Langacker's cognitive grammar

COGNITIVE
GRAMMAR
developed by Ronald Langacker

Discussant:
Joy A. Verzosa

Cognitive grammar is a
cognitive approach to language
developed by Ronald Langacker,
which considers
the basic units of language to be
symbols
or conventional pairings of a semantic
structure with a phonological label.

Like construction grammar (developed by
Langacker's student Adele Goldberg), and
unlike many mainstream linguistic
theories,
cognitive grammar extends the notion
of symbolic units to the grammar of
languages.

Langacker develops the central ideas of cognitive grammar
in his seminal, two-volume Foundations of cognitive
grammar, which became a major departure point for the
emerging field of Cognitive Linguistics.

he further assumes that linguistic structures are
motivated by general cognitive processes.

In formulating his theory, he makes extensive
use of principles of gestalt psychology and
draws analogies between linguistic structure
and aspects of visual perception.

Cognitive Grammar: A Basic
Introduction
Ronald Langacker

Orientation

Grammar forms a continuum with lexicon and is fully
describable as assemblies of symbolic structures (form-
meaning pairings)

Lexicon varies with respect to the complexity of expressions
and the degree of specifity of the meanings symbolized

Cognitive Grammar is a usage-based approach, in which
linguistic structure is seen as emerging by abstraction from
usage events, i.e. the reinforcement of what is common across
multiple instances of language use in interactive contexts.

Conceptual Semantics

Linguistic meanings do not reflect the world in any
direct or straightforward manner, but rather
embody particular ways of construing the
situations described, often involving imagination
and mental constructions.

An expression derives its meaning by flexibly
invoking an open-ended set of cognitive domains,
i.e. concepts or conceptual complexes of any
degree of complexity.

CONSTRUAL

An expression's meaning depends not only on
the conceptual content it evokes but also on
the construal it imposes on that content.

Broad classes of construal phenomena include specificity,
focusing, prominence, and perspective. Specificity (or its
inverse, schematicity) is the degree of precision and
detail at which a situation is characterized.

Grammatical Classes

The standard doctrine that basic
grammatical classes (parts of speech) are
not semantically definable rests on
erroneous assumptions about the nature
of linguistic meaning. With a proper view
of meaning, basic categories—notably
noun and verb—have plausible
conceptual characterizations at both the
prototype level (for typical examples) and
the schema level (valid for all instances).

The schemas are independent of any particular conceptual content,
residing instead in basic cognitive abilities immanent in the archetypes:
for nouns, grouping and reification; in the case of verbs, the ability to
apprehend relationships and to track their evolution through time.

An expression's grammatical category specifically depends on the
nature of its profile (not its overall content). Thus a noun profiles a thing
(defined abstractly as any product of grouping and reification), while a
verb profiles a process (a relationship tracked through time).

Expressions that profile non-process relationships include adjectives,
adverbs, prepositions, infinitives, and participles. Relational expressions
can be categorized in different ways, depending on factors like the
number and type of focused participants, whether the profiled relation is
simple or complex, and whether it is apprehended holistically or
sequentially.

These characterizations prove efficacious in describing how relational
expressions function as noun modifiers and in clausal organization.

M AJOR SUBCLASSES
Despite being polar opposites conceptually, the two
most fundamental grammatical classes—noun and verb—
show extensive parallelism.

One similarity is that both divide into two major subclasses:
count vs. mass for nouns, perfective vs. imperfective for
verbs. Allowing for the intrinsic conceptual difference
between nouns and verbs, these oppositions are precisely the
same.
The essential feature of count nouns and perfective verbs is that the
profiled thing or process is construed as being bounded within the
immediate scope in a particular cognitive domain: the domain of
instantiation, characterized as the domain where instances of a type are
primarily conceived as residing and are distinguished from one another
by their locations

For nouns, the domain of instantiation varies, although space is
prototypical; for verbs, the relevant domain is always time. Correlated with
bounding are other distinguishing properties: internal heterogeneity (for
count and perfective) vs. homogeneity (for mass and imperfective);
contractibility (the property of masses and imperfectives whereby any
subpart of an instance is itself an instance of its type); and expansibility
(whereby combining two mass or imperfective instances yields a single,
larger instance).

Count vs. mass and perfective vs. imperfective are not rigid lexical
distinctions, but are malleable owing to alternate construals as well as
systematic patterns of extension. The conceptual characterization of
perfective and imperfective verbs explains their contrasting behavior with
respect to the English progressive and present tense.

Constructions
General Characterization
Grammar consists in patterns for assembling symbolically complex expressions.
Such expressions are characterized as assemblies of symbolic structures, also called
constructions. In large measure, symbolic assemblies are hierarchically arranged: at
a given level of organization, component symbolic structures are integrated to form a
composite symbolic structure, which can in turn function as component structure at a
higher level, and so on.

Component structures are integrated both semantically and phonologically, the
phonological integration serving to symbolize the semantic integration. Although
linguistic meanings are only partially compositional, compositional patterns are
essential to the formation and understanding of novel expressions. These patterns
are themselves symbolic assemblies, differing from expressions just by virtue of
being schematic rather than specific; they are thus referred to as constructional
schemas

Constructions
Descriptive Factors
Constructions are characterized in terms of four basic factors: correspondences,
profiling, elaboration, and constituency. Correspondences are the basis for semantic
and grammatical integration; they specify the conceptual and phonological overlap
between component structures, as well as between the component and composite
structures. Semantic integration often involves multiple correspondences. Semantic
anomaly arises when corresponding elements have inconsistent properties.

A component which makes salient schematic reference to another in this manner is
said to be dependent on it. Organization in relationships of autonomy/dependence
(A/D-alignment) is a basic feature of language structure. The difference between
complements and modifiers is a matter of whether these component structures are
autonomous or dependent with respect to the constructional head. Constituency is
the hierarchical aspect of symbolic assemblies. Contrary to standard views,
constituency is neither fundamental nor essential to grammar, and while it does
emerge, it is neither invariant nor exhaustive of grammatical structure.
Grammatical relations (like subject and object) are defined on the basis of semantic
factors and correspondences, and are thus independent of particular constituency
configurations.

Rules and Restrictions
Language is both cognitive and sociocultural, consisting in conventionally
sanctioned patterns of communicative activity. These patterns take the form of
schemas abstracted from usage events by the reinforcement of recurring
commonalities. Conventional linguistic units are linked by relationships of
composition and categorization (either elaboration or extension) and thus form
intersecting networks of great complexity.

Expressions are interpreted and assessed for well-formedness through
categorization by linguistic units. Through a process of interactive activation,
particular units are selected to categorize particular facets of an expression. The
total set of categorizing relationships constitutes the expression's structural
description, and whether the categorizations involve elaboration or extension
determines its degree of conventionality. Despite the absence of explicit
prohibitions, this model affords an account of distribution, restrictions, and
judgments of ungrammaticality.

Engaging the World
Because it unfolds through time, conceptualization (and hence linguistic meaning)
is inherently dynamic. There are numerous natural paths that it tends to follow,
and which tend to coalign in linguistic structure. In one kind of path, a salient
reference point provides mental access to a target. Certain basic grammatical
phenomena are analyzed in terms of reference point relationships, including
possessives, pronominal anaphora, topic constructions, and trajector/ landmark
organization (subject and object).

A subject differs from a discourse topic by being structurally internal to a clause
and conceptually intrinsic to the clausal process. Trajector and landmark are
characterized dynamically as the first and second reference points evoked in
building up to the full conception of a profiled relationship. This explains their
general grammatical accessibility as well as their role in certain specific
constructions.

The mental world we construct is grounded in our experience as creatures with
bodies who engage in motor and sensory interactions (embodiment). In
constructing it, we transcend direct experience through abstraction, conceptual
integration, and subjectification: the application of mental operations immanent in
certain conceptions to situations for which their occurrence is extrinsic. Examples
include fictive motion, fictive change, and the covert invocation of imagined
scenarios.

Mental simulation is a fundamental aspect of conception and linguistic meaning.
Subjectification is an important factor in grammaticization (the evolution of
grammatical elements from lexical sources). Many grammatical notions are
subjective counterparts of basic aspects of everyday experience.

Grammar reflects the means of
disengagement through which we
transcend immediate experience
and construct our mental world. It is
thus a key to conceptual analysis.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_grammar
 Langacker, Ronald W. (1982) 'Space Grammar, Analysability, and the English Passive',
Language, 58, 1, 22-80.
 Langacker, Ronald W. (1987) Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, Volume 1, Theoretical
Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
 Langacker, Ronald W. (1990) Concept, Image, and Symbol: The Cognitive Basis of Grammar .
(Cognitive Linguistics Research 1.) Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. [paperback edition
1991]
 Langacker, Ronald W. (1991) Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, Volume 2, Descriptive
Application. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
 Langacker, Ronald W. (2008) Cognitive Grammar: A Basic Introduction. New York: Oxford
University Press.
 Taylor, John R. (2002) Cognitive Grammar. Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

Langacker's cognitive grammar

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