Deissi e fluttuazione semantica tra fenomenologia e Linguistica Cognitiva

Abstract

The correlation between Phenomenology and Cognitive Linguistics, which has often been claimed by authors of the Cognitive Linguistics area, concerns the themes of meaning as an internal fact and of perception as the base of all kinds of understanding. However, the comparison is fairly difficult because, in Cognitive Linguistics, meaning is considered an experience-based, non-independent, dynamic fact, while in husserlian Phenomenology meaning is explained through the concept of ideal unity, which is independent from experience and supposed to remain the same in every occurrence. Nevertheless, in Logical Investigations, Husserl analyzes deixis as an example of semantic «fluctuation», which is the property of certain expressions of adjusting their meaning in relation to what the subject is perceiving. The intent of this paper is to show that the two different approaches to meaning are not inconsistent. I will correlate Husserl’s «essentially occasional expression» with the idea of «improper expression» discussed in a text that precedes Logical Investigations. Thanks to this reference, I will be able to show how intuition actually plays a role in the definition of the meaning of expressions that refer to lived experience. The analysis will be conducted suggesting the affinities of the ideas of semantic salience, of cognitive prototypes and of semantic variation with some passages of the husserlian analysis of language and categorization.