Open AccessThe Norwegian lexical item akkurat and the Polish akurat: a cognitive semantic analysis
Author(s) -
Ewa Data-Bukowska
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
cognitive studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2392-2397
pISSN - 2080-7147
DOI - 10.11649/cs.2014.018
Subject(s) - subjectification , norwegian , linguistics , cognitive linguistics , cognitive semantics , semantics (computer science) , cognition , semantic analysis (machine learning) , psychology , computer science , natural language processing , philosophy , neuroscience , programming language
The Norwegian lexical item akkurat and the Polish akurat: a cognitive semantic analysisThe aim of the article is to demonstrate to what extent the Norwegian akkurat and the Polish akurat show similarities and differences in their conceptual content (meaning). Adopting the perspective of cognitive semantics (CS), as described in Langacker (1987) and Lakoff (1987), I shall try to show that the meanings ascribed to these etymologically and formally related words constitute complex networks of senses, rooted in a prototypical centre in each of the languages under discussion. In addition to this, the findings will be interpreted with reference to the process of pragmaticalization (a language unit’s development of increasing pragmatic functions). Within this theoretical framework I shall demonstrate that subjectification/intersubjectification and pejoration/melioration motivate the main semantic difference between akkurat and akurat. The analysis is based on Norwegian and Polish monolingual corpus data.