Cognitive Space and Its Variants: Alternative Associational Structures within Three Semantic Domains

Abstract Semantic domains can be considered in the light of prototype theory, making a distinction between ‘cultural’ and ‘natural kinds’. To sample this distinction, we compared the structure of three well-studied semantic domains in Estonian, a Finno-Ugric language: musical instruments, body parts and animal names. We used the method of listing to collect data which we analyse with the method of multidimensional scaling. Points-of-view analysis provides the opportunity to extract alternative conceptual structures, which are the extremes of individual variations among the participants. For body parts for instance, which are arranged in a hierarchical or partonomic structure, the hierarchy can be explored level by level – beginning with prototypes – or branch by branch. For musical instruments, one extreme map contributed significantly more to lists from musical performers, and was structured by instrumental classification and roles rather than by prototypes. These results suggest some empirical implications of the distinction between natural and cultural kinds.