A Cognitive Study On Generalization Of Proper Nouns

Generally, proper nouns are treated as expressions that signify unique entities in the world.They are contrasted to common nouns as being neutral and functioning merely as signifiers of places,organizations or people.However, in some context, proper nouns do not have any rigid designators and undergo generalization. Lots of scholars have studied this phenomenon from various perspectives and given some insightful views. This thesis is to study the phenomenon from cognitive perspective and aims to have a deeper understanding of the phenomenon and explore its theoretical implications.Cognitive linguists hold that meaning is encyclopedic and that meaning-construction is conceptualization. The concept of a proper noun is composed of a [TYPE] concept and a [TOKEN] concept. The duality of the conceptual structure of proper nouns serves as the semantic basis for generalization. The cognitive mechanisms for the process are metonymy and metaphor which are the everyday ways we think, act as well as we talk. In some cases, they do not function alone. Rather, they interplay with each other in a step by step fashion during the process of meaning-construction of proper nouns, which is complex, dynamic and flexible. The cognitive motivation of generalization of proper nouns is in that we can employ the existing concise language units to convey some novel or a large amount of information so as to fill in semantic gapping and achieve economy in both language and cognition. The process accords with human being's cognition and the way we organize our experience. Our study shows that not only the proper nouns that have gained conventional knowledge can undergo generalization; rather, all proper nouns can experience generalization based on metonymic perspectivization. The study further confirms that semantics is primary and grammatical structure of natural language is the form to embody meaning and cognition. Therefore,grammatical structure of natural language offers an important new source of evidence for the theory of cognition.