Table Of ContentThe Structure of Lexical Variation
Cognitive Linguistics Research
5
Editors
Rene Dirven
Ronald W. Langacker
Mouton de Gruyter
Berlin · New York
The Structure of Lexical Variation
Meaning, Naming, and Context
Dirk Geeraerts
Stefan Grondelaers
Peter Bakema
1994
Mouton de Gruyter
Berlin · New York
Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague)
is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Geeraerts, D.
The structure of lexical variation : meaning, naming, and context /
by Dirk Geeraerts, Stefan Grondelaers, Peter Bakema.
p. cm. — (Cognitive linguistics research ; 5)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 3-11-014387-9 (alk. paper)
1. Lexicology. 2. Language and languages — Variation. I. Gron-
delaers, Stefan, 1966- . II. Bakema, Peter, 1967-
III. Title. IV. Series.
P326.G44 1994
413'.028-dc20 94-12628
CIP
Die Deutsche Bibliothek — Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Geeraerts, Dirk:
The structure of lexical variation : meaning, naming, and context / by
Dirk Geeraerts; Stefan Grondelaers ; Peter Bakema. — Berlin ; New
York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1994
(Cognitive linguistics research ; 5)
ISBN 3-11-014387-9
NE: Grondelaers, Stefan:; Bakema, Peter:; GT
© Copyright 1994 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-10785 Berlin.
All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Printing: Arthur Collignon GmbH, Berlin
Binding: Dieter Mikolai, Berlin
Printed in Germany
Acknowledgements
The present study contains the results of a research project that ran from
1990 to 1993 at the Research Centre for the Semantics of Syntax and the
Lexicon of the Department of Linguistics of the University of Leuven. The
project was supported by grant OT90/7 of the research council of the Uni-
versity of Leuven, and by grant 2.0078.90 of the Belgian National Science
Foundation (NFWO).
The division of linguistic labor among the authors was as follows. Dirk
Geeraerts was responsible for the inception, definition, planning, and super-
vision of the research. Peter Bakema and Stef Grondelaers compiled the
corpus and prepared the materials used in the various analyses brought to-
gether in this book; database management was Stef Grondelaers's special
task. The text of the book was written by Dirk Geeraerts.
For various kinds of practical help along the way, the authors owe a
special gratitude to Lieve Herten, Jan Willems, Vincent de Keyzer, Willy
Smedts, Paul Bijnens, Fred Truyen, Dirk Speelman, and Eliane Mahy. For
critical comments with regard to earlier versions of the text, thanks are due
to Patricia Defour, Karoline Claes, Petra Campe, Maarten Lemmens, Arthur
Mettinger, Ron Langacker, Rene Dirven, and John Taylor. The present text
is probably not the best book they can imagine, but their constructive
criticism has certainly made it a better one.
Contents
1. Varieties of variation 1
2. Methods and materials 17
2.1. Selected sources and database structure 18
2.2. Characteristics of the corpus 32
2.3. Points of methodology 37
3. Semasiological variation 45
3.1. Types of prototypicality 45
3.2. Non-discreteness of word meanings [1]:
definability 56
3.3. Non-discreteness of word meanings [2]:
uncertainty of membership status 76
3.4. Non-equality of word meanings: salience effects 89
3.5. The influence of contextual variation 105
4. Onomasiological variation 117
4.1. Non-discreteness in lexical fields:
demarcation problems 118
4.2. Non-equality in lexical fields: entrenchment 134
4.3. The influence of contextual variation 146
5. Formal variation 155
5.1. The influence of prototypicality 156
5.2. The influence of entrenchment 169
5.3. The influence of contextual variation 177
6. Ten theses about lexicology 189
References 197
Index of subjects 205
Chapter 1
Varieties of variation
Deciding what to wear is one thing - but deciding how to name what you are
wearing is no less a matter of choice. Suppose you are putting on a pair of
trousers made of strong blue cloth, such as are worn especially for work or
as an informal kind of dress. Various lexical alternatives then suggest them-
selves: jeans, blue jeans, trousers, pants. But the options do not have the
same value. Jeans and blue jeans, to begin with, have another meaning than
trousers and pants: jeans are a type of trousers, whereas trousers names all
two-legged outer garments covering the lower part of the body from the
waist down, regardless of the specific kind involved. (In the technical terms
of lexical semantics, jeans is a hyponym, or subordinate term, of the more
general, superordinate term trousers.) Pants, on the other hand, represents a
more complicated case than trousers, because it may be used both for the
general class of trousers, and for a man's underpants. (In this case, pants is
technically speaking a synonym of underpants.) The latter kind of usage,
however, appears to be typical for British English. At the same time, pants
in its more general reading is an informal term in comparison with trousers
(but then again, this is a stylistic difference that occurs specifically in British
English).
All the data in this example, summarized in Figure 1(1), have been taken
from the first edition of the Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English
(1981). Precisely because they involve lexical and semantic variation, it may
well be the case that the data in the figure do not adequately capture the
intuitions of all native speakers of English: the variation may be even more
extensive than suggested here. The point about Figure 1(1), however, is not
to achieve descriptive completeness with regard to pants and its cognates,
but to illustrate the various types of variation that have to be taken into ac-
count in descriptive lexicological research.
The various kinds of lexical variation involved in the example, then, may
be systematically distinguished in the following way. First, there is the fact
that words may mean several things, as with the more restricted and the
Varieties of variation
more general reading of pants. Second, the same kind of referent may be
named by various semantically distinct lexical categories, as illustrated by
the choice between jeans / blue jeans and trousers / pants, even though
jeans and pants are not synonyms, there are situations in which both are
appropriate names for a particular garment. In fact, any time jeans is
British English American English
formal informal
two-legged
outer garment trousers pants pants / trousers
(in general)
men's under- underpants pants underpants
wear
trousers made
of strong blue jeans / blue jeans jeans / blue jeans
cloth
Figure 1(1)
Sample lexical data on pants and cognate terms
appropriate, the hyperonymous term pants will be suited as well; the reverse,
of course, is not the case. Third, the same kind of referent may be named by
various words, which may or may not differ from a semantic point of view;
this type of variation, then, encompasses the previous one. The choice
between trousers and pants (in its general reading), for instance, may be
influenced by considerations of formality and stylistic appropriateness, but
does not involve denotational semantic differences of the type distinguishing
jeans and trousers. Even though they do not have precisely the same stylistic
value (at least in British English, pants is more informal than trousers),
trousers and pants (in its general reading) are equivalent as far as their
meanings are concerned. Therefore, in a situation in which a particular
