A Cognitive Account of the Lexical Polysemy of Chinese Kai

A Cognitive Account of the Lexical Polysemy of Chinese Kai Flora Y u-Fang Wang Graduate Institute of English, National Taiwan Normal University Abstract Since polysemy has multiple but related senses, finding any coherent system would seem impossible. But its senses are not random. When we look at inferences among them, it becomes clear that there must be a systematic structure of some kind. Based on the prototype theory, which views lexical items as constituting natural categories of senses, the present work aims at proposing solutions to problems resulting from the polysemy of kai. After an in-depth analysis of the polysemy kai, we find that the links between polysemy senses are defined not only by shared properties (i.e. analogy), but also by conceptual connections (e.g. metonymy or metaphor). This study suggests that polysemy reflects human's categorization of things and can be successfully accounted for by a cognitive approach. 1. INTRODUCTION It is very common for a single word to have multiple meanings. Take the Chinese word zou 'walk', for example. It is considerably different for Zhangsan zou banmaxian 'Zhangsan to walk the zebra crossing' and for Zhangsan zou niourou shengyi 'Zhangsan to run a beef business'. This single word with two senses is so related that we would hardly discern the difference. Such case is called polysemy, which is entered once but not separately in the dictionary with its multiple meanings in lexicography. But not all senses of a polysemous word look closely related in a systematical way, for example, (1) Zhengfu� jiangyao zai zhe difang kai yi tiao lu. government is going to at this place open a CL road 'The government will open a road here.' (2) Xiaoming yi� huijia,� jiu mashang� kai dianshi. Xiaoming as soon as come home then immediately open TV 'As soon as Xiaoming came back home, he immediately turned on TV.' (3)Na ge nuhai kai yi hang hongse paoche. that CL girl open a CL red� sports car 'That girl drives a red sports car.' (4) Ta kai le� yi zhang zhipiao gei wo. he open ASP a CL check for me 'He writes a check for me.' (5)Lisi de baba zai Taipei kai yi jia chaojishichang. Lisi DE father in Taipei open a CL supermarket 'Lisi's father runs a supermarket in Taipei.' (6) Jintian xiawu� gongsi kai le yi ge huiyi. today afternoon company open ASP a CL meeting 'Our company held a meeting this afternoon.' Apparently, kai in these examples is in several senses, i.e., the actions described by the verb kai are very diverse. What do they have to do with each other? According to the classical theory of categories, things are in the same category if only if they have certain properties in common. These properties are necessary and sufficient conditions for defining the category. However, multiple senses of a polysemous form do not seem to share objective truth- condition but they constitute a single lexical item, as the above examples show. Its relatedness of meaning cannot be completely made …

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