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 and ...cognitive approaches to grammar.
Using language and thought to fix events in time is one of the most complex computational feats that humans perform. In the first book-length taxonomy of temporal frames of reference, Vyvyan Evans ...provides an overview of the role of space in structuring human representations of time. Challenging the assumption that time is straightforwardly structured in terms of space, he shows that while space is important for temporal representation, time is nevertheless separate and distinguishable from it. Evans argues for three distinct temporal frames of reference in language and cognition and evaluates the nature of temporal reference from a cross-linguistic perspective. His central thesis is that the hallmark of temporal reference is transience, a property unique to the domain of time. This important study has implications not only for the relationship between space and time, but also for that between language and figurative thought, and the nature of linguistically-mediated meaning construction.
Using a cognitive linguistics perspective, this book provides a comprehensive, theoretical analysis of the semantics of English prepositions. All English prepositions originally coded spatial ...relations between two physical entities; while retaining their original meaning, prepositions have also developed a rich set of non-spatial meanings. In this study, Tyler and Evans argue that all these meanings are systematically grounded in the nature of human spatio-physical experience. The original 'spatial scenes' provide the foundation for the extension of meaning from the spatial to the more abstract. This analysis articulates an alternative methodology that distinguishes between a conventional meaning and an interpretation produced for understanding the preposition in context, as well as establishing which of several competing senses should be taken as the primary sense. Together, the methodology and framework are sufficiently articulated to generate testable predictions and allow the analysis to be applied to additional prepositions.
Cognitive linguistics is one of the fastest growing and influential perspectives on the nature of language, the mind, and their relationship with sociophysical (embodied) experience. It is a broad ...theoretical and methodological enterprise, rather than a single, closely articulated theory. Its primary commitments are outlined. These are the Cognitive Commitment—a commitment to providing a characterization of language that accords with what is known about the mind and brain from other disciplines—and the Generalization Commitment—which represents a dedication to characterizing general principles that apply to all aspects of human language. The article also outlines the assumptions and worldview which arises from these commitments, as represented in the work of leading cognitive linguists. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012, 3:129–141. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1163
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Linguistics > Linguistic Theory
This book comprises a collection of original empirically and theoretically motivated studies at the nexus of discourse analysis, cognitive linguistics and second language learning.
•Broadens the study of polysemy within the cognitive linguistics tradition.•Considers three types of distinct polysemy phenomena.•Provides a joined-up account of these phenomena using LCCM Theory.
...Within the cognitive linguistics tradition, polysemy has often been viewed as a function of underlying entries in semantic memory: word forms have distinct, albeit related, lexical entries, which thereby give rise to polysemous word senses in language use (e.g., Evans, 2004; Tyler and Evans, 2001, 2003). In this paper, I seek to broaden out the study of polysemy within this tradition by tackling it from three slightly different angles. I argue that polysemy can also arise from the non-linguistic knowledge to which words facilitate access. This phenomenon I refer to as conceptual polysemy. I illustrate this with an analysis of the lexical item book. Moreover, polysemy also arises from distinct, albeit related, conventionalised sense-units associated with the same linguistic form: the phenomenon I refer to as lexical polysemy. I illustrate with an analysis of the polysemy exhibited by the form in. And finally, semantic relatedness can be discerned as arising from different word forms which, at least on first blush, appear to share a common semantic representation. This phenomenon I refer to as inter-lexical polysemy. I illustrate with a case study involving an analysis of the prepositional forms in and on. In presenting my account of these three types of polysemous phenomena, I introduce a contemporary account of lexical representation: the Theory of Lexical Concepts and Cognitive Models, or LCCM Theory for short (Evans, 2006, 2009, 2010b, 2013). This provides a common theoretical architecture which facilitates a joined-up account of these specific phenomena, and of polysemy more generally. Finally, the paper introduces a new construct within the theory—the notion of a meaning spectrum—which facilitates analysis of aspects of lexical and inter-lexical polysemy.
This article explores lexical polysemy through an in-depth examination of the English preposition over. Working within a cognitive linguistic framework, the present study illustrates the nonarbitrary ...quality of the mental lexicon and the highly creative nature of the human conceptual system. The analysis takes the following as basic: (1) human conceptualization is the product of embodied experience, that is, the kinds of bodies and neural architecture humans have, in conjunction with the nature of the spatio-physical world humans inhabit, determine human conceptual structure, and (2) semantic structure derives from and reflects conceptual structure. As humans interact with the world, they perceive recurring spatial configurations that become represented in memory as abstract, imagistic conceptualizations. We posit that each preposition is represented by a primary meaning, which we term a PROTOSCENE. The protoscene, in turn, interacts with a highly constrained set of cognitive principles to derive a set of additional distinct senses, forming a motivated semantic network. Previous accounts have failed to develop adequate criteria to distinguish between coding in formal linguistic expression and the nature of conceptualization, which integrates linguistic prompts in a way that is maximally coherent with and contingent upon sentential context and real-world knowledge. To this end, we put forward a methodology for identifying the protoscene and for distinguishing among distinct senses.
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 toCognitive Linguistics, by Vyvyan Evans and Melanie Green, or as a stand-alone introduction to cognitive linguistics and its two hitherto best developed sub-branches: cognitive semantics, and cognitive approaches to grammar.
Key Features
A handy and easily understandable pocket guide for anyone embarking on courses in cognitive linguistics, and language and mind.Supplies numerous cross-references to related terms.Includes coverage of newer areas such as Radical Construction Grammar, Embodied Construction Grammar, Primary MetaphorTheory and Principled Polysemy.
Recent research in language and cognitive science proposes that the linguistic system evolved to provide an "executive" control system on the evolutionarily more ancient conceptual system (e.g., ...Barsalou et al., 2008; Evans, 2009, 2015a,b; Bergen, 2012). In short, the claim is that embodied representations in the linguistic system interface with non-linguistic representations in the conceptual system, facilitating rich meanings, or simulations, enabling linguistically mediated communication. In this paper I build on these proposals by examining the nature of what I identify as design features for this control system. In particular, I address how the ideational function of language-our ability to deploy linguistic symbols to convey meanings of great complexity-is facilitated. The central proposal of this paper is as follows. The linguistic system of any given language user, of any given linguistic system-spoken or signed-facilitates access to knowledge representation-concepts-in the conceptual system, which subserves this ideational function. In the most general terms, the human meaning-making capacity is underpinned by two distinct, although tightly coupled representational systems: the conceptual system and the linguistic system. Each system contributes to meaning construction in qualitatively distinct ways. This leads to the first design feature: given that the two systems are representational-they are populated by semantic representations-the nature and function of the representations are qualitatively different. This proposed design feature I term the bifurcation in semantic representation. After all, it stands to reason that if a linguistic system has a different function, vis-à-vis the conceptual system, which is of far greater evolutionary antiquity, then the semantic representations will be complementary, and as such, qualitatively different, reflecting the functional distinctions of the two systems, in collectively giving rise to meaning. I consider the nature of these qualitatively distinct representations. And second, language itself is adapted to the conceptual system-the semantic potential-that it marshals in the meaning construction process. Hence, a linguistic system itself exhibits a bifurcation, in terms of the symbolic resources at its disposal. This design feature I dub the birfucation in linguistic organization. As I shall argue, this relates to two distinct reference strategies available for symbolic encoding in language: what I dub words-to-world reference and words-to-words reference. In slightly different terms, this design feature of language amounts to a distinction between a lexical subsystem, and a grammatical subsystem.
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, temporal experience is a pre-requisite for abilities such as event perception and comparison, rather than an abstraction based on such phenomena. The book represents an examination of the nature of temporal cognition, with two foci: (i) an investigation into (pre-conceptual) temporal experience, and (ii) an analysis of temporal structure at the conceptual level (which derives from temporal experience).
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