engleski

The concept of refusal in English: a usage-based account of near-synonyms

Cognitive Linguistics advocates a usage-based account of language (Langacker 1989 ; Barlow and Kemmer 2000) in which form-meaning pairings play a vital role. The totality of such pairings, from the most schematic ones such as argument-structures all the way down to lexically filled patterns, constitutes an inventory of structures called language (Langacker 1989). Such a model views frequency of pattern occurrence as the driving force of conceptual entrenchment. This paper is an investigation into the form-meaning correlations found in English near-synonymous verbs related to the concept of refusal. A detailed analysis of large corpus samples of the verbs refuse, reject, decline and turn down was performed, marking each usage along a number of morphosyntactic and semantic parameters, including constructions such as V + object and V + to-infinitive, as well as tense, aspect, voice, negation and the semantic characteristics of subjects and objects. Based on an underlying cognitive model of refusal and its main elements, analyzed data show that frequencies of patterns for each verb point to the degree of conceptual prominence of the elements in the model, as well as their interrelations. Among features that prove to be most indicative of form-meaning correlations are the semantic characteristics of objects in transitive constructions, types of verbs in refuse/decline + to-infinitive constructions, increased frequencies of passives occurring with reject and turn down, as well as the usage of tenses and verbal aspect. The fine-grained quantitative pattern analysis proposed in the paper provides an insight into the integral behavior of verbs that cannot be gained by means of introspective methodologies. It results in a usage-based account of how the conceptual structure of the cognitive model of refusal is reflected on various levels of linguistic structures, enabling comparisons in the usage of near-synonymous verbs and identification of those patterns that point to either similarities or differences in meaning. References: Langacker, R. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar I. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Barlow, M. and S. Kemmer. 2000. Usage-based Models of Language. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.

cognitive linguistics; concept of refusal; near-synonyms; usage-based model of langauge; behavioural profiles

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