The book provides an account of English inversion, a construction that displays perplexing idiosyncrasies at the level of semantics, phonology, syntax, and pragmatics. Basing his central argument on the claim that inversion is a linguistic representation of a Ground-before-Figure model, the author develops an elegant solution to a hitherto unsolved multidimensional linguistic puzzle and, in the process, supports the theoretical position that a cognitive approach best suits the multidimensionality of language itself. Engagingly written, the book will appeal to linguists of all persuasions...
The book provides an account of English inversion, a construction that displays perplexing idiosyncrasies at the level of semantics, phonology, syn...
How much of language is motivated? Recently, cognitive and functional linguists have proposed new solutions to this intriguing question. The thirteen articles collected in this volume cover various aspects of motivation in grammar and in the lexicon. The phenomena discussed in the contributions can be grouped into four types of motivation, which, along with other types, are explicated in the introductory chapter: ecological motivation, i.e. motivation of a linguistic unit due to its place, or "ecological niche," within a system; genetic motivation, i.e. motivation of present-day linguistic...
How much of language is motivated? Recently, cognitive and functional linguists have proposed new solutions to this intriguing question. The thirteen ...
This comparative investigation of the polysemous senses of English and Warlpiri percussion/impact (‛hitting') verbs lays out a novel approach to the study of polysemy in cognitive linguistics. The book's theoretical chapters develop an interpretative rather than a scientific vision of the activity of semantics, problematizing the conceptualist and reductive orientations characteristic of many semantic models. The empirical chapters present a typology of the polysemous senses of English and Warlpiri percussion/impact (or P/I) verbs based on just four types of semantic operation, under...
This comparative investigation of the polysemous senses of English and Warlpiri percussion/impact (‛hitting') verbs lays out a novel approach...
Subjectification is a widespread phenomenon and has emerged as a most pervasive tendency in diachronic semantic change (Traugott) and in synchronic semantic extension (Langacker). Its importance is increasingly valued despite the fact that it is an area that has been treated differently by different scholars. One of the book's objectives is to generate a clearer understanding of the two major models of subjectivity, to see where they can meet but also where intrinsic differences present barriers to any integration. Another objective is to speculate on whether the notions of subjectivity and...
Subjectification is a widespread phenomenon and has emerged as a most pervasive tendency in diachronic semantic change (Traugott) and in synchronic se...
The volume presents an overview of recent cognitive linguistic research on Slavic languages. Slavic languages, with their rich inflectional morphology in both the nominal and the verbal system, provide an important testing ground for a linguistic theory that seeks to motivate linguistic structure.
Therefore, the volume touches upon a wide range of phenomena: it addresses issues related to the semantics of grammatical case, tense, aspect, voice and word order, it looks into grammaticalization and language change and discusses sound symbolism. At the same time, the analyses presented...
The volume presents an overview of recent cognitive linguistic research on Slavic languages. Slavic languages, with their rich inflectional morphol...
Grammar and Conceptualization documents some major developments in the theory of cognitive grammar during the last decade. By further articulating the framework and showing its application to numerous domains of linguistic structure, this book substantiates the claim that lexicon, morphology, and syntax form a gradation consisting of assemblies of symbolic structures (form-meaning pairings).
Grammar and Conceptualization documents some major developments in the theory of cognitive grammar during the last decade. By further articu...
Does temporal language depend on spatial language? This widespread view is intuitively appealing since spatial and temporal expressions are often similar or identical. Also, metaphors consistently express temporal phenomena in terms of spatial language, pointing to a close semantic and conceptual relationship. But what about the application of the two kinds of linguistic expressions in natural discourse?
The book draws together findings on terms that describe the relation of objects or events to each other (such as in front / behind, before /...
Does temporal language depend on spatial language? This widespread view is intuitively appealing since spatial and temporal expressions are often s...
All languages of the world provide their speakers with linguistic means to express causal relations in discourse. Causal connectives and causative auxiliaries are among the salient markers of causal construals. Cognitive scientists and linguists are interested in how much of this causal modeling is specific to a given culture and language, and how much is characteristic of general human cognition. Speakers of English, for example, can choose between because and since or between therefore and so. How different are these from the choices made by Dutch...
All languages of the world provide their speakers with linguistic means to express causal relations in discourse. Causal connectives and causative ...
This volume makes accessible a substantial range of recent research in Cognitive Grammar. From disparate sources, it brings together a dozen innovative papers, revised and integrated to form a coherent whole. This work continues the ongoing program of progressively articulating the theoretical framework and showing its descriptive application to varied grammatical phenomena.
A number of major topics are examined in depth through multiple chapters viewing them from different perspectives: grammatical constructions (their general nature, their metonymic basis, their role in...
This volume makes accessible a substantial range of recent research in Cognitive Grammar. From disparate sources, it brings together a dozen innov...
Given that we lack sensory-motor experience for abstract concepts, how do we find out what they mean? How far can we get by tracking frequency distributions in input? The volume tackles the question of what language has to offer the language learner in his/her quest for meaning, and explicitly addresses how semantic knowledge may be distributed along the continuum from "grammar" to "lexicon." Focus is on the synonymy of constructions and lexemes, a meaning relation that has been largely ignored in Western linguistics.
Frequency in all its guises plays a major part in this book....
Given that we lack sensory-motor experience for abstract concepts, how do we find out what they mean? How far can we get by tracking frequency dist...
