Word meaning versus sentence meaning
Before elaborating the encyclopaedic view of meaning, we first briefly return to the traditional distinction between word meaning (lexical semantics) and sentence meaning (compositional semantics). As noted above, cognitive semanticists also view this distinction as artificial. There are a number of reasons for this position, which we briefly review here.
Word meaning is protean in nature The traditional distinction between lexical and compositional semantics is based on the assumption that word meanings combine, together with the grammatical structure of the sentence, to produce sentence meaning. This is known as the principle of compositionality. The way the ‘division of labour’ works in most formal approaches is that lexical semanticists work out how to represent the meanings of words, while compositional semanticists work out the principles governing the combination of words into larger units of meaning and the relationships between words within those larger units.
From the perspective of cognitive semantics, the problem with the compositional view of sentence meaning is that word meanings cannot be precisely defined in the way that is required by this approach. Instead, cognitive semanticists argue that, while words do have relatively well-entrenched meanings stored in long-term memory (the coded meaning), word meaning in language is ‘protean’ in nature. This means that the meaning associated with a single word is prone to shift depending on the exact context of use. Thus cognitive semanticists argue that the meaning of any given word is constructed ‘on line’ in the context in which it is being used. We saw an example illustrating this when we discussed various uses of the word safe in Chapter 5. One problem with the compositional view of sentence meaning, then, is that it relies upon the assumption that the context-independent meanings associated with words can be straightforwardly identified.
The conceptual nature of meaning construction
The second problem with dividing semantics into the study of word meaning on the one hand and sentence meaning on the other relates to meaning construction, which has traditionally been regarded as the remit of compositional semantics. Meaning construction is the process whereby language encodes or represents complex units of meaning; therefore this area relates to sentence meaning rather than word meaning. The principle of compositionality assumes that words ‘carry’ meaning in neatly packaged self-contained units, and that meaning construction results from the combination of these smaller units of meaning into larger units of meaning within a given grammatical structure. However, as we have begun to see, cognitive semanticists argue that words are prompts for meaning construction rather than ‘containers’ that carry meaning. Furthermore, according to this view, language actually represents highly underspecified and impoverished prompts relative to the richness of conceptual structure that is encoded in semantic structure: these prompts serve as ‘instructions’ for conceptual processes that result in meaning construction. In other words, cognitive linguists argue that meaning construction is primarily conceptual rather than linguistic in nature. From this perspective, if meaning construction is conceptual rather than linguistic in nature, and if words themselves do not ‘carry’ meaning, then the idea that sentence meaning is built straightforwardly out of word meanings is largely vacuous. We will explore these ideas further in Chapters 11 and 12 where we address meaning construction in detail.
Grammatical constructions are independently meaningful
Finally, as we saw in Part I of the book and as will see in detail in Part III, cognitive linguistics adopts the symbolic thesis with respect to linguistic structure and organisation. This thesis holds that linguistic units are form-meaning pairings. This idea is not new in linguistics: indeed, it has its roots in the influential work of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) and is widely accepted by linguists of all theoretical persuasions. The innovation in cognitive linguistics is that this idea is extended beyond words to larger constructions including phrases and whole sentences. According to this view, it is not just words that bring meaning to sentences, but the grammatical properties of the sentence are also meaningful in their own right. In one sense, this does not appear significantly different from the compositional view: all linguists recognise that George loves Lily means something different from Lily loves George, for example, and this is usually explained in terms of grammatical functions like subject and object which are positionally identified in a language like English. However, the claim made in cognitive linguistics is stronger than the claim that grammatical structure contributes to meaning via the structural identification of grammatical functions like subject and object. The cognitive claim is that grammatical constructions and grammatical functions are themselves inherently meaningful, independently of the content words that fill them. From this perspective, the idea that sentence meaning arises purely from the composition of smaller units of meaning into larger ones is misleading. We look in detail at the idea that grammatical constructions are meaningful in Part III of the book.
