Relativism and Universalism in Linguistics - Fachbereich 10 ...

Section J: Semantics / Cognition 109
2. When analyzing semantic peculiarities of parametrical adjectives, it is of vital
importance to take into consideration a pragmatic factor of the observer and the
strategy of measuring the object. The observer can occupy different positions in
respect to the perceived object and the observer’s perspective determines the direction
of his look . Thus the object is perceived from different angles: from above or from
below, from inside or outside. Different dimensions can be ascribed to one and the
same object according to the position of the observer in space relatively to this object.
Vertical dimension of a big container can be called height, if the observer is outside it
and depth if the observer looks inside this container from above ( a high vase, a deep
vase, a high barrel, a deep barrel ).
3. Among basic notions, playing an important role in interpretation of parametrical
characteristics of objects is the notion of norm. Norm standards are different for
different objects (a deep raven and a deep wrinkle are incomparable). Names of some
objects with standard parameters do not combine with parametrical adjectives ( *a
long /wide/ thick dollar; *a long/ thick/ wide bacteria).
4. The parametrical adjectives high, wide, long, thick and deep and their
nominalizations height, width, length, thickness, and depth refer to dimensions of
objects measured along intrinsic and environmental axes, sometimes with reference
to verticality or horizontality
For instance, length is extensional – it specifies the extent of an object that can be both
horizontal and vertical (long curtains, long tunnel). Height is specified by environmental
axes ( gravitational or contextual) and is applied to vertically oriented objects ( high
building, high mountain).
A note on epistemic patterns underlying the selected English
idioms related to human body
Kuzniak, Marek
University of Wroclaw, Poland
kuzniak@uni.wroc.pl
The goal of the paper is to analyse a sample of 95 randomly selected human body-part English
idioms from the perspective of the epistemic origins that underlie them. By epistemic origins is
meant the folk knowledge (schematically represented by the set of interacting pre-conceptual
image-schema) shared by language users that is believed to directly relate to the evidenced
origin of a particular idiomatic expression. The aim of the analysis will, then, be to uncover
cognitive-axiological epistemic patterns underlying the quoted etymology of the idiom as
relevant for its conventionalised dictionary meaning. The discussed idioms will be organized
into subsets along the criteria that emerge out of the research. The ambition of the paper will be
to argue against the often taken for granted premise that idioms are unanalysable bits of lexicon,
the idiosyncrasy of which excludes the queries about their potential non-arbitrary foundations.
Semantic Topologies as Linguistic Universals
Prosorov, Oleg
Russian Academy of Sciences, Petersburg
prosorov@pdmi.ras.ru
We consider mainly a written type of linguistic communication in some unspecified natural
language, say English, French, German, Russian, and so its basic units are texts. We consider
only texts written with good grace and intended for human understanding, called admissible.