LALNAGNUGAUGAEG EA NADN DC OCOGNGINTIITVIEV E STSRTURCUTCUTRUERSE SO OF FE MEMOTOITOIONN PraPkraaskha sMho Mndoanldal Language and Cognitive Structures of Emotion Prakash   Mondal Language and Cognitive Structures of Emotion Prakash   Mondal Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad Medak, Telangana , India ISBN 978-3-319-33689-3 ISBN 978-3-319-33690-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33690-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016951230 © Th e Editor(s) (if applicable) and Th e Author(s) 2016 Th is work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and trans- mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. 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Cover illustration: © Mark Chivers / Alamy Stock Photo Cover design by Samantha Johnson Printed on acid-free paper Th is Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature Th e registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland Prefa ce Th is book set out with the idea of investigating the relationship between intensionality, language and the cognitive structures underlying emotive expressions in language. On the one hand, the linguistic properties of intensionality have a curious refl ex of mentality, especially when these properties are apprehended through the lens of intensionality’s mani- festation in natural language. In intensional contexts a nominal term resists the substitution of itself for another term equivalent—formally or o therwise—to it, or a nominal term denoting an object refers to some- thing non-existent in our world, or a quantifi cational nominal expression can have a non-specifi c reading. Some of the facets of intensionality (a reference to non-existent entities such as unicorns, or treating ‘the capi- tal of Australia’ and ‘Canberra’ distinctly because one has distinct beliefs associated with each of the terms) are decidedly grounded in the machin- ery of our mental representations. All three properties in some combina- tion or other are typically associated with intensionality. It is not often clear why intensionality exhibits the three properties in diverse contexts of linguistic expressions the way it does, and hence intensionality has always puzzled philosophers of language and linguists alike. On the other hand, emotive representations as revealed through linguistic expressions of emotion belong in a domain that appears to be socioculturally variable and biologically fl uctuating within individuals, and also across human communities. Hence, emotive expressions, on the face of it, appear to be v vi Preface logically insignifi cant and linguistically nondescript structures in having a peculiar expressive, as opposed to referential, dimension. Far from it: emotive expressions themselves bear intensional elements which give rise to certain hitherto unrecognized linguistically interesting properties. Th e connection between emotive expressions and intensionality runs much deeper than can ordinarily be supposed. Th erefore, the idea of a book such as this was conceived when I real- ized that the puzzles of intensionality are compounded when they are manifested in linguistic expressions of emotions because linguistic con- structions that are both intensional and emotive evince far more bizarre features than intensionality does alone. As I probed further, it turned out that the relevant linguistic patterns, albeit idiosyncratic on the surface, conceal certain hidden logically compelling regularities that can only be captured by means of cogent generalizations. As I dug deeper into these generalizations, the formulations developed began to strain out of the confi nements of a merely linguistic curiosity as it transpired that the gen- eralizations have deeper consequences for the cognitive system that relates emotive structures to linguistic structures. Th e underlying assumption is that there is a distinct linguistic system or knowledge base which ‘com- municates’ or simply interacts with another system dedicated to emo- tions, or at least to emotive representations. Th ese systems need not be modular in the trivial or traditional sense of the term ‘module’; rather, they can be functionally and structurally distributed over the neural networks of the human brain and are not fully encapsulated systems by virtue of sharing structures or representations, although the encoding of the representations may vary from one given cognitive system to another. Beyond that, the generalizations, as argued here, have far- reaching conse- quences for the nature of cognition and the fabric of linguistic meaning. In a nutshell, this book has come out of the need to pinpoint the locus where mental structures underlying emotive expressions and linguistic structures with their intensional properties meet, giving rise to intriguing logical patterns that encompass both the embodied (emotions and emo- tive content) and the abstract (intensional elements of linguistic expres- sions). With this background in place, it is time to outline where the book is heading as readers sift through its content. Preface vii I begin by clarifying the notions of intensionality, intentionality and emotive content, and then present some puzzles that involve emotive predicates in intensional contexts. One of the main questions that con- stitutes the central concern of this enquiry is: what do the semantic struc- tures of intensional emotive constructions uncover about the cognitive/ conceptual structures that characterize expressive/aff ective content? A careful inspection of the interaction of intensional contexts and emotive predicates, based on a range of intensional emotive constructions, enables some surprising generalizations, of which the central one is that variations in the intensionality of intensional emotive constructions—as a function of the satisfaction of three well-defi ned criteria of intensionality—result in concomitant variations in the semantic/conceptual structures of emo- tive expressions. Th is helps demonstrate that the structure of linguistic meaning is not merely derived within grammar but is also constrained by a combination of logical, mental/cognitive and linguistic properties, as well as properties of embodiment. Th is is so regardless of how such linguistic meanings are represented in notations or meta-languages, even though the observations have in fact been described using the apparatus from Jackendoff ’s c onceptual semantics . Th e emerging generalizations express a character of logical necessity, so much so that the essential idea outlined above is captured in the form of a theorem entitled Th e Correspondence Th eorem for the Cognitive/Conceptual Structures of Emotive Expressions, which states that each intensional pat- tern/type corresponds to a diff erent cognitive/conceptual structure of emotive expression(s), or vice versa. Th e book argues that the implica- tions of this seemingly simple theorem could prove to be far-reaching. On the one hand, it lends credence to the view that the content of emo- tive expressions can have a cognitive grounding as well as a bodily basis, and on the other, it helps determine the operations of an ‘interface’ that connects language to emotion within the architecture of our cognitive machinery. Having clarifi ed the central themes of the book, now I intend to famil- iarize readers, in broader outline, with the overall structure of the volume so that they can be better guided through its pages (although a detailed overview of is also presented at the end of Chapter 1 ). Chapter 1 poses viii Preface the linguistic puzzles and then places them in the wider context of the relation between language, cognition and emotive content. Since it is observed in this chapter that the linguistic puzzles arise only from con- texts involving intensionality and emotive expressions, it becomes neces- sary to fi gure out why emotive expressions in intensional contexts behave the way they actually do, and which factor (intensionality or emotive expressions) is exclusively responsible for this. Th is question is answered piece by piece in the succeeding chapters, but not all at once. Chapter 2 builds on the observations made in Chapter 1 and dwells on the nature of emotive content in order to demonstrate how such content and inten- sionality are intimately connected. Most of the chapter is conceptual in nature—that is, most of it is aimed at clarifying the conceptual mess. Chapter 3 advances the conclusion, which the book arrives at upon an examination of the syntactic structures of the relevant constructions, that there is no valid syntactic explanation for the linguistic patterns observed. A semantic or conceptual explanation is called for, but not all seman- tic theories are found to have the descriptive machinery to accommo- date the generalizations. Only conceptual semantics is found to possess the descriptive power to express the relevant generalizations. However, since the generalizations harden into logically necessary patterns, a mere descriptive analysis would simply be weak and hence an axiomatization of the generalizations is provided. Th e fi rst part of Chapter 4 carries for- ward the logical consequences following from the axiomatization devel- oped in Chapter 3 and articulates a formal account of the ‘interface’ that connects language to emotion, while the second part is largely specula- tive, especially in certain parts in which it entertains the evolutionary considerations the insights aff ord and fl eshes out the cognitive implica- tions of the work. Th us, readers with a basic understanding of set theory can breeze through Chapters 3 and 4 , whereas other readers may fi nd the formal details overwhelming and hence may skip these portions if they wish to do so. Th e formal rigor has been necessary in these chapters in view of considerations having intrinsically to do with the formal charter of the generalizations concerned. Th e descriptive portions in later chapters, especially Chapter 5 , capture the essential ideas developed and stitch together many other emerging conclusions on the nature of cognition, Preface ix emotive intensionality, knowledge and the computational encoding of intensional emotive constructions. Th is book sketches the formal territory that ensconces linguistic struc- tures and emotive content in the same connected matrix. Much more needs to be uncovered. But I hope that the formal generalizations artic- ulated here prove to be useful for further research in this direction. I should note that this work has not done justice to extant or past theories of emotive content and treatments of emotive expressions since it has not included them for critical comparisons. Except for a brief discussion in Chapter 1 on the absence, in current accounts of emotive expressions, of any explorations into the issues covered here, the book has not deliber- ated on other accounts of emotive expressions. However, this is necessi- tated by the consideration that bringing into context various accounts or hypotheses whose central concerns are not at all parallel or even tangen- tial to the issues at hand is nugatory. I f anything signifi cant has been missed out, the fault is, of course, mine. With this caveat I encourage readers to discern hidden connec- tions, if any, among the threads unexplored or neglected, and to form a more expansive view of language–emotion relations. I invite linguists, philosophers of language, philosophers of mind, emotion theorists, anthropologists, cognitive scientists of all persuasions and anyone else who cares about language–emotion relations to delve into the book. My own understanding is sure to expand in direct proportion to the extent that readers can learn from these ideas expressed here. I dedicate this book to the intellectual world where it belongs. Prakash   Mondal Medak, Telangana, India