In the Circle of Inspiration of Anna Wierzbicka: The Cognitive Definition - 30 Years Later

Ежи Бартминьски

Professor Anna Wierzbicka has special ties with linguists in Lublin. These ties have been established on both the personal (long-term friendship dating back to the times of unforgettable Prof. Maria Renata Mayenowa) and scientific level, including fruitful scientific collaboration, permanent presence of her works in university didactics at the Department of Polish Studies of Maria Curie-Sklodowska University (UMCS) and -- last but not least -- the development of scientific concepts in the academic circle that has recently been referred to as “Lublin Cognitive Ethnolinguistics” (LCE). Wierzbicka's articles (“Uniwersalne poj^cia ludzkie i ich konfiguracje w roznych kulturach” 1991; “Mi^dzy modlitw^ a przeklenstwem” 1996, “O polskich slowach- wartosciach: dobroci, prawosci i odwadze” 2011--2012) and her reviews were printed in the journal Ethnolinguistics published in Lublin; her sketch Semantyka i Ewangelia appeared in the volume W zwierciadle jqzyka i kultury (Lublin 1999); her excellent sketches on the names of animals 1993 and the split subject 2008 (concerning the situation of a bilingual person) were published in Lublin “red series”, while the didactics- oriented “green series” published at UMCS reprinted six of her sketches: on the semantics of polite phrases, on dialects, jargons and styles, on the speech genres, on the semantic coherence of text, on the metatext in text, on hypotaxis and nominal constructions in the development of the Polish language. Both students and scholars read Wierzbicka's articles with pleasure, because they are well-written and address real and topical problems. Since 1998 Anna Wierzbicka has been a member of the editorial board of the journal “Ethnolinguistics”. An initiative to publish in Polish her scholarly works written in Englih also originated in Lublin -- the volume Jqzyk, umysl, kultura appeared in Warsaw in 1999, edited by J. Bartminski. In 2004 Anna Wierzbicka received the title of doctor honoris causa at Maria Curie-Sklodowska University (see: Wierzbicka 2004). On this occasion, the UMCS publishing house published her dissertation entitled Jak mozna mowic o Trojcy Swiqtej w slowach prostych i uniwersalnych. The translation of Anna Wierzbicka's seminal book Semantics. Primes and Univerals (Oxford 1996) published in Lublin in 2006 unter the title Semantyka. Jednostki elementarne i uniwersalne resulted in two editions of the book.

Anna Wierzbicka's works had a significant impact on shaping the profile of the journal and on the research community gathered around the journal which, embedded in the fields of ethnolinguistics or anthropological and cultural linguistics, developed its own, to some extent original, research methodology. One of the most important elements of the conceptual apparatus of LCE (encompassing such key concepts as linguistic worldview, subject, values, stereotype, point of view and perspective, profiling) is a special way of defining meanings referred to as “cognitive definition” (CD). The conception behind this definition, which will be elaborated on in detail in further sections, corresponds with the proposals made by Anna Wierzbicka (in particular those discussed in her book Lexicography and Conceptual Analysis, 1985). The cognitive definition is one of the methodological tools used in the works of Leksykon aksjologiczny Slowian i ich sqsiadow developed as part of the international EUROJOS seminar.

In the following I will discus (1) the genesis and development of the concept of cognitive definition; (2) its principles; (3) the most important sources of inspiration for its creation; (4) the concept development after the publication of the SLSJ pilot volume in 1980; (5) the reception of the CD conception in Poland and some misunderstandings related to its application; (6) the comparison of CD with other methods of defining (Maciej Grochowski's concept, Anna Wierzbicka's concept of NSM = Natural Semantic Metalanguage) -- convergences and differences, and finally (7) new perspectives for applying CD in comparative studies undertaken within the framework of the EUROJOS seminar -- on the example of the concept HOUSE/HOME.

The commentary of the editors of the book The Linguistic Worldview: Ethnolinguistics, Cognition, and Culture (see: Glaz, Danaher, Lozowski 2013) in the part devoted to the cognitive definition„The cognitive definition”, pp. 137--224; it featured articles by Anna Wierzbicka, Jerzy Bartminski, Katarzyna Prorok and Adam Glaz, Stanislawa Niebrzegowska-Bartminska and Agata Bielak., reads:

“The name of Anna Wierzbicka is especially important in the context of the so-called `cognitive definition' of the `mental object' associated with a given entity, of the way it is viewed, categorized, evaluated, and talked about by speakers of given languages (see Bartminski, 1988). On the one hand, the preliminary instalment of SSSL (Bartminski 1980) arose independently of Wierzbicka's theory of semantic primitives as a continuation of the work on folklore inspired by the linguist Maria Renata Mayenowa. However, in his major article on the cognitive definition, Bartminski (1988) already refers to Wierzbicka's Lexicography and Conceptual Analysis (1985). This, in the words of the former author (p.c.), is Wierzbicka's most interesting work, with an introduction that contains an excellent

account of a comprehensive semantic description that is also pursued by the Lublin-based ethnolinguists.

It therefore seemed justifiable to include Anna Wierzbicka's chapter at the beginning of the section on the cognitive definition in this volume: her explications have conceptually fuelled the pursuits of Bartminski and his collaborators and while the two approaches arose independently, they follow the same general path” (Glaz, Danaher, Lozowski 2013: 16).

Comparing the assumptions of LCE with her own concept of NSM, Anna Wierzbicka wrote herself:

“Despite the fact that we work in different fields, from different viewpoints, in different disciplinary contexts, and with different methodologies, I consider our approaches to be complementary and the directions of our research to be convergent” (Wierzbicka 2013: 137).

The complementary nature of NSM and LCE can be attributed to the fact that, among others, both stand in opposition to traditional taxonomic interpretations of lexical meaning and adopt the principle of reconstructing the meaning by the speaking subject, which in turn is derived from the philosophy of language postulated by W. Humboldt.

“The main objective of the cognitive definition is to reflect the way of understanding a given object by speakers of a particular language, i.e. on the basis of the socially accepted and language-mediated knowledge of the world, categorisation of linguistic phenomena, their characteristics and axiology” (Bartminski 1988: 169).

Likewise, Anna Wierzbicka bases her definitions (explications) on the intuition of a language user (Wierzbicka 1993: 262--264). Both conceptions converge in that their explications go beyond the taxonomic features (necessary and sufficient to separate the object) and take into account all semantically relevant characteristics. Both refer to lexical, phraseological, paremiological and textual sources, including stereotyped texts. Both build definitions using simple sentences linked together into coherent sequences that are grouped according to facets.

THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE CD

The concept of the CD met with favourable response on the part of the scientific community in Poland, which can be measured by the publication of a series of articles written according to the proposed design / idea and the spread of the term “cognitive definition”. The search word “cognitive definition” yields over two thousands entries on Google.

The translations into foreign languages of the article about the CD from 1988 (in Russian, English, Serbian and Czech) is a clear sign of interest on the part of foreign scientists.

5.1. Although the definition was created for the explication of folk stereotypes, it was recognized relatively quickly (and correctly) that it also applies to the nationwide vocabulary and is not limited only to popular varieties of the language. The first work written by an author outside of the Lublin centre but modelled on the articles published in SLSJ 1980 was an article by Janusz Anusiewicz, who developed the CD of catAnusiewicz 1989, 1994: 111--139. and horseAnusiewicz 1994: 139--149.. A number of articles with the phrase “cognitive definition” in the title were published. The CD was used to describe both common -- democracyGrzeszczak 2009. ¹¹ Skowronek 2010.tabloid¹¹, number sevenWojtowicz 2013. -- and proper names, among others mythological concepts: MarzannaLuczynski 2008., PerunLuczynski 2011. Luczynski 2012., Wolos^2X. There have also been some books published, which may not feature the term CD in the title, but their authors explicitly declare the application of its principles. For example, S. Niebrzegowska-Bartminska in her dissertation Wzorce tekstow ustnych w perspektywie etnolingwistycznej (2007) [Patterns of oral texts: An ethnolinguistic approach] devoted a chapter to the “cognitive definition of a text” (pp. 23--28). Katarzyna Smyk described Christmas treeSmyk 2009., Szymon Pawlas -- God/godsPawlas 2013. Grech 2013. and Michal Grech -- university²⁴.

Not all attempts to use the CD are equally successful. This leads sometimes to confusion when it comes to how it is understood and applied.

It is a mistake to bring the essence of the CD to the facet system of definitional sentences. This feature is important (because it helps to understand the processes underlying the profiling of a concept in different discourses), but by no means the most important -- in an article from 1988 it is listed as the last, fourth one. The most important is content and structural adequacy in relation to language user's awareness.

The second misunderstanding is connected with the way the survey results are used. The answers given by respondents are not and cannot be regarded as ready definientiaSee: Jedlinski 2000., they require generalising reinterpretation. Besides, not all object features listed by the respondents in the questionnaire are worthy of their inclusion in the definition. Meaning has a concentric structure: it is composed of the nuclear features (mentioned in the questionnaire regularly and often), and peripheral features (mentioned rarely, often only once).

Debatable is also the issue of openness of the CD. The semantic definition differs from the encyclopaedic one in this respect that the former exposes these features for which we can provide hard “linguistic evidence” (a term used by Wierzbicka 1993: 259) or which we can submit to certification (Bartminski 2015). The openness was ascribed to the CD in the article Definicja semantyczna: czego i dla kogo (Bartminski, Tokarski 1993), because apart from explicit characteristics there are consecutive characteristics accessible as “cognitive paths”; the openness of definitional characteristics is indicated clearly by the results of the survey, which show that the characteristics attributed to a given object by the respondents arranged according to the frequency of their appearance show a system that expires gently without clear thresholds (Bartminski 2014b). It cannot be forgotten, however, that definitional features are characterised by a different degree of entrenchment, and the most significant aspects of the entrenchment of those features are: names (their “internal form” revealed in the etymological and word-formation analysis), derivatives, collocations, metaphorical uses, their use in presuppositions and predicatives. I will show this in more detail on the example of gold (see below).

THE CD VIS-A-VIS MACIEJ GROCHOWSKI'S MINIMALIST (STRUCTURAL) DEFINITIONS AND ANNA WIERZBICKA'S NATURAL SEMANTIC METALANGUAGE (NSM)

A cabinet is a thing that has been made so that people could store their other things in it.

A stool is the thing that has been made so that people could sit on it.

A bed is a thing that has been made so that people could lie on it. Etc.

The definition consists of an overarching category and a differentiating feature. Grochowski opts for minimalist definitions which contain only the semantic core of words including only the features that are most entrenched, necessary and sufficient. In this proposal, there is no room for linguistic or cultural connotations. I pointed out the weaknesses of this type of definition in the article Definicja leksykograficzna a opis jqzyka (1984), where I stressed that it does not reflect what is entrenched in natural language and what constitutes the relevant component of linguistic communication.

Unlike Grochowski, Anna Wierzbicka (similarly to LCE) calls for capturing the meaning of words in the context of culture. Both the CD and Wierzbicka's concept have similar orientation. Although the idea of the CD was born independently, already in 1980, it was only after the publication of the book by Anna Wierzbicka Lexicography and Conceptual Analysis (1985) in which defining features were subjected to precise structuring and grouped into facets, that the concept of the CD has been enriched with the notion of facet and a particular order of the facets that reflects the cognitive structure of concepts was established.

Nonetheless, there are also some differences.

Although both Anna Wierzbicka and LCE assume the principle of simplistic analysis (rendering complex concepts by simpler ones), Wierzbicka in her explications uses elementary semantic components whose number is very limited, while LCE operates with much richer repertoire of defining expressions derived from the popular vocabulary (used as the metalanguage of semantic description), which correspond, to some degree, to “semantic molecules” in Wierzbicka's theory. Consider, for example, the definitions of mother.

In addition to strictly linguistic data, the CD also refers to `paralinguistic' data, practices and beliefs; explications of lexical items belonging to standard national language also use experimental data (survey results). It also takes into account the basic content of lexemes and asks how this content is profiled in discourse.

Mother as explained by Anna Wierzbicka and by LCE. The explanation of mother by Anna Wierzbicka.

Wierzbicka's defnition of a mother couched within her Natural Semantic Metalanguage contains the biological, sociological and psychological components of the concept: X is Y's mother. =

(a) at one time, before now, Y was very small

(b) at that time, Y was inside X

(c) at that time, Y was like a part of X

(d) because of this, people can think something like this about X:

`X wants to do good things for Y

X doesn't want bad things to happen to Y' (Wierzbicka 2006b: 186--187).

Matka according to LCE (cf. Bartminski, ACE 2009, pp. 146--147):

The following aspects (facets) can be recognized in the characterization of the mother: biological, psychological, social (relation to other people), ethical and connected with everyday life. A facet-based arrangement of the features reveals a greater importance of the social aspect relative to others (cf. again the proverb `the mother is not she who has given birth, but she who has raised'):

The superordinate category:

[1] `is a female'

biological aspect:

[2] `has a child' [= gives birth]

[3] `breastfeeds'

[4] `transmits her features to the child'

social aspect:

[5] `looks after'

[6] `assists'

[7] `provides shelter'

[8] `occupies an important position in a group' (8a) `occupies the most important position'

[9] `punishes and beats her children'

[10] `gives advice to the children'

[11] `teaches her daughter how to work'

[12] `children (should) obey the mother'

[13] `the child should be grateful to the mother for her care'socio-psychological aspect:

[14] `is tender and loving'

[15] `good' (^ `looks after', `is tender and loving', `provides shelter')

[16] `accepts one unconditionally'

[17] `is treated with fondness and tenderness'

[18] `one loves one's mother' aspect of everyday life (behavior):

[19] `manages the home'

[20] `gives orders, drives one to work, scolds, beats'

[21] `is busy'

[22] `is the only one and irreplaceable for the children'

[23] `will recognize her child in any situation'

[24] `marries her daughter' psychological aspect:

[25] `is emotional'`tender and loving')

[26] `is understanding'

[27] `is wise'

[28] `is strict (her instrument is a stick)' ethical aspect:

[29] `sets an example to follow'

[30] `is dedicated'

[31] `is self-sacrificing, disinterested'.

The selection of aspects and specific characteristics is decisive for the profiling of the linguocultural image of the mother in social discourse. The different profiles are constructed from the points of view of different speaking subjects: a child, an adult, the family, a local community, the Church. All profiles, nevertheless, are anchored in the base set of features, which I have attempted to reconstruct on the basis of a variety of sources: the language system, texts and questionnaires.

The principle of certification of features included in the CD: the example of gold. If we put forward the postulate that the definition should bring us closer to the linguistic picture of an object, or should even recreate it, we should adopt the principle of certification of all features considered to be defining and show “linguistic evidence”. The authors of dictionaries usually do not comply with this principle (with the possible exception for ISJP ed. by Banko). The principle was clearly formulated by Anna Wierzbicka in her book Lexicography and Conceptual Analysis (1985) and in the article Nazwy zwierzqt [The names of animals] (1993). Since “the main objective of the cognitive definition is to reflect the way of understanding a given object by speakers of a particular language, i.e. on the basis of the socially accepted and language- mediated knowledge of the world, categorisation of linguistic phenomena, their characteristics and axiology” (Bartminski 1988:169--170), the quantity and quality of features given in such a definition must be subject to the certification procedure, it cannot be treated arbitrarily. Popular knowledge in contrast to scientific knowledge can be encapsulated in a certain circle of socially conventionalised and stereotypical judgments about the object. Such features may be objectively verified, because they reflect the collective awareness and knowledgeIt should be added that as opposed to these, encyclopaedic definitions (recognised as scientific ones) are not (by their very nature) accepted by the society (although they could), are created on the basis of specialist knowledge developed continuously, they also depend on the competences of the author of an article and in this sense are ''subjective”. This paradox was stressed by Anna Wierzbicka (1993: 252--253)..

“Linguistic evidence” encompasses secondary and figurative meaning of a lexical item, its etymology, meaning entrenched in derivates and present in fixed collocations and phraseological units, as well as the characteristics communicated by stereotyped texts (e.g. proverbs) and presupposed in individual texts.

In light of these criteria the definition of gold can involve the following features:

¦ 'being a metal' -- due to contextual embeddedness: gold, silver, copper and other metals;

¦ `precious, valuable' -- due to phraseological units: sb/sth is like gold 'sth/sb very precious'; sb/sth is worth its weigt in gold 'sth/sb respected and valuable'; black gold 'coal'; white gold 'cotton'; gold medal 'the best prize'; proverb: Speech is silver, silence is gold;

¦ 'with very positive axiology, since we speak e.g. gold-tongued 'a talented speaker'; and emotional approval: cf. phras. gold, not human 'of a man with very positive character traits'; my gold one, 'a tender address to the loved one or a close person';

¦ indicating `richness', phras. a vein of gold, gold business, gold mine 'sth that brings high profits'; and derivates such as gold-bringing 'generating high profits'; promise sb mountains of gold 'promise big wealth';

¦ `of yellow colour' -- cf. derivates: golden 'gold-like colour, shining like gold'; zlocieh [chrysanthemum] 'plant with goldish yellow flowers'; numerous lexical blends or compounds with gold- being the first part of the word: gold-haired, gold-feathered, gold-coloured, etc.;

¦ `shimmering/shiny' -- cf. to gold 'shimmer like gold'; proverb: All that glitters is not gold;

¦ `used to produce jewellery', the secondary meaning of gold is 'products made of gold'; cf. also derivates: goldsmith, goldsmithery, to gild;

¦ `sth desirable, object of desire', cf. phras. gold rush.

The shortest cognitive definition of gold in Polish should be something like: 'precious metal, most valued, of yellow colour, highly shiny, a sign of wealth, subject of admiration and lust, used for making decorative and symbolic objects (such as wedding rings, liturgical vessels, coins, etc.)Similar procedure in building definitions was used by the authors of the entry horse (Bartminski in SLSJ 1980), cat (Anusiewicz 1990, 1995), sun (Bartminski, Niebrzegowska 1994), stork (Bartminski, Niebrzegowska-Bartminska 2008), text (Niebrzegowska-Bartminska 2007); it is used by the authors of entries in SSiSL 1996--2017..

Among the features mentioned there are those entrenched more strongly ('yellow colour') or less ('shiny'), some ('a sign of wealth') are derivable from the other ('precious'). There are features that are “denotative”, “encyclopaedic”, characteristic of the object itself ('yellow', 'shiny', 'used to make jewellery'), and “connotative”, resulting from the subjective perception ('precious', 'a sign of wealth' and 'object of desire'); the boundary between the “denotative” and “connotative” features is blurred, fuzzy (cognitive scientists question its significance). At the same time, a set of features attributed to the object is open.

This highly interpretive nature of the popular perception of gold was presented recently in SSiSL (Bartminski, Prorok, 2012). It is based on systemic data and records of different genres of texts (including poetry); it encompasses all, also contextual, connotations of gold. This is a picture more complex than that in the standard Polish language, different to a large extent, created from the point of view and perspective of a “simple” and poor man, for whom gold is an unattainable good of somewhat mythical value.

THE APPLICATION OF THE CD IN COMPARATIVE STUDIES UNDERTAKEN WITHIN THE EUROJOS SEMINAR

The concept of the CD was -- as already mentioned -- used on a large scale in SSiSLSee SSiSL 1996--2017.. The experience gained while developing this dictionary and the concepts developed within the Polish cognitive ethnolinguisticsSee Nepop-Ajdaczyc 2007; Zinken 2009; Glaz, Danaher, Lozowski (eds.) 2013. became the point of departure and offer for the associates of the EUROJOS programme who undertake comparative semantic studies on the international scale.

The premise of the EUROJOS programme, affiliated since 2009 with the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences (and since 2015 also with the Ethnolinguistic Commission of International Committee of Slavists) is to develop parallel descriptions of important cultural concepts in different languages (Slavic and others). In order for such descriptions to be comparable, they must rely on a comparable set of sources and operate with similar definitions. The CD is a proposal which can help meet these criteria.

At the first stage, the analyses of the 5 concepts have been prepared: HOME/ HOUSE, EUROPE, WORK, FREEDOM and HONOUR. In 2015--2018 the first four volumes were published (HOUSE/HOME, WORK, HONOUR and EUROPE).

The first volume of Leksykon aksjologiczny Slowian i ich sqsiadow [Lexicon of the Axiology of Slavs and their Neighbours] devoted to HOUSE/HOME gathered parallel description of this concept in 18 languagesThis included the following languages: Polish and Czech, Russian, Belarusian and the micro-language Lemko, three Southern Slavic -- Bulgarian, Serbian and Croatian -- as well as 10 non-Slavic, among others, Lithuanian, Greek, English, French and Portuguese. Additionally, it includes Japanese and three African languages: Swahili, Tamashek and Hausa. A look from afar at the Slavic and European house brings many benefits as it allows to avoid the European ethnocentrism..

The descriptions of the concept HOUSE/HOME in different languages were compiled according to a single, agreed model. Following a general introduction and presentation of the state of research, it presents:

— systemic data (S): dictionary definitions of house/home names; hypernyms, synonyms; oppositions; derivates; collections and complexes; loose collocations and fixed phrasemes; metaphors;

— survey data (A), answers to the question: “What according to you is the essence of a true home/house?”; respondents: a group of 100 students;

— textual data (T), derived primarily (but not exclusively) from the high-circulation press and national language corpora.

The authors worked in two ways: they presented the results of analyses of each data type separately (separate descriptions) or sought to integrate them in a synthetic form using the CD (holistic descriptions)S. Niebrzegowska-Bartminska (2014) postulated favouring holistic descriptions..

The methods of defining in national dictionaries the names for HOUSE/HOME -- such as Greek oiKog, Lithuanian namai and namas, Polish and Russian dom, Belarussian chata, Lemko chyza, Czech dum and domov, Bulgarian kysca, Serbian and Croatian kuca; French maison, Portuguese and Spanish casa, English home -- subjected to analysis revealed differences, but also some commonalities.

In all 18 languages that we examined, the names for HOME/HOUSE are poly- semous, but the definitions repeat two components: place and people. These two dimensions, spatial and human, are related in the sense that people usually live/dwell in a certain place (building). The notion of living/dwelling is crucial to the concept HOME/HOUSE. The conceptulisation of home as a dwelling place is primarily an event, not a location, because the function of home/house -- living/dwelling -- is the most important. The basic conceptual model of HOUSE/HOME can be reconstructed as a configuration of four facetsThe term „facet” is taken from the dictionary of scientific information in the meaning of `semantic subcategory', it is near-synonymous to “aspect”, “dimension” and Langacker's “domain” (Langacker 2009:71--84), it is convenient due to its substantial flexibility and semantic capacity. forming an ordered whole (gestalt)I use the term “Gestalt” in the same sense as cognitivists, cf. Lakoff, Johnson 1988: 96.:

{[SUBJECT] + [EVENT] + [LOCATION] + [FUNCTION]}.

Somebody lives/dwells somewhere and satisfies there their needs. Subjects and locations may differ, functions are the same.

The following semantic components may be ascribed to the key predicate live/dwell -- being the lexical representation of the facet [FUNCTION]:

1) `to be somewhere for a longer period/ permanently';

2) `at your own place, in a familiar place';

3) `separated from the surroundings, in confinement;

4) `in order to satisfy your needs' such as:

¦ sleep and rest,

¦ protection from cold,

¦ security,

¦ being with other people, including taking care of children (nurturing, bringing them up),

¦ usually also: satisfy hunger,

¦ usually also: `personal hygiene (washing/ bathing; excreting),

¦ usually also: transfer of cultural models: speech, beliefs, norms and values,

¦ sometimes also: teaching a profession; earning a living.

The role of the [SUBJECT] living in a house/home is prototypically occupied by a family, in the case of the Polish concept HOUSE/HOME it is mother, in patriotic profile -- “Polish Mother”. The identification of a house/home with a woman is most visible in African languages -- in Swahili the word nyumba designates both the house and the wife.

The facet [LOCATION] is presented in detail and in many ways. The spatial, physical dimension of HOUSE, its appearance, structure, materials can be referred to using a rich vocabulary, quoted abundantly in the articles and properly classified there.

An important aspect of the concept HOME/HOUSE is ascribed to its axiology. In all languages the oppositions such as own/stranger, close/alien, inside/outside are clearly visible. HOUSE/HOME is on the side of what is familiar, close and refers to the interior, which gives it a highly positive evaluation. There is an opposition -- home vs. world.

In all studied languages the concept HOME/HOUSE is subject to metaphorisation. The first metaphoric extension involves the transfer of the name house/home to refer to the nearest surroundings, country and homeland, but also to the whole world (e.g. in the Bible). Secondly, we deal with semantic narrowing when house/home refers to the human body (also in the biblical tradition).

An important role for the CD play also cultural narratives about HOUSE/HOME, in particular the practice of building a house, moving to/from house/home, being at home / in the house, leaving, going out (or expelling) from home, returning HOME.