On The Conceptual Directedness Of Lexeme

On the basis of cognitive evolutionary mentalism, this dissertation puts forward a semantic theory, namely, Hypothesis of Conceptual Directedness of Lexeme (HCDL), coupled with the Selective Principle of Conceptual Directedness of Lexeme (SPCDL), a theory that takes full consideration of the complicated connection of language, reality and mind, in an attempt (1) to explicate the semantic motivations for the distinction between referential and descriptive function a lexeme, particulary a noun phrase serves in sentence, and (2) to explore the semantic motivations for the feasibility of logic flaws exsiting in natural lanugage, especially in generic sentences and tautology construction, and their cognitive function and values.It is posited that the meaning of a linguisitc symbol has its conceptual foundation in the directedness-a feature that is attributable to the symbol when it projects itself to the object outside except for itself. The directedness of a linguistic smybol is considerablly instantiated by the directedness of lexeme in language. According to HCDL, any word can be analyzed in terms of its conceptual directedness (CD), a feature that the word has when it projects itself to the concept symbolized by itself. To analyze the conceptual structure of words reflected by their static semantic structure, a dichotomy of the conceptual directedness of lexeme is proposed, i.e., intension-directedness and extension-directedness. When a lexeme is used dynamically in a sentence, however, only one of its CDs, either intension or extension, is selected, with the CD selection operator confining the selection of the CD in the sentence. Intension-directedness and extension-directedness constitute the conceptual structure of a lexeme, which is essential to the alternative function of the lexeme, either referential or descriptive, due to the selection of the CD in different syntactic conditions. Therefore, the distinction between referential function and descriptive function of a lexeme is the result of the constraint imposed by the selection of CD of the lexeme on the morphsyntactical structure. This grammatical effect is embodied in the collocation and distribution of relevant words in the sentence, and still obviously in the recognition of referential type of the lexeme and the realization of its referential meaning.It is unlikely to justify the logic flaws in natural language from a formal perspective without taking semantic factors into account. A scrutiny into generic sentences in this dissertation reveals that the selection of CD of the subject noun phrase in any generic sentence is consistently of intension-directedness, which is a basic condition for a noun phrase to be used generically in the sentence. The intension-directedness selection of a noun phrase renders semantic motivation for the sentence with this CD-selected noun phrase to establish and generate a new concept, or to enrich an established concept, and to transmit, receive the concept as well. Similarly, tautology construction exists on the condition that NP1 and NP2 which are morphologically identical have exactly the same selection of CD of the noun phrase, with intension-directedness selection in common. Tautology construction, which is characteristic of being semantically uninformative, hence producing information redundancy in the communicative system, serves to counteract the distorting effects of the information noise from the addressee. In information engineering, noise refers to any disturbances or defects in the system which interfere with the faithful transmission of signal. While in any verbal communication, information noise, the addressee-held information that is incompatible, even in conflict with the transmitted information, is one of such disturbing variables that interfere with the reliability and efficiency of information transmission. Verbal communication is an information negotiating process in which communicators take measures to counteract the disturbances or defects caused by information noise so as to guarantee the faithful and reliable transmission of information. Tautology construction is an "instrumental strategy" employed by the addresser that satisfies that need, the cognitive function of which lies in the role that tautology construction plays as an instrumental strategy in producing information redundancy that counteracts the disturbing effects of information noise to the transmitted information.Form/meaning pairing, as a general and foundamental principle in language organization, also witnesses its testification in the logic flaws in generic sentences and tautology construction, though not in the same fashion. In terms of generics, generic sentences serve the function to describe the type concept represented by the subject noun phrase, this is due to the intension-directedness selection of the noun phrase. So if we substitute the individuality represented by the relevant token concept for the category represented by the type concept, it is impossible to understand generic sentence in a correct way. Evidently, the form/meaning pairing principle is preserved in generics, and the logic flaws in generic sentence to a large degree result from the substitution of token concept for type concept. If we can clarify the conceptual directedness of the noun phrase in generic sentences, the logic flaws would receive reasonable cancellation. As for tautology construction, the form/meaning pairing principle is preserved in terms of function coupling-a particular linguistic form to produce information redundancy in order to enhance the reliability and efficiency of information transmission.The Hypothesis of Conceptual Directedness of Lexeme (HCDL) is postulated on the re-interpretation of conceptualization from the perspective of cognitive evolutionary mentalism, which takes full consideration of the relationship among language, reality and mind. Reality has its representation in the language world owing to the mental representation of the reality in our conceptual world, whereas language is only a repetition of the mental representation. Specifically, we obtain the mental representation of the reality in the fashion of a variety of concepts through our cognitive experience; and a variety of linguistic forms are used by human beings to repeat the mental representation of the reality, i.e., concepts, so as to articulate what is in their mind. This is an account of language that takes mental factors into consideration. Secondly, the mental representation of the reality is possible because of the conceptualization capacity human beings have. Conceptualization, on the one hand, refers to the psychological process by which the concept of an entity in the reality is dynamically constructed on the basis of the mental establishment of both the intension (quality) and extension (quantity) of the entity in the mind. More importantly, conceptualization should be taken as an in-born cognitive capacity and the physiological mechanism of brain that result from a long history of evolution of human beings and human brain, as a fixed cognitive mode that human beings were endowed with in their encounter with the environment, as a part of the genic information that was constructed, accumulated and transmitted from generation to generation in the process of evolution.Looking at conceptualization from this cognitive revolutionary perspective, the Hypothesis of Conceptual Directedness of Lexeme (HCDL) captures a characteristic of naturalized biologism.