Do Verbal Meanings Have a Radial Organization?

The paper presents a cognitive-functional analysis of two Hungarian verbs, eszik ‘eat’ and táplál ‘feed’, with the aim of providing a sample for an exhaustive semantic description of verbal polysemy and of relations between verbal meanings.

The hypothesis of the study was that a radial category description of the internal semantic structure of both verbs is possible. The assumption, however, was not confirmed by the analysis; not all meanings of the verb eszik ‘eat’ can be described as deriving from the prototypical eating situation. Some show cases of conceptual blending, while others have a source domain other than the prototypical eating situation. Nonetheless, many figurative meanings seem to be the result of metaphorical meaning shift trigged by common components we experience in the prototypical eating situation and other perceptions. These common components show resemblance on a schematic base.