Publisher's Synopsis
There are far fewer kinds of elements (such as words) in a natural language than there are kinds of things in the universe. If, therefore, the languages people speak are related to the universe their speakers live in, a primary function of the various kinds of elements constituting a language is to allow the much more varied kinds of things that populate the universe to be categorized in specific ways. A "prototype" approach to linguistic categories is a particular way of answering the question of how this categorization operates. It involves two claims. First, that linguistic categorization exploits principles that are not specific to language but are validly used for "cognitive processing" in general.;Secondly, that a basic principle by which cognitive and linguistic categories are organized is the "prototype principle", whereby elements are assigned to a category not because they exemplify properties that are absolutely required of each one of its members, but because they exhibit certain properties in virtue of which a particular member of the category has been established as the best example (or "prototype") of its kind.;The development of the prototype approach into a satisfactory body of theory obviously requires both that its empirical base be enriched, and that its conceptual foundations be clarified. These are the areas where this volume, in its 26 essays, makes original contributions. The first two parts contain discussions in which various linguistic phenomena are analyzed in ways that make essential use of prototype notions. The last two parts contain discussions in which prototypicality itself becomes the object, rather than the instrument, of analytical scrutiny.
