Lexis

Contextual information in the dictionary: A critical approach of the additional example feature in online monolingual English dictionaries with a focus on translators’ needs

Amélie Josselin-Leray — 2023-11-14

One of the translator’s primary needs is for contextual information, which helps him/her to fully understand the source text and/or to select the most suitable equivalent. Such information can be presented in dictionaries, which remain a tool that translators rely on heavily, despite the development of new translation technologies. The variety and presentation of contextual information found in dictionaries has been criticized by translators for a long time, due to the traditional context-free vs. context-bound dilemma. However, this has changed following the advent of corpora in the dictionary-making process: more and more lexicographers have been using a corpus-driven or corpus-based approach, which has allowed meaning to be explained in context and examples to be numerous and authentic. Online monolingual learner’s English dictionaries thus now include an “additional example” feature that provides users with large quantities of examples, which are in most cases taken from corp...

Applying Classification Trees to Stress Patterns of Japanese Loanwords in English

Bradley Lunsford — 2023-11-14

This paper provides an analysis of the stress patterns of loanwords of Japanese origin in English. The ctree function of the party package in R is used to create classification trees. The stress pattern is not immediately obvious, so the algorithm is used to discover the significant predictor variables and create a classification tree. This illustration displays the stress pattern in a straightforward manner. The determining factor for the stress assignment of Japanese loanwords in English is syllable weight and vowel sonority. The presence of a final coda is the significant variable for the stress assignment in two-syllable loanwords, whereas vowel sonority is the significant variable for stress assignment in three and four-syllable loanwords. This provides support for Kenstowicz’s [1997] and deLacy’s [2002] universal sonority hierarchy.

A morphopragmatic study of [X-word] constructions through their morphological replicability and pragmatic functions

José Antonio Sánchez Fajardo — 2023-11-14

The objective of this study is twofold. Firstly, it aims to examine the process of morphological replicability (MR) of [X-word] constructions (e.g. n-word, f-word, l-word) through the effects of the evaluative meaning of [X]- on the overall frequency of these constructions in the data. Employing a combination of the usage-based and the prototype approaches, this research study seeks to assess how dysphemistic constructions analogically extend out from prototypical euphemistic ones through MR. The second objective is to attempt at illustrating, from a pragmatic perspective, the variety of intentions behind the use of [X-word] constructions. The dataset, which is extracted from the NOW Corpus, includes a total of 24 [X-word] categories (e.g. a-word, b-word), the first 200 hits in each of which are examined to determine the meaning of [X]- and the pragmatic function associated with the construction, as well as to calculate the index (R), which is directly proportional to the MR rate. T...

The real polysemous meaning of real: a study in lexical pragmatics

Olivier Simonin — 2023-11-14

Our main objective is to provide an account of the meaning of the polysemous adjective real that is theoretically grounded in post-Gricean pragmatics (Carston [2002], Recanati [2003], Sperber & Wilson [1996]). Combining lexical semantics and linguistic pragmatics is not new (see, e.g., Depraetere [2014] and Carston [2021]) and we believe that it can lead to a better understanding of the actual use of lexemes in context – especially when they are polysemous. Drawing on two pragmatic mechanisms, modulation and disambiguation (or lack thereof), we show how they interact with the lexical content of real and illustrate with genuine occurrences taken from ICE-GB (all of which we systematically annotated semantically). Little attention has been paid to the adjective real in the literature (with some exceptions: Bolinger [1972], Magnusson [2003]). Real is an untypical adjective. Its meaning is scalar when it causes a potentially gradable head noun (Filippi-Deswelle [2014], Moreau [2022]) to...

Axiological connotation and the semantic-pragmatic distinction

Anouch Bourmayan — 2023-11-14

In this paper, I investigate how axiological connotation articulates with the semantic-pragmatic distinction. First, I consider the semantic-pragmatic distinction in terms of encoded vs. non encoded meaning: I argue that one should distinguish between linguistically encoded axiological connotation and culturally encoded axiological connotation. Second, I consider the semantic-pragmatic distinction in terms of truth-conditional vs. non truth-conditional content. I show that both linguistically and culturally encoded axiological connotation should be analyzed as presupposed content, a kind of content that is not strictly speaking truth-conditional, in the sense that it is not part of the proposition expressed. Finally, in the last section, I embrace a strong conception of pragmatics, according to which there are top-down pragmatic processes, that is, contextual processes involved in the determining of truth-conditional content that are not linguistically mandated but take place for pu...

Introduction: The lexicon and pragmatics

Olivier Simonin — 2023-11-14

Introduction

What pertains to the meaning of lexical units (whether simple or complex) and interpretative mechanisms to yield meaning in context is a crucial question in linguistic theory. It is exemplified by distinctions such as Oswald Ducrot’s opposition between “signification” and “sense” (one of many). Firth [1935: 37] in fact already noted that “the complete meaning of a word is always contextual”.

The present thematic issue of Lexis focuses on the lexicon and pragmatics, exploring connections between the fields of lexicology and linguistic pragmatics, which accounts for the role and influence of context (situational, linguistic contexts…) on the semantic interpretation of utterances. Its general purpose is to investigate how the lexicon interacts with pragmatic procedures and to question the classical conception of the lexicon, inherited from lexicography, which tends to view lexical units as stable building blocks from which utterance meaning is constructed afterwards.

The stud...