Cliff Goddard and Anna Wierzbicka
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199668434
- eISBN:
- 9780191748691
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199668434.003.0009
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics, Lexicography
The meaning of “abstract nouns” raises fundamental philosophical and linguistic questions. Nobody was more aware of this than John Locke, whose treatment of the subject must be the central point of ...
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The meaning of “abstract nouns” raises fundamental philosophical and linguistic questions. Nobody was more aware of this than John Locke, whose treatment of the subject must be the central point of reference for modern semantics. Subsequent to Locke, Jeremy Bentham made another remarkable contribution with his theory of “fictitious entities”. In this chapter we set out an account of abstract nouns which builds on and seeks to re-connect with these largely forgotten antecedents. The chapter proposes several semantic templates for abstract noun meanings, and illustrates them with explications for English words such as illness, trauma, violence, suicide, beauty, and temperature. The chapter also deals with the important role of abstract nouns in constituting topics of discourse and with the profound untranslatability of many abstract nouns.Less
The meaning of “abstract nouns” raises fundamental philosophical and linguistic questions. Nobody was more aware of this than John Locke, whose treatment of the subject must be the central point of reference for modern semantics. Subsequent to Locke, Jeremy Bentham made another remarkable contribution with his theory of “fictitious entities”. In this chapter we set out an account of abstract nouns which builds on and seeks to re-connect with these largely forgotten antecedents. The chapter proposes several semantic templates for abstract noun meanings, and illustrates them with explications for English words such as illness, trauma, violence, suicide, beauty, and temperature. The chapter also deals with the important role of abstract nouns in constituting topics of discourse and with the profound untranslatability of many abstract nouns.
