COUNTABILITY OF ENGLISH NOUNS DENOTING EMOTIONS
A COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS OVERVIEW
Keywords:
countability, cognitive linguistics, emotions, abstract nouns, mass nounsAbstract
From the point of view of cognitive linguistics, abstract nouns are conceptualized in the same was as tangible things via conceptual metaphors. This applies to nouns denoting emotions as well, which are conceptualized in English either as three-dimensional entities in space or as locations. Since ontological metaphors serve as a means of reification of emotions as concrete things, nouns denoting them can be either countable or uncountable. In this paper we have shown the parallels between conceptualizations and linguistic realizations of nouns denoting emotions and mass nouns. Mass nouns in English denote substances which are conceptualized as uncountable, but in our real-life experience we always encounter them in a certain amount, which enables their quantification and counting. Similarly, nouns denoting emotional states, when modified in a certain way, are conceptualized as possible ‘segments of emotion’, which, in turn, enables counting.
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