Publication details
Slovanská odvozená kolektiva a jazykové vyjádření vztahu část-celek ve fyzikálním a společenském prostoru
| Title in English | Slavic derived collectives and linguistic expression of parthood in physical and social space |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2022 |
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| Citation | |
| Description | The aim of this talk is a semantic analysis of two types of derived collective nouns across Slavic languages. Collectives such as `listí' (< `list') designate sets of inanimate entities that are primarily conceptualized as specifically structured spatial configurations of objects. On the other hand, collectives such as `duchovenstvo' (< `duchovní') prototypically denote pluralities of individuals that play similar functions within a complex social institution. I argue that on an abstract level both types of collectives encode the same type of ordering of a set, but the `listí' type expresses physical ordering, whereas the `duchovenstvo' type captures ordering in social space. Slavic data show that for both types of ordering there can be dedicated derivational processes in natural language. The analysis employs basic notions of mereotopology, i.e., a theory of parthood that allows for capturing non-trivial aspects of the meaning of the analyzed types of collectives. |
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