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Meanings and Prototypes: Studies in Linguistic Categorization

Meanings and Prototypes: Studies in Linguistic Categorization

Paperback

Series: Routledge Library Editions: Linguistics

Linguistics

ISBN10: 1138980668
ISBN13: 9781138980662
Publisher: Routledge
Published: Nov 26 2015
Pages: 600
Weight: 1.83
Height: 1.21 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English

There are fewer distinctions in any language than there are distinct things in the universe. If, therefore, languages are ways of representing the universe, a primary function of their elements must be to allow the much more varied kinds of elements out of which the universe is made to be categorized in specific ways. A prototype approach to linguistic categories is a particular way of answering the question of how this categorization operates. It involves two claims. First, that linguistic categorization exploits principles that are not specific to language but characterize most, if not all, processes of cognition. Secondly, that a basic principle by which cognitive and linguistic categories are organized is the prototype principle, which assigns elements to a category not because they exemplify properties that are absolutely required of each one of its members, but because they exhibit, in varying degrees, certain types of similarity with a particular category member which has been established as the best example (or: prototype) of its kind.

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