RADIAL CATEGORIES IN WORD MEANING (MS KIM PHUNG)

Recall that cognitive semantics identifies meaning with conceptual structure, the network of stored representations in our memory involved in thought and language. A word can be seen as an entry point to a certain 'region' of our conceptual structure. Using the ideas discussed in the preceding sections, we can now sketch the way in which cognitive semantics models the conceptual knowledge structures underlying meaning. We will do this with the English noun head.

The meaning of head depends on a specific aspect of our conceptual structure: the underlying knowledge English speakers have about heads - - the ICM of head, in Lakoff's terminology. This knowledge is, of course, encyclopedic, but this does not mean that everything we know about heads is automatically evoked by every use of the noun head. Instead, an occurrence of the word allows access to this idealized model, not all of which will necessarily be relevant in any single context. What might some of this knowledge be? Presumably, for most English speakers, the ICM of head contains such information as the fact that the head is at the top of the body, that it contains the brain, the fact that ears, eyes, mouth and nose are located on it, the fact that it is mostly made of bone, that thinking happens inside it, and so on. Perhaps, as suggested by some investigators, one aspect of the conceptualization associated with head (as with any other non-abstract word) is a visual/spatial element, encoding such features as the referent's typical shape, colour and overall appearance (Jackendoff 2002: 345-350).

The ICM of head determines the way in which ordinary sentences involving it are understood. For instance, we know that the expression shake one's head refers to a particular back and forth movement of the head, rather than to an action in which one takes one's head in one's hands and shakes it. Similarly, we know that if asked to turn one's head we should turn it horizontally from one side to another, not move it in a fixed circular motion without allowing it to come to rest. Facts like these are part of our understanding of head, and must therefore be represented in conceptual structure.

Different aspects of this ICM may become relevant in different contexts. For instance, the expressions in (a) call on the knowledge that the head is where thinking occurs.

(a) to use one's head

to lose one's head to be a hot head to be off one's head to get one's head around a problem/question/subject.

Relatedly, (b) involves that part of the ICM which states that the head contains ideas:

(b) He needs his head read.

The expressions in (c) and (c’) highlight those parts of the head ICM which represent the importance of the head in our understanding of vertigo and alcohol consumption, respectively.

(c) a head for heights

(c’) a head for alcohol

That part of the head ICM specifying that the head consists of a hard layer of skull enclosing the brains is relevant to the interpretation of (d):

(d) to have a thick head

It should be clear that different facets of the head ICM may be relevant at different times. On this approach to meaning, we do not need to conclude that the noun head has a large variety of distinct or polysemous senses. Instead, we simply posit that head evokes a single ICM, and that different aspects of that ICM become relevant or profiled in different contexts.