types of things nouns grounding things reference

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1、Chapter4Typesofthings:Nouns4.0Overview4.1Classesofthings:Classesofnouns4.2Objectsversussubstances4.3Blendingofobjectsandsubstances:Hybridnouns4.4Reifiedthings:Abstractnouns4.5Summary4.0OverviewTheconceptualcategory‘thing’findsitsparallelinthelinguisticcategory‘noun’.Thedis-tinctionbetweenthe

2、twomainclassesofthings,i.e.objectsandsubstances,isreflectedinthelinguisticdistinctionbetweencountnounsandmassnouns.But,duetotheprototypestructureofallconceptualandlinguisticcategories,thedistinctionbetweenobjectsandsubstancestendstobeblurred:objectsmayshadeintosubstancesandsubstancesmayshad

3、eintoobjects.Theproblemoffuzzinessisevenmoreintriguingwithabstractnouns.Abstractnounsaretheresultofaconceptualshiftknownasreificationbymeansofwhichrelationalconceptslike‘bemarried’areconstruedasthings,inthiscase‘marriage’.4.1Classesofthings:Classesofnouns4.1.1ThingsandinstancesofthingsTheno

4、tionofthinghasalreadybeenintroducedinChapter3.1.Therewefocusedontheconceptualstabilityofthingsinspaceandtime,butwealsonoticedthatmanythings,especiallyabstractthingssuchas‘explosion’,arecertainlynottime-stable.Themainchar-acteristicofthingsistheirconceptualindependenceorautonomy.Likeotherco

5、nceptualentities,thingsaredefinedrelativetoaconceptualdomainandextendoveracertainregionwithinthisdomain.Forexample,eachofthethreeweathertermsfog,mistandhaze,whichwediscussedinChapter1.1.1,extendsoveracertainregionwithinadomainthatmaybe64CognitiveEnglishGrammarcalled‘weatherofreducedvisibili

6、ty’.Eachtermtouchesitsneighbouringtermor,asshowninFigure4.1,mayevenoverlapwithit.fogmisthazedomain:‘weatherofpoorvisibility’Figure4.1.ThingsextendingoverregionsinadomainInasimilarway,thenounsfather,mother,anduncledesignaterelativesas“regions”inthedomain‘kinship’.Abstractnounsalsodenotethin

7、gsthatextendoveraregioninsomedomain:theabstractnounexplosiondenotesathingwithinadomainwhichmaybecalled‘rapidexpansion’,andtheregionitextendsovercontrastswiththoseofblastanddetonation.InCognitiveGrammar,thetermthingisusedinthesenseofanabstracttype.Thingsareexpr