The Supreme Court ruled that a man who had traded a firearm for cocaine
had used a firearm (Geis, 1996), but had he? This study examines the
meaning of the verb use. We ask two questions: 1) How can we characterize
the meaning of use? and 2) Does it makes sense to consider use in
isolation when attempting to formulate its meaning?
To answer the first question, we employed and tested a prototype analysis
based on meaning components akin to that utilized by Coleman and Kay (1981)
for the verb lie. We hypothesized that the meaning of the verb use
relies on three primary meaning components: how canonical the object is
for the action; whether or not there is a change in the environment as a
result of the action; and whether or not the actor acts purposefully.
To test the proposed components of meaning and to look for prototype
effects, we created scenarios in which we independently varied the
presence or absence of each of the three components under consideration.
Ultimately, our findings suggest that use exhibits the hypothesized
prototype structure. All three components contribute
to the meaning of the word, though they are differently weighted.
To answer the second question, we manipulated object type in the stories
we presented to participants. Each of the scenario types was instantiated
five times, once with an object from each of the following categories:
kitchen, construction, garden, office, and cleaning. We found that
participants' confidence that an actor actually used an object differed
according to the category of the object under consideration.
Furthermore, the effect of category modulated the effects of each of the
meaning components. In light of these data, we argue that it does not
make sense to consider use in isolation
if we want to achieve a full understanding of its meaning.