Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. Vol. 1. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 24)

Ágnes Deli: Meaning with lexical repetition

Bolinger (1977:7) argues for and having the effect of separation when e.g. used in sentences describing two separate events. Linguists who take a cognitive semantic approach to language argue that formal complexity corresponds to conceptual complexity, i.e. „More is more" (see Haiman, 1985). Proximity, or conceptual distance tends to be expressed syntactically. Adjectives like black and white or good and bad, e.g. are incompatible in meaning, there is a conceptual distance between them, which seems to be he reason why they cannot be coordinated asyndetically (cf. Haiman, ibid.: 117). A similar example can be taken from the area of everyday conversation. It is not uncommon that to a polar question like 'Would you like to come? ' the response can be 'Yes and no '. The form of the response seems a reflection of conceptual incompatibility. Due to the incompatibility the speaker is very likely to give an explanation, why he cannot give a definite answer, i.e. 'why yes, and why no'. In extract [2] it is also the conjunct and that is responsible for the meaning of contrast. In order to interpret B's utterance the listener has to use the following conceptual system: Germany Germany (physical) Germany (spiritual) East' West Figure 3 The General-Particular relaionship behind the different interpretations of 'Germany' assigns the taxonomic relation of superordination to the proper noun (on taxonomic relations see Martin, 1992:294-309). The Germany mentioned by the first speaker in move A is used as a superordinate (a hyperonym), whereas in move B the second speaker uses the co-hyponyms (the physical Germany and the spiritual Germany), which is made clear in the utterance There is a still a spiritual Germany which has which is of course [m] many [e] thousands of years old. Ill