Radial categories in word meaning
Recall that cognitive semantics identifies meaning with conceptual structure, the network of stored representations in our memory involved in thought and language (see 1.6.2 for discussion). A word can be seen as an entry point to a certain ‘region’ of our conceptual structure. Using the ideas discussed in the preceding sections, we can now sketch the way in which cognitive semantics models the conceptual knowledge structures underlying meaning. We will do this with the English noun head.
The meaning of head depends on a specific aspect of our conceptual structure: the underlying knowledge English speakers have about heads – the ICM of head, in Lakoff’s terminology. This knowledge is, of course, encyclopaedic, but this does not mean that everything we know about heads is automatically evoked by every use of the noun head. Instead, an occurrence of the word allows access to this idealized model, not all of which will necessarily be relevant in any single context. What might some of this knowledge be? Presumably, for most English speakers, the ICM of head contains such information as the fact that the head is at the top of the body, that it contains the brain, the fact that ears, eyes, mouth and nose are located on it, the fact that it is mostly made of bone, that thinking happens inside it, and so on (see 3.3 for a discussion of encyclopaedic information). Perhaps, as suggested by some investigators, one aspect of the conceptualization associated with head (as with any other non-abstract word) is a visual/spatial element, encoding such features as the referent’s typical shape, colour and overall appearance (Jackendoff 2002: 345–350).
The ICM of head determines the way in which ordinary sentences involving it are understood. For instance, we know that the expression shake one’s head refers to a particular back and forth movement of the head, rather than to an action in which one takes one’s head in one’s hands and shakes it. Similarly, we know that if asked to turn one’s head we should turn it horizontally from one side to another, not move it in a fixed circular motion without allowing it to come to rest. Facts like these are part of our understanding of head, and must therefore be represented in conceptual structure.
Different aspects of this ICM may become relevant in different contexts. For instance, the expressions in (5) call on the knowledge that the head is where thinking occurs.
Relatedly, (6) involves that part of the ICM which states that the head contains ideas:
The expressions in (7a) and (7b) highlight those parts of the head ICM which represent the importance of the head in our understanding of vertigo and beverage consumption, respectively.
(7) a. a head for heights
b. a head for cola
That part of the head ICM specifying that the head consists of a hard layer of skull enclosing the brains is relevant to the interpretation of (8):
Expression (9) appeals to our knowledge that the head is the location of the main perceptual organs; if the head is buried, these obviously cannot function:
Expression (10) depends on the knowledge that the head is a highly salient part of the body, and one which often serves to identify people:
Finally, our knowledge that a typical human head is covered with hair allows us to correctly interpret the following expressions:
It should be clear that different facets of the head ICM may be relevant at different times. On this approach to meaning, we do not need to conclude that the noun head has a large variety of distinct, polysemous senses (see 5.3), such as ‘location of perceptual organs’, ‘site of thought’, ‘part of body from which scalp hair grows’, and so on. Instead, we simply posit that head evokes a single ICM, and that different aspects of that ICM become relevant or profiled in different contexts. Note also that the ICM is idealized. It is modelled on the human head. The closer a creature’s head is to a human head, the more appropriate it is to describe it as having a head. Thus, there is nothing odd about describing monkeys, dogs, cats and many other types of animal as having heads, whereas it seems more strained so to describe the corresponding bodyparts of worms, whales, spiders, snails and starfish.
We have not exhausted the uses of head in English, however. None of the following uses can be explained with reference to the ICM we have just described:
Since the original ICM does not apply, we will describe these uses as semantic extensions from it. These extensions can plausibly be analysed as metaphors. In all of them, aspects of the head ICM are mapped onto other domains. In (12a–d) the structure of the human body, with the head at the top, is exploited metaphorically as a model for objects which do not obviously have this structure. In (12e) we have a metaphorical use in which the head’s control of the rest of the body serves as the foundation for a metaphorical mapping onto an organization, while in (12f) the head foot structure of the human body is mapped onto the structure of a piece of furniture.
Note that while it seems plausible to interpret the uses of head in (12 a–f) as metaphorical mappings, this interpretation disguises many of the uncertainties that surround the details of this process. Thus, (12a) may be based on the image not of a human head, but on the head of a snake, or perhaps a worm. Similarly, (12f) is no doubt partly due to the fact that people lie in beds, providing a very obvious way of aligning the dimensions of the two. It may not be simply the case that the structure of the body is mapped onto the structure of the bed metaphorically; instead, we might have a metonymy, in which head stands for the place at which the head lies. In (12e), is the use of head motivated by the position of the head at the top of the hammer or axe, or is it rather dependent on the separate bulbous nature of heads?
QUESTION What are some possible motivations of the expressions head of a valley and head of state? What evidence might be appealed to to substantiate one particular analysis of these expressions over another?
Head also shows a number of clearly metonymic uses:
In (13a–c), head refers not simply to that body part alone, but to the whole person or animal. In (13a), for instance, heads clearly conveys that the Democrats should follow the advice of the wisest people in their caucus (cf. (5) above). What we have here, then, is the use of a word denoting part of a body to stand for the whole person: this part-for-whole relation is a classic metonymy, parallel to the use of screen for auditorium in (4b) above. Exactly the same metonymy is present in (13c). In (13d), on the other hand, the metonymic extension goes from the standard sense to the sense illness of the head, headache, using the bodypart to stand for the pain experienced in it.
Representing the meaning of head in English therefore involves a detailed specification of the ICM underlying it, and of the metaphorical and metonymic relations in which this ICM participates. Note that given the ICM of head, we cannot predict what extended meanings it will take on. However, once we know what these extended meanings are, we are able to account for them economically in terms of metaphor and metonymy. This type of analysis can be applied quite generally to the lexicon. This type of structure, ‘where there is a central case and conventionalized variations on it which cannot be predicted by general rules’, is called a radial structure by Lakoff (1987: 84). For head, the central case is represented by uses consistent with the ICM described above, and the variations are the metaphoric and metonymic extensions we have discussed.
Note that some of the expressions involving head may be conventionalized or idiomatic: in other words, some of the collocations in which head participates may be partly preformed or fossilized. This seems particularly likely for expressions where the use of head is not productive, such as head of cattle or redhead (cf. *head of poultry/fish, *blondehead/brownhead). Conventionalization could be taken as evidence against the radial categories and metaphorical and metonymic extensions from them postulated in cognitive semantics. The production and interpretation of expressions like head of cattle, it might be argued, is not explained by these structures at all; head of cattle and other conventionalized expressions are simply listed in the lexicon as separate units. A cognitive semanticist could reply that conventionalization like this in no way invalidates the notion of a radial category with senses being elaborated from the basis of a core ICM; indeed, the gradual ‘freezing’ of various collocations into fixed expressions and idioms is only to be expected. The analysis given above can be taken to explain the origin of such expressions, as well as the process of interpretation a hearer would have to go through in order to understand the meaning on first exposure to the idiom. The explanatory contribution of the radial category model is thus not committed to the idea that every aspect of the ICM and extensions from it are freshly activated on every occurrence of the noun. Nevertheless, the description we have given allows a compendious and elegant representation of the conceptual links between the different aspects of the word’s meaning and the extensions which they undergo.
Question Consider the English nouns neck, mouth, eye, nose, arm and back. Are their meanings amenable to a similar treatment to that of head?
