Polysemy, Diachrony, and the Circle of Cognition

Polysemy, Diachrony, and the Circle of Cognition PDF Author: Michael Fortescue
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004449523
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
This book contains an innovative approach to the semantics and diachronic source of cognitive verbs across a representative array of the world’s languages.

Polysemy, Diachrony, and the Circle of Cognition

Polysemy, Diachrony, and the Circle of Cognition PDF Author: Michael Fortescue
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004449523
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
This book contains an innovative approach to the semantics and diachronic source of cognitive verbs across a representative array of the world’s languages.

Space, Time, World

Space, Time, World PDF Author: Michael Fortescue
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027247196
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Although major cognitively based studies of SPACE and TIME in language have appeared in terms of “Frames of Reference”, these do not extend to a wide selection of the world’s languages, nor do they combine SPACE and TIME in the overarching concept of WORLD, which has its own corresponding frames of reference. The aim of relating and unifying these concepts and their expression across languages constitutes the unique thrust of the present book, which will represent a significant extension of earlier approaches. Among its main conclusions will be that the complete separation of terms for SPACE and TIME is a relatively recent cultural phenomenon, rather than just a metaphorical extension of the latter from the former. The book will be of interest to all students and practitioners of Linguistics, in particular Cognitive Linguistics and Linguistic typology, but also to a more general readership interested in the historical evolution of concepts of SPACE and TIME.

Polysemy, Diachrony, and the Circle of Cognition

Polysemy, Diachrony, and the Circle of Cognition PDF Author: Michael D. Fortescue
Publisher: Brill's Studies in Language, C
ISBN: 9789004449510
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
"Verbs of mental states or activity constitute a subject of considerable interest to both Cognitive Linguistics and Linguistic Typology. They promise to open a window on the invisible workings of the mind, while at the same time displaying a wide variety of historical sources across languages. In this book Michael Fortescue presents an innovative approach to the semantics and diachronic source of cognitive verbs across a representative array of the world's languages. The relationship among the cognitive verbs of individual languages is essentially one of metonymy, and the book investigates in detail the specific metonymic relationships involved, as revealed largely by the polysemous spread of word meanings. The data is projected against a circular 'map' of interrelated cognitive categories"--

Diachrony Within Synchrony--language History and Cognition

Diachrony Within Synchrony--language History and Cognition PDF Author: Günter Kellermann
Publisher: Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 592

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Book Description
The articles in this collection are centred around the question of what can be meant by assuming that change is a property of language. Either from general points of view, or in the light of specific examples, the following main topics are discussed: language use and language change as interrelated manifestations of human cognition; the directionality of linguistic development; the predictability of language change; methods of semantic reconstruction; aims of explaining language change and restrictions in doing so; the relationship between cognitive linguistics and philology.

Structural Priming in the Grammatical Network

Structural Priming in the Grammatical Network PDF Author: Tobias Ungerer
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027249539
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
This book brings together research in cognitive linguistics and experimental psychology to construct a psychologically plausible account of grammar as a mental network. To explore the organisation of this network, the author examines evidence from structural priming, which occurs when speakers’ processing of a grammatical construction is affected by prior exposure to the same or a similar construction. Previous experimental findings are innovatively reinterpreted to shed light on various aspects of the grammatical network, including the strength of the similarities between constructions, the level of abstraction at which they are represented and the ways in which similar constructions can either boost or inhibit each other. Moreover, new experiments are reported that extend structural priming to phenomena like the resultative, the depictive and the caused-motion construction. The book is directed at theoretical linguists, psycholinguists and cognitive psychologists alike, showcasing how recent work in these areas can be integrated and extended.

From Etymology to Pragmatics

From Etymology to Pragmatics PDF Author: Eve Sweetser
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316582337
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
This book offers a distinct approach to the analysis of the multiple meanings of English modals, conjunctions, conditionals and perception verbs. Although such ambiguities cannot easily be accounted for by feature-analyses of word meaning, Eve Sweetser's argument shows that they can be analysed both readily and systematically. Meaning relationships in general cannot be understood independently of human cognitive structure, including the metaphorical and cultural aspects of that structure. Sweetser shows that both lexical polysemy and pragmatic ambiguity are shaped by our metaphorical folk understanding of epistemic processes and of speech interaction. Similar regularities can be shown to structure the contrast between root, epistemic and 'speech-act' uses of modal verbs, multiple uses of conjunctions and conditionals, and certain processes of historical change observed in Indo-European languages. Since polysemy is typically the intermediate step in semantic change, the same regularities observable in polysemy can be extended to an analysis of semantic change. This book will attract students and researchers in linguistics, philosophy, the cognitive sciences, and all those interested in metaphor.

Ten Lectures on Cognitive Sociolinguistics

Ten Lectures on Cognitive Sociolinguistics PDF Author: Dirk Geeraerts
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004336842
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Cognitive Sociolinguistics combines the interest in meaning of Cognitive Linguistics with the interest in social variation of sociolinguistics, converging on two domains of enquiry: variation of meaning, and the meaning of variation. These Ten Lectures, a transcribed version of talks given by professor Geeraerts in 2009 at Beihang University in Beijing, introduce and illustrate both dimensions. The ‘variation of meaning’ perspective involves looking at types of semantic and categorial variation, at the role of social and cultural factors in semantic variation and change, and at the interplay of stereotypes, prototypes and norms. The ‘meaning of variation’ perspective involves looking at the way in which categorization processes of the type studied by Cognitive Linguistics shape how scholars and laymen think about language variation.

The Genesis of Syntactic Complexity

The Genesis of Syntactic Complexity PDF Author: Talmy Givón
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027232539
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Complex hierarchic syntax is a hallmark of human language. The highest level of syntactic complexity, recursive-embedded clauses, has been singled out by some for a special status as the evolutionary apex of the uniquely - human language faculty - evolutionary yet mysteriously immune to Darwinian adaptive selection. Prof. Givón's book treats syntactic complexity as an integral part of the evolutionary rise of human communication. The book first describes grammar as an adaptive instrument of communication, assembled upon the pre-existing platform of pre-linguistic object- and-event cognition and mental representation. It then surveys the two grand developmental trends of human language: diachrony, the communal enterprise directly responsible for fashioning synchronic morpho-syntax and cross-language diversity; and ontogeny, the individual endeavor directly responsible for acquiring the competent use of grammar. The genesis of syntactic complexity along these two developmental trends is compared with second language acquisition, pre-grammatical pidgin and pre-human communication. The evolutionary relevance of language diachrony, language ontogeny and pidginization is argued for on general bio-evolutionary grounds: It is the organism's adaptive on-line behavior- invention, learning and skill acquisition - that is the common thread running through all three developmental trends. The neuro-cognitive circuits that underlie language, and their evolutionary underpinnings, are described and assessed. Recursive embedding turns out to be not an adaptive target on its own, but the by-product of two distinct adaptive moves: (i) the recruitment of conjoined clauses as modal operators on, or referential specifiers of, other clauses; and (ii) the subsequent condensation of paratactic into syntactic structures.

Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics

Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics PDF Author: René Dirven
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027295417
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics is designed as a comprehensive introductory text for first and second-year university students of language and linguistics. It provides a chapter on each of the more established areas in linguistics such as lexicology, morphology, syntax, phonetics and phonology, historical linguistics, and language typology and on some of the newer areas such as cross-cultural semantics, pragmatics, text linguistics and contrastive linguistics. In each of these areas language is explored as part of a cognitive system comprising perception, emotion, categorisation, abstraction processes, and reasoning. All these cognitive abilities may interact with language and be influenced by language. Thus the study of language in a sense becomes the study of the way we express and exchange ideas and thoughts. This Second Revised Edition is corrected, updated and expanded. Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics is clearly presented and organized after having been tested in several courses in various countries. Includes exercises (solutions to be found on the Internet).

The Abstraction Engine

The Abstraction Engine PDF Author: Michael Fortescue
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027265844
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
The main thesis of this book is that abstraction, far from being confined to higher forms of cognition, language and logical reasoning, has actually been a major driving force throughout the evolution of creatures with brains. It is manifest in emotive as well as rational thought. Wending its way through the various facets of abstraction, the book attempts to clarify – and relate – the often confusing meanings of the word ‘abstract’ that one may encounter even within the same discipline. The unusual synoptic approach, which draws upon research in psychology, neural network theory, child language acquisition, philosophy and consciousness studies, as well as a variety of linguistic disciplines, cannot be compared directly to other books on the market that touch upon just one particular aspect of abstraction. It is aimed at a wide readership – anyone interested in the nature of abstraction and the cognitive processing and purpose behind it. (series A)