Topic 4. Analogy and word meaningReading 1, pp. 34-84
Concepts = categories
(p. 34) an abstract pattern in the brain that stands for some regular, recurrent aspect of the world [...] to which any number of different words/’signs’ point
Specific/concrete instance + a halo
-centres
-a halo (accounts for the vague blurring and flexible quality of the concept. It thins out as one moves farther out from the core)
-fuzzy boundaries of categories: not due to lack of expertise – inherent in the act of categorization
Analogy: category ~ metropolis
Metaphorical suburban ring
(most recent/novel usage
of the word)
The scheme is dynamic
Mental category: tiny, almost solid central core (can move over time). Outer ring – repeated acts of extension due to perceived analogies (what was metaphorical gradually may become the essence).
(p. 65)a category has an ancient core, some commercial zones, some residual zones, an outer ring, and then suburbs that [...] shade of into countryside. One passes smoothly and continuously from a concept’s core to its fringes. It results from a spectrum of analogies: from the simplest (concept’s core) to the most far-fetched.
Conceptual spaces
Concepts exist in multidimensional spaces. They come together through relationships of similarity and context.
Conceptual spaces: at the very centre of each --- the most common concepts for a culture, era in need of instant categorization (to live).
-Core items: body parts, classes of animals, plants, things to eat/drink, common feelings, actions, properties, relationships, common degrees. Near the centre – concepts (quasi) universally covering part of the human condition.
-Rings or shells in conceptual spaces.
- Rings: less frequently used concepts --- thanks, barn, fog, purple, sincere, garden, send, star, roof, although.
- Shells: not frequent at all --- frowning, fingernail-biting, tap-dancing, income tax, vegetarian, chief executive officer, wishful thinking.
-Different languages cover, or fail to cover, certain concepts
Conceptualization by analogy
(p.64) the human mind is [...] seeking novelty (the set of metaphors cannot be limited or fixed). Goal --- to understand what surrounds us.
Conceptualization is automatic and biologically bestowed. Ostensive stimuli (e.g. being at an airport): making sense of them ---- automatic, unconscious triggering of familiar categories (lexicalized or not)
How categories emerge
Single member categories
Mommy + experience (trial an error): mommy, mother, ‘mother’, ‘mother nature/earth’
Onset:concrete situation, something unique, clearly separable from the rest of the world
Later:other similar situations encountered and the link is made ---- a new mental structure,
less detailed but fundamentally not different from the onset.
Concepts extend through spontaneous analogies, growing in generality and becoming more discriminating.
Tension: finer distinction (experts) vs. making broader categories. Refinements: compounds,
idioms, proverbs, catch phrases, building up concepts with no verbal labels.
Concept = category --- outcome of a long series of spontaneous analogies (between a freshly perceived stimulus and the old mental analogy with only one member or a highly developed mental category are based on the same mechanism).
A single item (entity) belongs to lots of categories. Our mental life consists in placing entities in one category and then in reassigning them to another category. Context changes categorization and modifies our perception (chair – stool).
Example: man/human being, 60 kg mass, biped, mammal, living entity, book-lover, romantic, blood-type A+, vegetarian,sister
Bird: bat, airplane, bronze seagull, eagle in a photograph, shadow of a vulture in the sky, Tweet the cartoon-inhabiting canary, generic eagle/robin, a flying dinosaur, the song of a nightingale played 50 years after it died
Examples of category emergence and extension
(2) I undressed the banana (undressing --- peeling)
(3) They turned off the rain (turn off – stop)
(8) How do you cook water (cook – boil)
You know your cigarette is melting (melt – burn)
(12) Do buses eat gas? (eat – use)
(adult) I broke my DVD (break – scratch)
To break (analogical extensions) – bread/one’s fast/the ice/the news/someone’s heart/a habit/the law
The legs of a table, the spine of a book, a head of lettuce, a traffic jam, a stream of insults, the bed of a river
Category adjustment/extension by analogy making
Analogy maps a mental structure on another mental structure. New concepts (HUB) influence ‘more primitive’ concepts (AIRPORT). At first there was airport, then hub. But once hub exists, airport is influenced. Newer concepts are incorporatedinside their ‘parents’ as well as the reverse (shaded boundaries, influence of context).
-Euclidean geometry – non-Euclidian geometry
-Classical mechanics – relativistic and quantum mechanics
-Mother/surrogate mother/adoptive mother/single mother
-Office/study/attic
-1610 Galileo Galilei – Jupiter (planet, star, moon): through analogy – another earth with its own moons (the concept of moon is born). Using familiar phenomena to understand the unfamiliar ones.
-Constructing a label for a complex situation by finding a more familiar/concrete situation analogically linked to it. The name of the concrete situation is taken over to the complex one:
-You’re nuts, it’s Greek to me, my engine is coughing, she’s so square, she drove me crazy
-Recession is our enemy, corruption must be fought
-The act of metaphorization = the way to extend our categories. Goal – to understand more directly and intensely what surrounds us.
Concepts and words
Claim: all words evoke concepts/are concept-related
- Verbs
Rain/snow/hail ---N& V
Dog – something is barking
Mouths – eat, drink, speak
Labelling situations --- menacing, to menace (the same perceptual entities)
- Much
(unconscious) opposition to an imaginary some or somewhat situation. A mental comparison. An unexpectedly large quantity or large degree of something (too much peanut butter, much to my displeasure). Intensifying a part of speech, phrase or clause
Grammatical patterns define mental categories
I don’t go out much
*I much don’t go out
Much the same *Much the difference
Much obliged *Much grateful
Child: too much, not much, much more --- core
A lot much, many much, much red --- rejected
Refinement of much situations (semantic and syntactic)
- And, But, (So, While) – deep, subtle concepts grounded in analogies
- AND
A natural link between two statements (people, people and objects, time sequences, causal links, abstract qualities. John and Mary, Sally and her toy, I went and looked, It fell and broke, hot and cold water, before and after my haircut)
Motion in the space of discourse goes smoothlyalong an established pathway. And (moreover, indeed, in addition, on top of that) is warranted
Subcategories (as in car/truck: Honda, Hyundai, coupe, sedan, automatic/manual, fuel-efficient/gas-guzzling, sporty/family style)
- BUT
Motion in the space of discourse takes an unexpected swerve. But (whereas, however, actually, in fact, although, nevertheless, even so, still, yet, inspite of that) is warranted.
He has big ears, but he’s really a nice guy
He is on one side of one norm and yet (despite that fact) is on the other side of another norm)
In Polish: i, ale/lub, a
Each language slices up the world in its own manner.
English: siblinghood – brother/sister
Indonesian: siblinghood – kakak/odik (elder/younger)
- Very, one, too
- VERY
relative magnitude, expectations, intensities. Category having to do with norms built up over prior experience
One smart dude, one cute cookie: rich and subtle categories in our minds(the kind of person who goes around saying ‘one smart dude’)
- TOO
- also (he liked it too)
- Overly much (he eats too much). There are analogies linking each too situation to other such situation – abstracting the concept of ‘too’-ness.
- Words: the same categories/concepts from low-frequency ‘hub’ to the most frequent ‘the’, from visual/concrete to intangible/mental.
A language: immense number of labels of categories that people have found useful. Children absorb them by osmosis, we internalize them.
Follow-up exercise II
Give metropolis-analogy bases presentation of the following concepts:
(1)CAT
(2)DO
(3)OR