hellog〜英語史ブログ / 2021-10-16

■ #4555. 対立する形式意味論と認知意味論 [semantics][cognitive_linguistics][history_of_linguistics]

　意味論 (semantics) と一口にいっても，様々なとらえ方がある．そして，学界にも派閥がある．学問名 semantics の複数形の -sは，その点でふさわしいともいえる．
　大きく2つの派閥に分けるならば，伝統的な形式意味論（構造主義意味論を含む）か，1970年代後半に興った新しい認知意味論かとなる．これは，一般言語学でいうところの構造主義・生成文法と認知言語学の対立になぞらえることもできるだろう．
　Sweetser (12) が意味論の2つの派閥の対立について，分かりやすく記述している．

Recent work in linguistics has tended to view semantics in one of two divergent ways: either meaning is a potentially mathematiziable or formalizable domain (if only we could find the right primes or premises for the mathematical analysis), or meaning is a morass of culturally and historically idiosyncratic facts from which one can salvage occasional linguistic regularities. Those who do the former kind of semantics have frequently been eager to separate linguistic meaning from general human cognition and experience, and to keep linguistic "levels" 'syntax vs semantics vs pragmatics) distinct from one another; formalization is presumed to be easier if the domain can be successfully delimited. Semanticists of the latter sort, on the other hand, are often quite ready to accept the direct influence of experience or cognition on meaning-structures, but find it hard to see how such meaning-structures could be formalized: how can airtight generalizations be made about experience-shaped semantics, when experience itself is so varied and so far from currently being described by any complete formal analysis?

　確かに対立の構図とはなっているが，伝統的意味論と新興の意味論の各々には長所もあれば短所もある．相互補完的にみておくのがよさそうだ．関連して「#1686. 言語学的意味論の略史」 ([2013-12-08-1]) も参照．

　・ イレーヌ・タンバ 著，大島 弘子 訳　『［新版］意味論』　白水社〈文庫クセジュ〉，2013年．
　・ Sweetser, E. From Etymology to Pragmatics. Cambridge: CUP, 1990.

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