the ultimate domain, i.e., subject to no further
metaphorization.
The present study will show that there is more evidence of the primacy of
nouns over verbs in diverse language phenomena, but the cognitive mechanism
behind them is the same. The diverse language phenomena that are analyzed
here constitute selectional restrictions, sentence stress placement and its relation
to word order (FSP = Functional Sentence Perspective), and conceptualization
of abstract entities (phenomena) in terms of physical objects (objectification).
To make the case complete, special reference will be made also to Gentner
(1982), as well as to Gentner and Boroditsky (2001).
2. Selectional restrictions
Apart from the Phrase Structure component, the generative model requires
a lexicon. Lexical insertions in the earlier form of the model allowed for the
following sentences:
*The boy may frighten sincerity.
*Sincerity may admire the boy.
Since such simple lexical insertion rules are not sufficient in the generation
of correct structures, two problems emerged requiring reflection and solution:
– what kind of information is necessary?
– where is that information to be placed?
2.1. Considering the role of verbs in the nominal frames
An analysis of the verbs frighten and admire shows that they require an
animate object, and an animate subject, respectively. Transformationalgenerative
model proposed that this semantic-syntactic information should be
part of lexical information in the following form:
BOY
+ Common
+ Count
+ Animate
+ Human
It seems fairly easy to characterize nouns in this way, particularly in the
subject function. What we need to know next is how to characterize VERBS in