The Japanese journal of neuropsychology

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ArticleTitle	Semantics of words and constructions: Parole emerging in front of us
Language	J
AuthorList	Hideharu Furumoto
Affiliation	Department of Neurology, National Hospital Organization Chiba Medical Center
Publication	Japanese Journal of Neuropsychology: 32 (2), 165-174, 2016
Received
Accepted
Abstract	Cognitive linguistics makes a clear distinction between metaphor and metonymy in which metaphor is achieved through the mapping process between two different conceptual domains, whereas the interpretation of metonymy depends on the relationship among members within a single conceptual domain. In our first study, we examined the comprehension of figurative meaning in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), as compared to healthy controls, by using metaphoric and metonymic proverbs. Our results demonstrated that AD patients had more impairment in the comprehension of metaphoric proverbs but they showed little trouble in the interpretation of those that were metonymic. Regression analysis indicated that patients with more years of education also had greater comprehension of metaphoric proverbs. In contrast with previous studies, executive function had no effect on either metonymic or metaphoric proverb interpretations. Assuming that years of education is an index of language skill, these results suggest that the conventional metaphor is "lexicalized," as proposed by Swinney & Culter (1979), and some metaphoric proverbs are established as steady and fixed phrases both in form and meaning. Proverbs are an intermediate between words and constructions, as they are more complex than words and simpler than constructions. Thus, we further examined whether a construction could be regarded as an established and fixed knowledge like arithmetic facts. In our second study, we evaluated construction comprehension in AD patients and matched controls using SALA AC8 (1) which is composed of various constructions classified into definite subgroups according to their syntactic structures. We found that some constructions were more difficult to comprehend than others, even when they had the same syntactic structure. This is in agreement with the existence of a prototypic construction in every syntactic subgroup, that is, construction becomes difficult to comprehend in proportion to the distance from a prototype. This also implies that constructions form a set in every syntactic structure, which is composed of prototype and peripheral members. However, syntactic structure has not lost all effects on construction comprehension. Detailed evaluation of our results demonstrated that interpretations of constructions become easier when arguments are presented in coincidence with cognitive structure. Thus, the semantics of phrases and constructions primarily depends on language skill, which is the result of the vast database learned and stored from rich and varied language experiences. Syntactic structure may play an additional role in construction understanding as a representation of cognitive structure. Thus, construction is achieved as a whole and is never decomposed into lexicon and syntax. This hypothesis is contrary to generative grammar and should be examined in aphasic patients with localized brain damages.
Keywords	proverb, metaphor, metonymy, construction, cognitive linguistics