CONCEPTUALIZATION OF А SITUATION ACCORDING TO THE PROPOSITIONAL MODEL “OBJECT AND ITS FEATURE” (as seen in the English language)

CONCEPTUALIZATION OF А SITUATION ACCORDING TO THE PROPOSITIONAL MODEL “OBJECT AND ITS FEATURE” (as seen in the English language)

Author:  Svetlana E. Kuzmina

Affiliation:  Nizhny Novgorod Linguistics University

Abstract: 
The aim of the article is to explore the propositional model “object and its feature”: reveal the kinds of situations structured in accordance with this model, mechanisms of their conceptualization and representation in the structure of English utterances. For these purposes the author analyses lexically different utterances with the nominal predicate, determines the basic, prototypical experiences and, thus, the types of propositions encoded by the structural pattern of the utterances, and then studies various situations described by such utterances. The study has shown that the model “object and its feature” is represented by four variants: “object and its property”, “object and its quality”, “object and its state”, “objects and their number”. The former two correspond to prototypical situations and are metaphorically projected onto static and dynamic situations of various domains: an object’s being in a certain state, object perception, attitude of a subject to an object, influence of a subject on an object, possession, etc. The model may be mapped onto one domain in several regular ways. The mappings are grounded in experiential interrelation of situations, similarity of their structures and are supported by ontological metaphors. Among the factors determining ways of interpreting a situation and, consequently, the choice of structural patterns for utterances are figure-ground alignment in the situation, distribution of roles between the participants in accordance with their relative salience and the communicative aim of the utterance. These findings may contribute to teaching non-native speakers the ways of choosing authentic and communicatively relevant ways of making an utterance about a certain situation.

Keywords:  situation, typical proposition, propositional model, sentence pattern, conceptual metaphor

References: 
Boldyrev, N.N. Kognitivnaya semantika: Kurs lektsiy po angliyskoy filologii. Tambov: Izd-vo Tambovskogo universiteta, 2000.
Bulygina, T.V. K postroeniyu tipologii predikatov v russkom yazyke. In Semanticheskie tipy predikatov. Moscow, 1982, pp. 7-85.
Lyubina, N.G. Znachenie i funktsionirovanie slov tipa ALIVE v angliyskom yazyke v istoricheskom osveshchenii: dis. ... kand. filol. nauk. L'vov, 1985.
L'vov, L.A. K opredeleniyu osnovnykh tipov glagol'nykh predikatov. In Semantika i funktsionirovanie angliyskogo glagola. G., 1985, pp. 81-91.
Paducheva, E.V. Semanticheskie issledovaniya (Semantika vremeni i vida v russkom yazyke. Semantika narrativa). Moscow: Shkola «Yazyki russkoy kul'tury», 1996.
Popova, Z.D. & Sternin I.A. Ocherki po kognitivnoy lingvistike. Voronezh: Izd-vo Voronezh. gos. un-ta, 2001.
Seliverstova, O.N. Vtoroy variant klassifikatsionnoy setki i opisanie nekotorykh predikativnykh tipov russkogo yazyka. In Semanticheskie tipy predikatov. Moscow, 1982, pp. 86-157.
Frolova I.T. (Ed.) Filosofskiy slovar'. 5th edn. Moscow: Politizdat, 1986.
AHD – The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. URL: http://www.the-freedictionary.com
AL – ABBYY Lingvo 7.0: ABBYY Software House, 2001 (CD-ROM).
CED – The Collins English Dictionary. URL: http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english
DAI – Dictionary of American Idioms (2003-2010). URL:  http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/idioms/42436
Heine, B. (1997). Cognitive foundations of grammar. N.Y., Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the Mind. The University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
LDCE – The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2009). 5th ed. URL: http://www. ldoceonline.com
MWUD – The Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2013). Merriam-Webster Inc., URL: http://www.merriam-webster.com 
OED – Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, 2001-2012. URL: http://www.etymonline.com
Vendler, Z. (1967). Verbs and Times. In Z. Vendler, Linguistics in Philosophy (pp. 97-121). Ithaca; N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press.

Pages:  14-19