Commentary on Cristofaro - What Do Semantic Maps Tell Us?

Author's Reply -what Multifunctionality Patterns Tell Us

Semantic maps and mental representation 1

This paper examines the implications of cross-linguistic multifunctionality patterns, as described by semantic maps, in terms of mental representation, that is, to what extent these patterns tell us something about the existence of a relationship between different conceptual situations that is perceived by speakers and is arguably represented in a speaker’s mind. By conceptual situation is mean...

Cognitive Mechanisms Need to Be Operationalized Comment on ‘ Semantic Maps and Mental Representation ’ by Sonia Cristofaro ( 2010 )

Cristofaro (2010) voices a growing trend within cognitive-functional linguistics to explain language universals in terms of productive processes in language use rather than in terms of universal conceptual representations. Such mechanisms include metonymy and generalization. Even though I fully agree with this general approach, the proposed mechanisms remain too fuzzy and incomplete to shed new...

Analyzing semantic maps: a multifactorial approach

In this paper I argue that semantic similarity is not the only factor which motivates polysemy patterns cross-linguistically; I also show that these other factors (markedness, distinguishability, etc) may give rise to polysemies which are problematic for established semantic maps. Only when these other interfering factors, both functional and structural, are featured out, does a semantic networ...

Semantic Maps and Mental Representation

Semantic maps are usually assumed to describe a universal arrangement of different conceptual situations in a speaker's mind as determined by perceived relations of similarity between these conceptual situations. This paper provides a number of arguments that challenge this view, based on various types of evidence from processes of semantic change and synchronic implicational universals. The mu...