10 24 now I feel something bad toward this person at all times
This component would help to explain why being bitter is a longer term disposition than a reactive emotion. For example, it is possible to be bitter for long periods of time, but not angry or upset:
25 I was bitter for years.
26 ? I was angry for years. 27 ?? I was upset for years.
Unlike the above emotions, it seems that bitterness cannot be formed abruptly. We are not bitter over painful situations we are currently experiencing:
28 ?? I’m bitter over this bruise on my head
The question is: “What in the formation of bitterness requires a period of time?” I would like to suggest that a certain pattern of thinking gives rise to bitterness and that as certain thoughts are
compulsively replayed over and over again in one’s mind over a period of time, one’s attitude gradually becomes affected. This suggests the following component:
29 I thought something for some time
In particular, I propose that one becomes fixated on both the severity and the avoidability of the offense:
30 a. this didn’t have to happen to me b. this is very bad
c. I don’t want this
It is easy to indulge our self-pity through these deadly combinations of thoughts. Compiling the above components into a single explication, we arrive at the following definition:
31 I AM BITTER ABOUT THIS
a. Before now b. something very bad happened to me because of someone
c. after this I thought something like this for some time: d. this didn’t have to happen to me
e. this is bad f. I don’t want this
g. now I feel something bad towards this person at all times
2.1.3 How substitution works for articles
Can substitution work with elements such as particles, conjunctions, and bound forms where substitution in text could not possibly result in a coherent utterance?
The answer is that, technically speaking the unit of substitution is the clause, that is to say, an utterance which is complete and independent relatively speaking.
Boguslawski 1970: quoted in W 1972:12 gives the following explanation:
11 The explication should be carried out of whole utterances that are actually used in quite
definite situations and contexts. We cannot start from words or other parts of utterances, because they do not have any meaning in isolation, may have different meanings in different
sentences, and may have no meaning there.
11
Thus, when one explicates a particle, one would also decompose the entire clause which contains it. The containing clause may expand into several clauses, with the contribution of the particle itself
corresponding to perhaps one or more of these expanded clauses. By way of illustration, consider an explication of the article a adopted from Grimes 1987:
32 a person
a. I am thinking of someone
b. I do not think you are thinking of this person Obviously, one could not substitute this explication directly into the sentence I saw a bachelor:
33 I saw a bachelor
a. I saw [I am thinking of; I do not think you are thinking of] bachelor
The substitution has rendered the utterance incomprehensible. One instead has to decompose the entire sentence and the article a at the same time:
34 I saw a bachelor
a. I saw someone
b. I am thinking of this person c. I do not think you are thinking of this person
d. this person has never been married e. this person is a man
f. people think of this man like this: g. this person can marry someone if he wants to
In the above explication, 34b and 34c correspond to the semantic contribution of the article a. But it should be noted that often for expediency in presentation, the principle of whole-utterance
explication is not strictly adhered to in the NSM literature.
2.1.4 Substituting one level at a time
