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Conceptualised Deviations from Expected Normalities: A semantic comparison between lexical items ending in -ful and -less

Holmqvist, Kenneth LU and Pluciennik, Jaroslaw (1995)
Abstract
In our article, we start by posing the question why some adjectival stems can end both in -ful and -less, while others take only one of the endings. Together these items make up around 1% of the entries in a good dictionary. It soon becomes clear that we need to use several basic concepts from cognitive linguistics to answer our question: boundedness, mass vs. individual, part-whole relations and container metaphors. By this we can divide the -ful and -less items into a number of subgroups with different semantics. The most important aspect of their semantics, however, is that both -ful and -less express deviations from our expectations of how the normal world is structured. In other words; they represent the world by negating it
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author
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publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Cognitive Studies
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
3b2158c3-3438-4eed-ae81-f52ccacdbfe9 (old id 526174)
alternative location
http://www.lucs.lu.se/ftp/pub/LUCS_Studies/LUCS39.ps
date added to LUP
2016-04-04 13:18:46
date last changed
2018-11-21 21:13:10
@misc{3b2158c3-3438-4eed-ae81-f52ccacdbfe9,
  abstract     = {{In our article, we start by posing the question why some adjectival stems can end both in -ful and -less, while others take only one of the endings. Together these items make up around 1% of the entries in a good dictionary. It soon becomes clear that we need to use several basic concepts from cognitive linguistics to answer our question: boundedness, mass vs. individual, part-whole relations and container metaphors. By this we can divide the -ful and -less items into a number of subgroups with different semantics. The most important aspect of their semantics, however, is that both -ful and -less express deviations from our expectations of how the normal world is structured. In other words; they represent the world by negating it}},
  author       = {{Holmqvist, Kenneth and Pluciennik, Jaroslaw}},
  keywords     = {{Cognitive Studies}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  title        = {{Conceptualised Deviations from Expected Normalities: A semantic comparison between lexical items ending in -ful and -less}},
  url          = {{http://www.lucs.lu.se/ftp/pub/LUCS_Studies/LUCS39.ps}},
  year         = {{1995}},
}