Григоренко Наталья Викторовна, кандидат филологических наук, Россия, г.Белгород, НИУ БелГУ (Национальный Исследовательский Университет БелГУ)

The influence of combinatory on the actualization of

the abstract concept “envy”.

The lexicographic actualization of the abstract concept “envy” means, first, the compatible features of words-representatives.

An abstract concept is a sandwiched and rather complex mental unity and the only method of its description is the language. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the language nominates only some part of the concept and maybe not the most significant. Nominations have only definite part of full information about the research object. The nominations themselves are the units presenting the whole object through the parts of its meanings. In this connection semantic and onomasiological structures of the words (i.e. reflecting the object’s features on a selective basis) are to present the whole object [Kubryakova, 1997].

Nevertheless, people see the same object from the different points of view that mean everybody sees only his/her own part of the pattern [Zalevskaya, 2001].

In this connection it must be mentioned about the differences between such terms as “meaning” and “sense”. Let’s consider it on the example of the word “river”: someone sees it as the source of food, another one – as the source of water, the third one – as a short cut, the forth one – as the place for rest and so on, though this word meaning is the same in every case but everyone has put his/her own sense in this word. The word in speech is not identical to the same word as a given nominative unit of the language [Kravchenko, 2001]. The word meaning is non-constant, i.e. it is able to be modified under the impact of different contexts. The correlation of the meaning in statics and dynamics is traced clearly only in the utterance which presents as the constructive whole as the sense prospect and on this basis every word’s meaning is defined and specified [Prokhorova, 1995].

The existence of paradigmatic relations allows saying about lexical semantics as about a system and the existence of syntagmatic relations allows this system to function [Krongaus, 2001].

Some linguists notice that when it is talked of semantic valence of verbs the division on actants and syrconstants is useful for many purposes as they are main and minor participants of the situation and the semantic valence of verbs should be considered as the role of the participant. Such viewing of verbs valence is based on the conception of the diathesis which is defined as the correspondence between semantic roles and syntactic positions (ranks) of the participants, i.e. actant (role) structure. Then diathesis shift is the redistribution of participants’ roles. This is based on the point that the positions of participants can be changed leaving the set of semantic valences of verbs permanent. If diathesis shift occurs the participants can disappear from the situation at all and the actant is missed only on the syntactic level but it continues to be the off-screen participant of the situation [Paducheva, 2004].

In present day linguistics the notion of valence is connected not only with verbs, it is total combinatory of words belonging to different parts of speech. The system of parts of speech is based on the notion about three different cognitive categories – objectness, attributness and action. We differentiate things, their properties, processes, actions, conditions and their features and make categorization of the real world by means of parts of speech.

The notion of valence is not so suitable to nouns and adjectives as to verbs. It may be explained the fact that nouns and adjectives do not depend so much on definite situation that’s why they have no obligatory valence [Rakhilina, ]. Nevertheless the range of semantic valence of nouns and adjectives is unlimited till the syntactic unit has sense, i.e. excluding absurd structures like: My ache weighs three pounds [Pavilenis, 1983].

Combinatory characteristics of nouns and adjectives are based on their semantic features. More over logic-communicative approach to the meaning is assumed that semantic content is formed under the influence of its role in the statement [Wierzbicka, 1985, 1988].

There are two main communicative functions in the sentence: identification of things which are talked about and predication which brings in the information. The meanings of words are adapted to one of the functions. So functions have only two types of meaning: identifiable and predicative. Thus interdependence between combinatory and communicative factor is clear.

Saying about nominal features, it is necessary to mention about the existence of the co called «cluster effect» peculiar to nouns. Jespersen, contrasting a noun and an adjective, paid attention to the fact that the former as a rule designates multitude features, whereas the latter is connected with the only one feature [Jespersen, 1924]. This fact explains wide semantic valence of nouns and limited combinatory of verbs and adjectives.

Syntagmatic relations of words allow forming the meaning of larger units: word→word combination→sentence→text, for example, word interaction gives the sense of word combination. In this connection it is reasonable to consider the H. Scmid’s theory of the context in particular the significant (from the view point of the scientist) difference between «context» and «situation». He defines «situation» as the interaction between objects in the real world verbalized by a speaker and represented by a syntactical unit (sentence). As R. Langacker, H. Scmid defines «context» as a semantic unit considering it a mental phenomenon. The essence of this theory is in the following: when the sentence is being processed by the hearer or reader, the words call up the corresponding cognitive categories, or to put it more simply, the mental concept of the objects which we have in the real world. In addition, a cognitive representation of the interaction between the concepts is formed [Schmid 1996:46-47].

For the present research the significance of the essence of the word combination defined from the words’ meanings is seen from the actualization of the needed semantic variant of a word-representative of the concept «envy». Let us consider some examples proving the above mentioned fact where the main role in the actualization of the needed meaning plays the valence of words:

1. She is jealous of her husband.

2. She is jealous of Helen’s new dress.

3. She is jealous of her charming garden.

These sentences are differed only in the position of the predicative. Nevertheless we can be sure that all three sentences actualize perfectly three different meaning: the first one represents «feeling or showing fear or anger that somebody one loves very much loves or is loved by somebody else more», the second one represents «feeling or showing that one wishes one had somebody else’s advantages, possessions or achievements, i.e. envious», the third one represents «fiercely protective of one’s rights and possessions».

The semantic valence of the «will» verbs representing the close periphery of the concept «envy» is of the same importance as for nouns and adjectives because such verbs have not the meaning «to envy» and it is actualized only by means of combinatory of these verbs with other words. For example, such combinations as to long / to hanker/ to crave/ and so on for ice-cream (cold water, fresh fruit in winter, night to come) actualize the main meaning «want/wish»:

· In those days women desired only to please their husbands [OALD].

· The children are longing for the summer [BNC].

· I wish to be there right now [BNC].

· They want a bigger house [OALD].

But if the object of desire is socially recognized value or something vain following with cupidity and ambition: to long / to hanker/ to crave/ and so on for money (notoriety, power, wealth,…) then it is meant «to envy».

· Sometimes she hankered after luxury and often she envied Mark [Enright 1990].

· Frankie, a lifelong bachelor, often spoke of his longing to have children of his own [BNC].

· His uncle, John George, owned a highly successful cotton agency which was one of the largest in Manchester, and he had the wealthy lifestyle that his nephew craved [Enright, 1990].

· In this myth Isis was a woman who coveted to increase her magic powers and join the gods in order to rule them [BC].

It is evident that in such case the implicit meaning «to envy» is determined not only by the valence of the verb but also by empirical, individual experience. «Filling the definite position in the definite syntactic structure, the word receives additional meanings which are actualized only in this situation» [Nikitin, 1996].

Concerning syntagmatic features of the verb, it is necessary to note that to nominate «envy» there must be at least two valence predicate i.e. two actants: subject (who? envies) and object (what? is envied). Empirical materials prove that there may be much more participants in a syntactic structure, in particular, one more actant (who? is envied, i.e. the object of envy) and sometimes – a syrconstant (the word depending on the verb, as a rule an adverbial modifier) which can illustrate the intensity of emotional, evaluative and causative components.

· At the same time, Jean-Claude was paralyzed with grief, and much as he craved professional recognition, he had no idea how to pursue it [BNC].

· It was the sweet life he had always desired [Pilcher, 1989].

· Almost constantly she longed to be like ordinary-looking girl and have a fellow, even if, like most attachments on the station, it was only a temporary affair [Pilcher, 1995].

· She had always hankered to be tall and fair, like Riborg [Holt, 1997].

As for the words representing cause-and-effect relation of «feeling envy» by a person, assume the realization of this meaning will be based on the interaction of: firstly, the combinatory of these words; secondly, corresponding associations caused by this combinatory. Thus, the farther the word from the concept centre is the clearer the interaction of association and valence in defining the meaning is. G. Frege said that different verbal expressions could be absolutely equivalent as they had something general called sense or, in case of a sentence, thought [Frege 1952:23].

To sum up the same sense or the same thought can be expressed in different ways. So the difference of verbal expressions does not deal with sense but only with «presentiment, shade and colouring of thought». Using the terms of cognitive linguistics it can be said that the difference is that what categorical sign is realized by this or that syntactical unit.

Literature:

Frege, G. Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, 1952.

Jespersen, O. The philosophy of grammar, 1924.

Kravchenko, А. V. Znak, znachenie, znanie, 2001.

Krongaus, M. А. Semantika, 2001.

Kubryakova, E. S. Chasti rechi s kognitivnoy tochki zrenia, 1997.

Nikitin, М. V. Kurs lingvisticheskoy semantiki, 1996.

Paducheva, Е. V. Dinamicheskie modeli v semantike leksiki, 2004.

Pavilenis, R. I. Problema smysla, 1983.

Prokhorova, О. N. Sintaksis svyazanykx struktur, 1995.

Rakhilina, Е. V. Kognitivny analiz predmetnyh imen: semantika i sochetaemost’, 2000.

Schmid, H. An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics, 1996.

Wierzbicka, A. Lexicography and conceptual analysis, 1985.

Wierzbicka, A. The semantics of grammar, 1988.

Zalevskaya, А. А. Psikholingvisticheski podkhod k problem kontsepta, 2001.

Enright R. Alexa’s Vineyard, 1990.

Pilcher, R. Coming Home, 1995.

Pilcher, R. The Shell Seekers, 1989.

Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary (OALD), 2000

The British National Corpus (BNC) http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/orp.ox.ac.uk/.

The Brown Corpus (BC) http://khnt.aksis.uib.no/icame/manuals/brown/.