Similar to other varieties of cognitive semantics, the prototype theory investigates how we understand the world around us. We can answer this question only by understanding how the categorization works and how «series of similarities» are formed. In a standard version, the category affiliation is a function of prototypical properties the object shares with a model representative of its category. In an extended version, the category affiliation is defined by analogy with the family resemblance. Even if we assume that linguistic expressions relate to things through mental representations, we have to admit that these expressions should be studied as linguistic expressions.
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