8.3. The schematic nature of meaning

The idea of a context of regularity refers to the schematic nature of meaning, where schematic nature means that single terms can be seen as synthetic, con­densed forms of underlying schemes with complex content. The schematic nature of meaning can be effectively represented through the family of concepts that go by the name of frame, schema, scene, scenario, intertextual frame, and the like. I

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will not traie a complete history of these concepts, which would take us all the way hack to Kant's idea ol the schema as an organizing element of experience, nor examine all the meanings that have been attributed to these terms by various writers. Though important, such distinctions do not directly concern the problem that we are discussing here.⁶ It is sufficient to bear in mind that the elaboration of schema or frame concepts is always directly connected to a theory of knowledge— indeed, it is essentially a theory of knowledge.⁷ The basic hypothesis is that knowledge is structured on the basis of organized sets of concepts that are system­atically linked to each other in schemata or frames. Understood in this way, these notions can prove extremely useful for semantic representation and in general for a theory of lexical meaning.

Fillmore (1975) was the first to apply these concepts to lexical semantics, which led to the development of a more systematic model, frame semantics, and in the next decade, to ever more frequent studies and research in this direction.⁸ Fillmore's model provides an interesting example of a schematic representation of lexical meaning based on the same idea of regularity that I have developed thus far. There is a continuity between the notion of frame and Fillmore's early work on case grammar (Fillmore 1968), which in turn was inspired by the concept of valency developed by Tesniere (1959). In case grammar, the grammatical position of individual predicates, often marked in language by inflection, was connected to a schematic representation of the deep cases compatible with them.⁹ The notion of "case roles" for a verb contains the kernel of the idea that would be developed in frame semantics: the frame is the development of the schematic representation of the roles connected to a predicate, with the addition of a richer background of encyclopedic knowledge, as well as the possibility of extending the schema to other parts of the discourse.¹⁰

The basic hypothesis is that:

Particular words or speech formulas, or particular grammatical choices, are as­sociated in memory wirh particular frames, in such a way that exposure to the linguistic form in an appropriate context activates in the perceiver's mind the particular frame—activation of the frame, by turn, enhancing access ro the other linguistic material that is associated with the same ftame. (Fillmore 1976a: 25)

Fillmore also proposes a distinction between different levels of analysis; in particu­lar, it is important to keep the lexical linguistic level (which I will from now on term the frame) separate from the underlying conceptual scene, which refers to our experience of the world, an experience that is highly structured and organized according to a describable and predictable regularity:¹¹ the scene includes experi­ences, actions, objects, perceptions of the world, and the memory of them. The possibility of understanding and using language lies in and is relative to our knowing the underlying scenes, or in other words, to our possession of a shared (and shareable) experience of the world.

The fundamental aim of semantic theory is to describe the relations between the various terms that constitute a particular linguistic frame, projecting it on the

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background of the scene which they refer to, a scene that could be described in another language by means of a different linguistic grid. For each term, the fol­lowing must be specified: the scene or group of scenes activated by the term, how the term in question combines with the other lexical elements that relate to the same scene, and what grammatical relations the terms have with each other. For example, the meaning of write (Fillmore 1976b) requires specification of the un­derlying scene relating to the activity in which someone leaves particular signs on a surface with a pointed instrument able to leave such a trace. Write also nec­essarily implies that the signs produced are linguistic, which permits us to distin­guish the scene of write from that of draw or paint, activities which produce iconic signs, in turn differentiated according to the type of instrument used (pencil or brush). This specific grouping of scenes is culturally defined: Japanese, for ex­ample, does not have different terms for writing, drawing, and painting. The verb kaku denotes the production both of words and phrases and of sketches and paint­ings, given the particular importance attributed in Japanese culture to the calli­graphic, pictorial component of writing. The different organizations of the En­glish and Japanese lexicons can only be represented by reference to the different overall scenes that the words relate to, thus integrating the relativism of cultural structure into semantic representation.

In European languages, the scenes linked to the activity of writing are highly differentiated and specific: consider that besides write we possess verbs like copy and sign which select very restricted forms of writing, either in relation to the product and the way it is produced (sign applies only to our name written in such a way as to constitute a signature) or in relation to the nature of the text produced (in the case of copy, its non-originality). In the model proposed by Fillmore, this information is specified in the linguistic frame, primarily through the structure of associated cases.¹² Write, for example, implies an agent that carries out the action and which appears in subject position, an object produced by the act and a surface on which to perform the action, which can occupy the role of direct object with various verbs {to write a letter, to paint a chair), and finally the instrument used (normally introduced in English by the preposition with).¹³

A schematic representation of this kind presents a number of significant fea­tures that belong to every experientially and abductively oriented form of seman­tics. In the first place, there is a definite choice of an encyclopedic and not a dictionary representation. Scenes, the central nucleus of the representation, can be seen as codified and stereotypical segments of a given culture and consequently of the knowledge and experience of the world of the speakers of that culture; knowl­edge of the world is a necessary part of the linguistic description.¹⁴ In the second place, the representation is conceptual more than it is lexical: if it manages to give an account of the structure of the lexicon of a given language, it is only in so far as it represents the underlying conceptual structure. This kind of semantics is not only a theory of how a language is built, but above all a description of the way the concepts and knowledge expressed by that language are organized. We might say il is an ethnography of the culture and knowledge underlying the language.

Regularity and Context

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In the semantic model that I am trying to delineate, the concept of the scene (and the correspondingly connected linguistic frame) represents three fundamen­tal dimensions of meaning, dimensions which are interconnected yet which also possess a relative degree of autonomy:

1. The dimension of regularity of meaning, in particular the regularity of contexts which is the basis of the schematic nature of meaning. We could consider this aspect the positive component of meaning.

2. The contrastive component of meaning, which depends on the relations between terms. The lexicon is not a simple list, but a structured set in which the value of each term depends on the value of the others accord­ing to a "negative" system of differences which requires a non-atomistic treatment.

3. The narrative component of meaning, made visible in the moment when single lexemes are conceived of as condensations, or surface manifesta­tions, of deeper and more articulated conceptual and narrative schemata.

Let's look more closely at these three aspects.