Cognitive Linguistic Studies - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2018

In the first part, we show that the notion of transcategoriality, which is present in several types of languages (inflectional, isolating, agglutinative), serves to reconcile two antinomic forces of human linguistic activity: to satisfy cognitive-communicative needs and to limit the effort/to optimise linguistic systems. In the second part, we first examine our triangular dynamic model which comprises three macro-categories, namely lexeme, grammeme, pragmateme, and then, we discuss the differences between these three macro-categories. In the third and last part, we argue for the existence of transcategoriality in Vietnamese, an isolating language without inflectional morphology. We will discuss this issue by analyzing some markers such as: thành công, đẹp, mới, thì, and mà.

Drawing on ideas from Discourse Grammar (Heine et al. 2013), this article examines characteristics of the Japanese reduplicated mimetics, arguing that they are transcategorial, able to function across different planes of grammar, either as mimetic adverbs belonging to Sentence Grammar (SG) or mimetic “theticals” belonging to Thetical Grammar (TG) (Kaltenböck et al. 2011: 879). The former expresses a manner of an action, typically occurring in the immediately preverbal position, as in huwahuwa (to) uku [mim quot float] ‘float lightly’. By contrast the latter is the speaker’s re-enactment of the event, as in the case of “Huwahuwa, shita de tsubuseru toohu gurai no katasa desu.” ‘Fluffy-fluffy, (the baby food should) have softness like tofu that can be crushed by (your) tongue.’, where the mimetic ‘re-enacts’ the speaker’s mouth feel (fluffiness) when she put the food into her mouth. The particle drop of the reduplicated mimetics is syntactically optional in SG, but obligatory in TG. The article suggests adding mimetics to the list of theticals, as the fronted zero-marked mimetics followed by a pause display three of the defining prototypical properties of theticals (Kaltenböck et al. 2011): (i) prosodic property (they display comma intonation), (ii) syntactic independence (they are not modifiers of the predicate), and (iii) semantic non-restrictiveness (they do not restrict the semantic content of the predicate).

Among the various syntactic functions that transcategorial but can take, it is the final particle that is the focus of our attention. As it is a characteristic feature of Northern English colloquial conversations, the semantic-pragmatic analysis is pursued in the spoken section of the Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech. Moreover, particular attention is paid to the relationship between final but and information structure in order to account for the strategy of organizing information. In addition, it is shown that its status as a post-rheme element, which takes into account the position of this particle, does not pay tribute to its main function of textual cohesion. Finally, its potential status as an Antitopic is discussed.

The article presents a morphemic account of transcategoriality, with detailed illustrations (e.g. English but and even, French encore, tout, meme, Latin to French morpheme /tant/) of the approach. After making explicit the paradigmatic differences between exoskeletal and endoskeletal approaches, and showing that ultimately it can be summarized in terms of existence or not of grammar-free morphemes becoming lexemes through grammatical and contextual insertion, it turns to the issue of knowing what an exoskeletal non-categorial meaning can be. It introduces at this stage the notion of fractality, before making explicit and detailing the method which allows isolation of a morpheme’s indicational semantics. The whole approach is finally illustrated with the study of the whole distribution of French /tant/, first semantically in synchrony before extending the tests to Latin data, showing that polysemy, transcategoriality and plurisemy are various forms of the same issue.

Transcategorial morphemes share the common ability to be used synchronically across different syntactic categories (synchronic grammaticalization). This paper first shows that transcategoriality is a general property of linguistic systems, variously exploited by languages, then addresses the theoretical questions raised by these morphemes. A new model accounting for this transcategorial functioning, named “fractal grammar”, is proposed and illustrated by various examples. The analysis for this particular functioning relates the polysemy of these morphemes to their syntactic flexibility in a dynamic way: the variation of the syntactic scope of the morpheme (“fractal functioning”) is triggered by its environment and produces its polysemy (variation of the semantic scope). Fractal grammar is thus defined by two basic mechanisms: the construal of a common image-schema (“scale invariance”), accounting for the unity of the morpheme, and the activation of “scale (or level) properties”, accounting for the semantic and syntactic variations. A typological sketch of transcategoriality is then sketched, in relation to the strategies used by linguistic systems for the distribution of grammatical information. Three types of transcategorial strategies are distinguished: “oriented”, “generic”, and “functional” transcategoriality. The status of linguistic categories is then discussed in the light of the analysis of these particular morphemes.

This article focuses on an analysis of the perception of danger in a sample of conservative Evangelical Christian sermons and Thai Forest Tradition dhamma talks. Through the analysis of keywords, frames, conceptual metaphors, and patterns of agency in the use of metaphor, it seeks to explore how one Christian believer and one Buddhist practitioner conceptualize their ways of being religious. We argue that this specific set of dhamma talks has a primary focus on an individual actively progressing within the practice of meditation while interacting with elements that may be beneficial or harmful to that progress. In contrast, this particular sample of sermons has a primary focus on two groups or categories of people, fallen sinners and true Christians, and their strictly defined hierarchical relationship to God. Aspects of this relationship are often defined in terms of power, fear, and danger, with shifting intersections between active behavior and being acted upon by greater forces or powers. We conclude that a cognitive linguistic approach to analyzing perceptions of danger within a specified genre of religious discourse can be useful in producing a picture of how an individual religious believer within a particular context and moment in time views reality, their position within it, and their progression through it.

Compared to metaphors about God in the Bible, those in other Christian contexts seem to receive little academic attention. To bridge this gap, this study examines metaphors gathered from gospel songs on Billboard and iTunes to analyze the abstract concept of God from a cognitive linguistic viewpoint through extending the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Our findings indicate that while diverse kinds of metaphors focus on the multi-dimensionality of God such as his characteristics (e.g., GOD IS A MAGICIAN and GOD IS A LOVER), outline (e.g., GOD IS A CONTAINER and GOD IS LIQUID), and supreme status (e.g., GOD IS HIGH), structural metaphors tend to represent the overwhelming majority and thus form the basis for the structural-metaphor-dominant phenomenon. In addition, the flawless figure of God is suggested to result from the PERFECTION image schema which is responsible for hidden aspects in related metaphorical structures. Furthermore, metaphors about divine images, having their mapping details enriched by biblical context, are suggested to possess recessive metaphor inheritance. Finally, the rhythm of ‘chain of metaphors’ is proposed to interpret how the spirit of the songs about the divine being are brought out. This study sheds light on our overall understanding of the concepts of God in Christian culture, and contributes to the development of interdisciplinary studies concerning metaphor, religion, cognition, and culture.