Naive Number
in
Conceptual Networks:
Hypostasis, Metonymy, and Metaphor

These and similar examples testify to the ubiquity of numbers which we use daily without giving much thought to what number is. When this question is posed, the answer (which at first seems to be easy) is problematic. This problem is well known to philosophers who tried to suggest a comprehensive explanation of the category of number, and who found themselves in a deadlock. The "lock" seems to be not that "dead" from the standpoint of cognitive science. Number is the product of the human mind. As recent studies (Hurford 1987; Lakoff & Numez 2000) show, in the creation of number the mind uses habitual elementary ideas, or schemas. In my previous works (Zhabotynska 1992a, 1992b, 1992c, 1994 among others), I argue that such elementary schemas are specifically arranged to yield a complex schema of number applied in everyday life, mythology, and mathematics. In these domains, number acquires individual properties that can be considered as the elaboration and extension of one and the same complex schema.

In this presentation, I will center on the schema of Naive Number used in everyday life. It is the concept of Naive Number that undergoes transformations in mythology and mathematics, and it is this concept which is used in natural language. The issue I intend to discuss is word-formation where the concept of Number integrates with the other concepts belonging to the categories of Thing, Quality, Existence/Action, Mode, Location, Time, and Evaluation. The topics in focus are the cognitive mechanisms of hypostasis (blending of the part-of-speech categories), metonymy and metaphor. All these phenomena relate to profiling a particular element of the Number's complex schema. Integration of such an element with the other concepts is regulated by the conceptual network. In my recent works (Zhabotynska 1999; 2001: to appear), I maintain that the foundation of this network is construed by five basic frames. In the forthcoming talk, I will attempt to demonstrate that these frames can be exposed in the semantics of a considerable amount of the English data. Some data from slang and cant are not for sensitive ears, which, I hope, will not bewilder linguists.

References

Lakoff, G. & Nunez, R. 2000. Where Mathematics Comes From. New York: Basic Books.

Zhabotynska, S.A. 1992a. Cognitive and Nominative Aspects of the Numeral Class. Moscow: Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences. [In Russian].

___________ 1992b. Knowledge representation structure in the concept of number. In Language and Knowledge Representation Structures. Moscow: Institute for Scientific Information in Humanities, 123-148. [In Russian].

___________. 1992c. Number in everyday life, mythology and mathematics: the coils of a semiotic spiral? In Language and Culture. Papers of The 2nd International Conference. Kiev: Ukrainian Institute for Foreign Relations, 69-77. [In Russian].

___________. 1994. "FOUR" as a cultural concept: psychological foundations. In Language and Culture. Papers of the 3rd International Conference. Kiev: Ukrainian Institute for Foreign Relations, 60-67. [In Russian].

______________. 1999. Conceptual analysis: Types of Frames. Messenger of Cherkasy State University. V. 11: Philology, 12-25. Cherkasy, Ukraine: Cherkasy University Press. [In Russian].

______________. 2001: to appear. A Conceptual Model of the Part-of-Speech System (Germanic and Slavic Languages). Cherkasy, Ukraine: Cherkasy University Press. [In Russian].