Филологические науки/ 3.Теоретические и
методологические проблемы исследования языка
M.Phil. Shabalina A.N.
Perspectives of Frame-Propositional
Modeling of Cognate Words
Frame-proposition modeling of families
of cognate words is a new approach to organization of the semantic structure of
the complex unit of the word-formation level of the language. The peculiarity
of the method applied is the investigation focus of the scientist is not the
total of the cognate words with their semantic meanings but only those which
are connected with the relations of situation describing homogeneous activity.
The totality of the lexical units with the common stem, common meaning and
common situation functioning we define as a situation family of cognate words.
The notion of “situation” as a semantic
unit is used in explaining the meaning of a verb which acts as a predicate of a
situation and implicates the other participants. The verb-oriented theories
place the verb in the center of the situation as the principle part of an
action which is true: every meaning of the verb is the generator of a separate
situation within the complex of thinkable possibilities of describing of human
activity.
Analyzing the relations among the
participants of the situations and their semantics as well as theoretical works
on the question we have come to conclusion that every member of the proposition
fulfilling any function can be the starting point of the situation generation
[2].
Situation as a semantic unit correlates
to the natural world with its definition of real place, time, subject, object
and instrument of the action and to the mental world with its reflections of
perceived images of the real world. Studying cognate words from the point of
view of their semantic functioning in the situation and arranging them in
schemes – propositions according to their semantic roles, on one hand, we
reconstruct the cognitive structures with the help of which we maintain the
processes of thinking and, on the other hand, we make evident/ obvious the
prototype activity of a person reflected in the language. Thus we come to
cognitive semantics of words, on one hand, and to the language picture of the
world, on the other hand.
Proposition
is a scheme of a situation. We assume the following participants to be
necessary and enough to describe the situation: subject (S), predicate (P),
object (O), instrument (I), process (R0), result (R),
location (L) and time (T). We undertake a project of
describing an event “Food: cooking and eating of meals” both on the material of
Russian and English languages. In this article we present a situation
family of cognate words or a frame with
the derivation center EAT which includes 11 situations:
I. eater (1. a person who eats) (S) – eats (takes food into the mouth and swallows after biting and chewing in
order to feed the body) (Р) – (Х) smth eatable
(in a fit condition to be eaten)/ eatables (pl food)/ eats (pl sl food) (О) – in the process of eating
(consuming food, taking a meal) (R0);
II. eater (1. a person who eats) (S) – does not eat (does
not takes food into the mouth and swallows after biting and chewing in order to
feed the body) (Р) – (Х) нечто uneatable (not fresh, not nicely prepared) (О);
III. (Х) smb (S) – eats in (eats or dines at home) (Р);
IV. (Х) smb (S) – eats out (has a meal at a restaurant
rather than at home) (Р) – at eatery (informal a snack bar, a canteen)/ eating club (Am a university canteen)/ eating
hall (Am a university canteen)/ eating house (a canteen, a restaurant)/ eats (pl Am “E.” a
canteen, a
cafe (on a highway)) (L);
V. (Х) smb (S) – eats up (consumes
wholly) (Р);
VI. (Х) smb (S) – does not eat up (does not consumes wholly, leaves on
a plate) (Р) – as a result there (Х) smth uneaten (not consumed) (R);
VII. (Х) smb (S) – eats (takes food into the
mouth and swallows) (Р) – eater (2. apple, pear, etc for dessert, good
when eaten uncooked)/ eating-apple (suitable for eating uncooked) (О);
VIII. (Х) smb (S) – eats (consumes food; takes a meal) (Р) – at a certain time (T);
IX. (Х) smb (S) – eats (includes as part of one's diet) (Р) – specially defined
on some reasons products (О);
X. overeater (a person who loves eating; guzzler, guttler) (S) – overeats (eats
too much; guzzles, guts,
guttles) (Р);
XI. (Х) smb (S) – undereats (does not eat enough) (Р).
The family of cognate words
representing the result of perception of the consequently connected actions,
objects, and their characteristics by a human being reflects within the frame
the orderly identified and categorized reality. Frame is characterized by inner
unfolding of the activity which goes under certain rules. As we mentioned above
every specially defined meaning of the verb implicates the concealed situation
which we reveal through restoring of compulsory participants of the situation
correlating to the proposition actors [7. P. 40]. Thus different meanings of
the verb to eat (1) to take food into the mouth and swallow
after biting and chewing in order to feed the body (2) to consume
food; to take a meal (3) to include
as part of one's diet provoke the unfolding of different situations. The
first one we can define as the central situation of the frame EAT, which describes the principle action of
the frame (in our case it is a process of consuming food), around which the
optional situations are formed. The central situation is compulsory for any
correlated frame in any language; meanwhile optional situations are not
obligatory and vary from one language to another, they may or may not be formed
either expressed with the help of cognate words or with the help of other
lexical means. The central situation is usually the most “filled” scheme. In
our case four positions of eight are filled with cognate words: subject (S), predicate (P), object (O) and
process (R0). The other
two meanings of the verb to eat
also serve to expressing special
situations though not so richly objectified (situations VIII. and IX.).
Secondly, some specially
marked lexical units provoke the unfolding of the situation: 1) lexical units
with negative meaning serve to generate situations with negation of the
previously stated action [4]; 2) lexical units with meaning of process, being
the names of action, even at the absence of a predicate verb help to restore
the other participants of the situation [6. P. 104]; 3) lexical units having a
“frame accent, in other words, the immanent or inherent indication for a
certain situation” [3. P. 68] demand developing a definite situation. Thus
lexical units uneatable (not fresh, not nicely prepared) and uneaten (not consumed) indicate the existence of situations (II. and VI.) negative to the previously stated, correspondingly to the
first and the fifth ones. The frame EAT is developed mostly thanks to a wide
range of phrasal verbs (eat in, eat out, eat up) and prefix forms of the verb to eat (overeat, undereat).
Frame-proposition organization
reflects the mental structure of relations between cognate words and serves to
better understanding of human being processes of thinking as well as to
revealing the prototype naïve perception of the world of a common language
speaker.
Литература:
1.
Hornby A.S. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
of Current English. – Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.
2. Шабалина А.Н. Актантное условие порождения
ситуации в рамках фрейма однокоренных слов // Вiсник Днiпропетровського
унiверситету. – Серiя Мовознавство. – 4/2. – 2007. – С. 268-276.
3. Осадчий М.А. Пропозиционально-фреймовое моделирование гнезда однокоренных слов (на материале русских народных говоров). Дисс. … канд. филол. наук. – Кемерово, 2007.
4. Шабалина А.Н. Порождение в рамках фрейма отрицательных ситуаций // Ученые записки Крымского инженерно-педагогического университета. – Симферополь, 2007. – С. 128-132.
5. Шабалина А.Н. Понятие ситуации в аспекте пропозиционально-фреймового моделирования гнезда однокоренных слов // Общетеоретические и типологические проблемы языкознания. – Бийск, 2008. – С. 226-231.
6. Шабалина А.Н. Пропозиционально-фреймовая организация фрагментов гнезд однокоренных слов, описывающих сферу торговли. Дис. … канд. филол. наук. – Кемерово, 2008.
7. Шабалина А. Н. Фрагмент русской языковой картины мира, описывающий сферу торговли (на материале частей гнезд однокоренных слов) // Вестник Томского государственного университета. № 340. – Томск: Томский государственный университет, 2010. – С. 38-44.