Using a cognitive linguistics perspective, this work provides the most comprehensive, theoretical analysis of the semantics of English prepositions available. All English prepositions are originally coded as spatial relations between two physical entities. While retaining their original meaning, prepositions have also developed a rich set of non-spatial meanings. Andrea Tyler and Vyvyan Evans argue that all the meanings are systematically related through a set of cognitive principles, emphasizing the importance of human experience with the world as the foundation for lexical meaning.

A general introduction to the area of theoretical linguistics known as cognitive linguistics, this textbook provides up-to-date coverage of all areas of the field, including recent developments within cognitive semantics (such as Primary Metaphor Theory, Conceptual Blending Theory, and Principled Polysemy), and cognitive approaches to grammar (such as Radical Construction Grammar and Embodied Construction Grammar). The authors offer clear, critical evaluations of competing formal approaches within theoretical linguistics. For example, cognitive linguistics is compared to Generative Grammar...

Cognitive Linguistics is the most rapidly expanding school in modern Linguistics. It aims to create a scientific approach to the study of language, incorporating the tools of philosophy, neuroscience and computer science. Cognitive approaches to language were initially based on philosophical thinking about the mind, but more recent work emphasizes the importance of convergent evidence from a broad empirical and methodological base. The Cognitive Linguistics Reader brings together the key writings of the last two decades, both the classic foundational pieces and contemporary work. The essays...

Using a cognitive linguistics perspective, this work provides the most comprehensive, theoretical analysis of the semantics of English prepositions available. All English prepositions are originally coded as spatial relations between two physical entities. While retaining their original meaning, prepositions have also developed a rich set of non-spatial meanings. Andrea Tyler and Vyvyan Evans argue that all the meanings are systematically related through a set of cognitive principles, emphasizing the importance of human experience with the world as the foundation for lexical meaning.

One of the most enigmatic aspects of experience concerns time. Since pre-Socratic times scholars have speculated about the nature of time, asking questions such as: What is time? Where does it come from? Where does it go? The central proposal of The Structure of Time is that time, at base, constitutes a phenomenologically real experience. Drawing on findings in psychology, neuroscience, and utilising the perspective of cognitive linguistics, this work argues that our experience of time may ultimately derive from perceptual processes, which in turn enable us to perceive events. As such,...

Cognitive linguistics is one of the most rapidly expanding schools in linguistics with, by now, an impressive and complex technical vocabulary. This alphabetic guide gives an up-to-date introduction to the key terms in cognitive linguistics, covering all the major theories, approaches, ideas and many of the relevant theoretical constructs. The Glossary also features a brief introduction to cognitive linguistics, a detailed annotated reading list and a listing of some of the key researchers in cognitive linguistics. The Glossary can be used as a companion volume to Cognitive Linguistics, by...

How Words Mean introduces a new approach to the role of words and other linguistic units in the construction of meaning. It does so by addressing the interaction between non-linguistic concepts and the meanings encoded in language. It develops an account of how words are understood when we produce and hear language in situated contexts of use. It proposes two theoretical constructs, the lexical concept and the cognitive model. These are central to the accounts of lexical representation and meaning construction developed, giving rise to the Theory of Lexical Concepts and Cognitive Models (or...

An authoritative general introduction to cognitive linguistics, this book provides up-to-date coverage of all areas of the field and sets in context recent developments within cognitive semantics (including primary metaphors, conceptual blending and Principled Polysemy), and cognitive approaches to grammar (including Radical Construction Grammar and Embodied Construction Grammar). While all topics are introduced in terms accessible to both undergraduate and postgraduate students, this work is sufficiently comprehensive and detailed to serve as a reference work for scholars from linguistics...

An authoritative general introduction to cognitive linguistics, this book provides up-to-date coverage of all areas of the field and sets in context recent developments within cognitive semantics (including primary metaphors, conceptual blending and Principled Polysemy), and cognitive approaches to grammar (including Radical Construction Grammar and Embodied Construction Grammar). While all topics are introduced in terms accessible to both undergraduate and postgraduate students, this work is sufficiently comprehensive and detailed to serve as a reference work for scholars from linguistics...

In The Crucible of Language, Vyvyan Evans explains what we know, and what we do, when we communicate using language.