Bücher der Reihe Cognitive Linguistics Research [CLR]

The book presents a systematic theoretical account of the fundamental constructional mechanisms that underlie deverbal nominalization in general, and it makes an original descriptive contribution by discussing a number of nominalization systems in detail. The main theoretical motif is that nominalization strongly calls for a functional rather than purely structural approach. The book goes more deeply into a number of functional constructs needed to model nominalization (drawn from Cognitive Grammar and Systemic-Functional Grammar) and it elaborates on the internal functional organization of nominal and clausal structure [e.g. the notions of type specification, instantiation and grounding (Langacker 1991) are discussed in detail and shown to be crucial for the analysis of deverbal nominalization]. It is argued that deverbal nominalizations are basically re-classifications of verbal predicates into nominal constructions. This re-classification either applies at word rank or it involves the rank shift (Halliday 1966) of a clause-like unit, with its internal structure preserved (e.g. signing the contract quickly). The re-classified unit then adopts a specific nominal strategy, with some form of nominal determination and quantification (e.g. her signing the contract quickly). The descriptive part of the book zooms in on nominalizations that are derived at word rank (deverbal -er nominals) and on nominalizations applying to 'a temporal clausal heads' (e.g. John's playing the piano) and finite clauses. Of the gerundive and finite types of nominalization, those that function in factive contexts are focused on. In the analysis of deverbal -er nominals a case is made for a 'subject' analysis of the system and an elaborate discussion of the clausal middle construction (e.g. this book reads easily) - which is argued to show systematic resemblances with non-agentive -er nominals - is included. Of the remaining nominalization types (John's playing the piano; playing the piano; the fact that he plays the piano; that he plays the piano ), especially the nominal behaviour (e.g. proper name vs. common noun strategy) and (in the case of gerundive nominals) the various structural and semantic subtypes that can be distinguished among them are discussed.

This book introduces the notion of change construction and systematically studies, within a Cognitive Grammar framework, the rich inventory of its instantiations in English, from well-known structures such as the so-called resultative construction to a variety of largely ignored types such as asymmetric resultatives, sublexical change constructions and mildly causal constructions.

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 and to any reader curious about the relationship between language and cognition.

This classic research monograph develops and illustrates the theory of linguistic structure known as Cognitive Grammar, and applies it to representative phenomena in English and other languages. Cognitive grammar views language as an integral facet of cognition and claims that grammatical structure cannot be understood or revealingly described independently of semantic considerations.

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).

This volume offers new insights into figurative language and its pervasive role as a factor of linguistic change.

The field of constructionist linguistics is rapidly expanding, as research on a broad variety of language phenomena is increasingly informed by constructionist ideas about grammar.

The papers also investigatewhether we have a continuum from highly subjective to more objective, whether subjective need be opposed to objective, or whether subjective may also be understood in contrast to neutral, which is often the case in Traugott's examples of grammaticalization.

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 behavior or structure due to historical factors; experiential motivation, i.e. motivation that is based on embodied experience; and cognitive motivation, i.e. motivation that is based on human knowledge and cognitive operations such as metonymy and metaphor. The languages studied in some detail include Afrikaans, Croatian, Dutch, English, French, German, Hausa, and Hungarian. This volume makes a strong case for the pervasiveness of motivation in natural language. It will be of interest to teachers, researchers and students of linguistics, especially of functional and cognitive linguistics.

The volume offers a number of representative papers on cognitive models that are invoked when people deal with questions of social identity, political and economic manipulation, and more general issues such as the genomic discourse.

This book applies the theory of cognitive linguistics to the analysis of a variety of grammatical phenomena in non-Indo-European languages. In previous studies of languages from non-Indo-European families, cognitive linguistics has been remarkably useful in explaining non-prototypical structures as well as more common ones.

As a usage-based language theory, cognitive linguistics is predestined to have an impact on applied research in such areas as language in society, ideology, language acquisition, language pedagogy.

As a usage-based language theory, cognitive linguistics is predestined to have an impact on applied research in such areas as language in society, ideology, language acquisition, language pedagogy.

The papers in this book are all written within a cognitive linguistics framework, concentrated around different linguistic aspects of the verb. The two keynote papers serve as an introduction to this main theme, providing a broad perspective and a general, theoretical background.

I-VIII -- Introduction -- Assessing the cognitive linguistic enterprise -- Some contributions of typology to cognitive linguistics and vice versa -- Methods and generalizations -- Compositionality and blending: semantic composition in a cognitively realistic framework -- Idealist and empiricist tendencies in cognitive semantics -- Partial Autonomy. Ontology and methodology in cognitive linguistics -- Grounding, mapping, and acts of meaning -- List of contributors -- Index of names -- Subject index -- 271-272

This volume presents a wide spectrum of analyses of space as seen from the viewpoint of human conceptualization.

This volume presents a carefully selected collection of papers based on contributions to the 3rd International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, held in Leuven, Belgium, in 1993. The papers demonstrate the progress which has been made in the various subfields of cognitive linguistics.

This title elaborates one of Roman Jakobson's brilliant ideas, his insight that the two cognitive strategies of the metaphoric and the metonymic are the end-points on a continuum of conceptualization processes.

By illustrating the diverging research methods and procedures possible within the cognitive-linguistic scene, this volume reveals the contribution cognitive linguistics offers to the study of emotion.