Western Linguistics Series (5) -- From Etymology to Pragmatics

Author: Eve Sweetser (USA)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-01-01
Features: In various languages, modal verbs, conjunctions, conditional words, and perceptual verbs are probably both vivid and difficult to grasp their meanings. Their polysemy not only puzzles linguists but also analytical philosophers. Despite this, Eve E. Sweetser's arguments still demonstrate to us that they can be analyzed and systematically analyzed. Semantic relationships are not independent of human cognitive structures, including the metaphorical and cultural aspects of such structures. Whether lexical ambiguity or pragmatic vagueness, they are shaped by cognitive and linguistic processes through the conventional metaphorical ways. This book starts with the phenomenon of polysemy, placing such special words in the historical context of the Indo-European language family to explore the changes in their semantic structures, highlighting the role of metaphor and culture in the evolution of linguistic cognition. This book will also attract scholars engaged in cognitive science, metaphor, and philosophical research.