Why microsenses are not contextual modulations

The argument that microsenses are not contextual modulations has two strands: the first involves evidence that the specific readings have too much au-tonomy, and the second involves evidence that the hyperonymic reading does not have default status.

Evidence for the autonomy of the specific construals comes from a number of sources. First, they can show relational autonomy, in that each has its own independent set of sense relations. The microsenses of knife, for instance, give rise to construals belonging to different taxonomies, and which therefore have different hyperonyms, hyponyms and co-hyponyms:

(64) cutlery: knife, fork, spoon weapon: knife, gun, cosh, grenade instrument: knife, scalpel, forceps (garden) tool: knife, spade, fork, trowel, rake (DIY) tool: knife, screwdriver, hammer, plane

A second indication of the salient individuality of microsenses is that they exhibit truth-conditional autonomy. An indication of this is when a yes/no question can be truthfully answered No, based on one microsense, when the hyperonymic reading, or another microsense, would require a positive answer. The following are examples:

(65) Mother: (at table; Johnny is playing with his meat with his fingers): Use your knife to cut your meat, Johnny.

Johnny: (who has a pen-knife in his pocket, but no knife of the proper sort) I haven’t got one.

(66) Tom: (who has a football under his arm): Let’s play tennis.

Billy: Have you got a ball?

Tom: No, I thought YOU had one.

Of course it is the case here that context makes clear what sort of ball is relevant, and this means that if there were no appropriate microsense available for selection, contextual modulation would lead us to much the same meaning. It is important to

emphasize, however, that truth-conditional autonomy is not an automatic property of contextually enriched readings. For instance, in (67), although context makes clear what sort of car would be appropriate, B’s answer cannot be based on the contextually specified reading:

(67) A: (There are 6 people to transport) Do you have a car?

B: (Who has a 2CV) *No.

Yes, but it’s too small to take us all.

Microsenses also give rise to an identity constraint. There is a palpable pressure to interpret the second conjunct in each of the following sentences with the same reading of the word in bold as was chosen for the first conjunct:

(68) a. John sent a card; so did Mary.

b. John has some equipment; so has Bill.

c. John needs a knife; so does Bill.

The constraint appears to be stronger in some cases than others: this may be a reflection of degree of autonomy. But the contrast with (69a) and (69b), where there is no constraint, is clear:

(69) a. John has a cousin; so has Mary.

b. John has a car; so has Mary.

An important aspect of the individuality of microsenses is that they function as basic level items in their home domains. For instance, at table, knife is a basic level item, alongside spoon, fork and so on (the relevant reading of fork is also a microsense), and displays all the characteristic properties of basic level items.

This is not any sort of knife, but the specific variety that falls under the hyperonym cutlery (at least in British English). Although there are other sorts of knives, in the appropriate context there is no need for a specifying epithet: and, indeed, most speakers would be hard put to supply one. In contrast to microsenses, there are no cases where contextually modulated readings like those in (62) and (63) function as basic level items.

The hyperonymic readings of microsense complexes (i.e. the combination of hyperonym plus a set of microsenses) are distinct in a number of ways from those of contextual modulations. One of the most striking properties of hyperonyms which subsume a set of microsenses is their default specificity. Words like knife, card and equipment have a strong preference for specific use, and this renders them odd (to varying degrees) in a minimal context:

(70) a. Do you have any equipment?

b. Do you possess a card?

c. Do you have a knife?

The examples in (70) may be contrasted with those in (71):

(71) a. Do you have any children?

b. Do you have a car?

In (71a-b) there is no pressure for specificity, and they are not (automatically) anomalous in contexts that do not sanction a more specific interpretation. A corol-lary of the property of default specificity is that the hyperonymic readings of words such as knife require overt contextual pressure for their activation: the mere ab-sence of specifying pressure is not enough. Thus, although the questions in (70) are to some degree odd, those in (72) and (73) are not:¹

(72) Do you have a knife/card/ball of any kind?

(73) a knife wound; a knife-sharpener

The hyperonyms of sets of microsenses seem to correspond to somewhat non-prototypical concepts. For instance, they do not seem to have clear relational properties, or at least not readily accessible ones. In spite of the fact that a knife is intuitively an everyday object, speakers are notably hesitant in suggesting ei-ther a hyperonym or oei-ther member of the same contrast set that applies to all knives, whereas they have no problem with, say, dog or, indeed, with one of the microsenses of knife. Furthermore, in terms of the distinction between subordinate level, basic level and superordinate level conceptual categories, the hyperonymic reading of knife seems to be associated with the latter type of category. There are resemblances between the inclusive category KNIFE and typical superordinate level categories such as FURNITURE. For instance, both have a rather schematic, impoverished nature, which is different from the rich content of typical basic level categories. Also, they are not associated with clear visual images or patterns of behavioral interaction.

It is a curious fact that, while (linguistically untrained) speakers readily accept the dual nature of multifaceted words like book, they are reluctant to accept the composite nature of knife. It seems that the unity of the concept is more salient than

1 The account of default specificity given in Cruse 2000a is not quite correct. There it was suggested that questions like those in (70) are odd if the context does not sanction the selection of one of the microsenses. However, it was also suggested that there are situational contexts, for instance camping, for which there is no corresponding microsense. It would seem to follow from this that questions like those in (70) are invariably odd in such contexts. However, this is not true: (i) seems normal:

(i) (in a camping context) I need to cut this rope. Do you have a knife?

Relevance considerations here narrow down the range of suitable knives: they have to be capable of cutting the rope in question. But this looks like contextual modulation rather than the selection of a microsense. It seems therefore that the default specificity constraint is satisfied by any sort of specification, whether or not it involves a microsense, and it is the unrestricted reading of the hyper-onym that requires overt contextual justification.

its components. Speakers readily offer unified dictionary-type definitions such as

‘an implement with a handle and a blade used for cutting.’ However, the initial intuitive plausibility of this definition diminishes slightly on closer examination.

Firstly, it does not differentiate knives from saws, chisels and other cutting imple-ments, and secondly, it contains several words with microsenses just like those of knife, so it must be interpreted as something like: ‘an implement with a knife-type blade and a knife-type handle, used for knife-style cutting’; in other words, we need to know what a knife is before we can make intuitively satisfying sense of the definition.