Conceptualizarea la baza tipologiilor cognitive [Articol]

Abstract

The persistent idea of languages being similar in their diversity is guiding the linguists’ search for universals and language taxonomies. It reappears with regularity across research paradigms and approaches, despite the periodical dissatisfaction of scholars with their results and with the ever illuding language universality and universals, at which point the linguists’ focus would rather turn to¬wards the description of languages in their own terms. Eugeniu Coseriu considered these tendencies as contrary, but not contradictory, since the universals are different with different researchers. From his integrative approach to language, an approach that is gaining momentum in the cognitive semiotics, Coseriu distinguishes three types of universals, corresponding to the three kinds of meaning. These are instrumental distinguishing between what is comparable across languages based on translatability and what is universal based on the idiomatic meaning. The issue of universality and diversity is discussed with regard to the concept of possession. The paper argues that the autonomy of possession compared to location and existence is defined by its anthropocentric nature, by the specific sub-categorial mea¬nings covered by this concept and the specific recurrent patterns of its formal encoding, at least in most (Indo-) European languages. Two types of encoding are focuses on, conventionally called BE- and HA¬VE-language types, although in full awareness of the non-existence of such a thing as a pure type. The paper discusses examples of variation in possession formal encoding along the lines of such categorial meanings as aspectuality, alienability et al