Cognitive Grammar

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Cognitive Grammar
Lecture 4
18 Oct.,
2005

• Helena Gao

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• Required readings
• Langacker, R. (l998). Conceptualization,
  symbolization and grammar. In M.Tomasello(ed.)
  The New Psychology of Language. Lawrence Erlbaum
  Associates, Publishes. pp. 1-39
• Hsieh, Hsin-I. (2005 to appear). Toward a Global
  Grammar of Chinese, Language And Linguistics
  Monograph Series Number W-3, 1-17. Papers In
  Honor Of Professor William S-Y. Wang On His
  Seventieth Birthday.
• Recommended readings
• Pinker, S. (1994). The Language Instinct. New
  York Morrow. Chapter 4 How language works. pp.
  83-125 Chapter 10 Language organs and grammar
  genes. pp. 297-331
• Goldberg, A. E. (2004). But do we need Universal
  Grammar? Comment on Lidz et al. (2003) Cognition
  94. 77-84
• Fillmore, C., Kay, P., OConnor, M. C. (2003).
  Regularity and Idiomaticity in Grammatical
  Constructions The Case of Let Alone. In M.
  Tomasello (ed.), The new psychology of language
  Cognitive and functional approaches to language
  structure, Vol. 2. NJ, US Lawrence Erlbaum
  Associates, Publishers. pp. 243-270

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Cognitive approaches to grammar

• Theories of grammar that relate grammar to mental
  processes and structures in human cognition.
  (Wikipedia Encyclopedia by Sergei Starostin,
  1953-2005)
• Noam Chomsky and his fellow generative
  grammarians
• Grammar is an autonomous mental faculty
• It is governed by mental processes operating on
  mental representations of different kinds of
  symbols that apply only within this faculty.
• Proponents of cognitive linguistics
• Grammar is not an autonomous mental faculty with
  processes of its own, but it is intertwined with
  all other cognitive processes and structures.
• The basic claim is that grammar is
  conceptualization.
• Some of the theories that fall within this
  paradigm
• e,.g., construction grammar, cognitive grammar,
  and word grammar.

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Cognitive approaches to grammar - Guiding
Principles

• The symbolic thesis
• The basic unit of a grammar is a form-meaning
  pairing termed variously a symbolic assembly in
  Langackers Cognitive Grammar or a construction
  in a construction grammar.

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A symbolic unit
The relationship between semantic, phonological
and symbolic units
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Cognitive approaches to grammar - Guiding
Principles

• The usage-based thesis
• There is an intimate relationship between the
  grammar (defined as the mental repository of
  symbolic units), and language use.

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The Cognitive Model of Grammar (Langacker 1987
77)
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Distinct Cognitive Approaches to the Study of
Grammar

• Inventory-based theories
• Cognitive Grammar
• Construction Grammar
• Fillmore and Keys Construction Grammar
• Goldbergs Construction Grammar
• Embodied Construction Grammar
• Radical Construction Grammar
• Grammatical subsystem-based theories
• The theory of Conceptual Structuring Systems
• Grammaticalisation Theory

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Inventory-based approaches to grammar - An
overview of distinct cognitive linguistic
theories of grammar
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(No Transcript)
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Characteristics of the Cognitive Approach to
Grammar

• The ultimate aim of a cognitive approach is to
  model speaker knowledge in ways which are
  consistent with the two key commitments which
  underlie the cognitive linguistics enterprise.

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• Generalisation Commitment
• a commitment to the characterisation of general
  principles which are responsible for all aspects
  of human language
• Categorisation, polysemy, metaphor
• Cognitive Commitment
• a commitment to providing a characterisation of
  general principles for language which accords
  with what is known about the mind and brain from
  other disciplines.
• Attention, categorization, metaphor

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The Generalization Commitment

• Lexicology e.g., Over
• a. The picture is over the sofa above
• b. The picture is over the hole covering
• c. The ball is over the wall on-the-other-side-o
  f
• d. The government handed over power transfer
• e. She has a strange power over me control
• Morphology e.g., Agentive er Suffix
• a. teacher
• b. villager
• c. toaster
• d. best-seller
• Syntax e.g., Ditransitive construction
• Subject Verb Object 1 Object 2

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The Cognitive Commitment

• Attention
• The boy kicks over the vase ACTIVE
• The vase is kicked over PASSIVE
• The vase smashes into bits SUBJECT-VERB-COMPLEMEN
  T
• The vase is in bits SUBJECT-COPULA-COMPLEMENT

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Basic Concepts of Langackers Cognitive Grammar
An Overview

• 1) Attention attention is intrinsically
  associated with the intensity or energy level of
  cognitive processes, which translates
  experientially into greater prominence or
  salience (Langacker, 1987 115)

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Focal adjustments

• Linguistic expressions relate to conceived
  situations or scenes
• The concepts employed to structure conceived
  situations can vary along three parameters
  selection, perspective and abstraction.
• Such variation is termed focal adjustment
• By choosing particular focal adjustments and
  hence organising a scene in a particular way,
  through language, the speaker or hearer provides
  a particular construal of the scene in question

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The relationship between focal adjustments and
construal
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Selection

• Focal adjustments of selection determine which
  aspects of a scene are being dealt with
• i) Conceptual Domains a body of knowledge within
  our conceptual system that contains and
  organizes related ideas and experiences

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Basic conceptual domains (Langacker, 1987)

• Basic Domain
• SPACE
• COLOUR
• PITCH
• TEMPERATURE
• PRESSURE
• PAIN
• ODOUR
• TIME
• EMOTION

• Pre-conceptual Basis
• Vision, touch, kinaesthesia
• Vision
• Hearing
• Touch, somesthesia
• Touch, kinaesthesia, somesthesia
• Touch, somesthesia
• Smell
• Temporal awareness
• Affective system

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Examples

• a. The tree is quite close to the garage
  spatial
• b. Its already close to Christmas temporal
• c. The paint is close to the blue we want for the
  dining room
  colour
• d. Steve and his sister are very close emotion

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• ii) Profiling the conceptualisation designated
  by a linguistic utterance constitutes its
  profile, a focal point. However, a particular
  focal point is always prominent with respect to a
  particular context. This constitutes
  profile/base organisation.

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• a) Open class subsystem
• e.g., Profile-base organisation for elbow
• b) Closed class subsystem
• John hit the ball
• The ball was hit

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Perspective

• Perspective relates to the position from which a
  scene is viewed, with consequences fro the
  relative prominence of its participants
• i) Trajector and landmark In an action chain,
  trajector (TR)/Landmark (LM)
• Organisation relates to the participants in a
  profiled relationship.
• While the TR constitutes the focal participant,
  the landmark constitutes the secondary.

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• a. The boy hit the ball active
• b. The ball was hit by the boy passive
• boy ball
• TR-LM organisation relates to
  subject/object distinction.

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An instance of the more general phenomenon of
figure-ground organisation
ii) Viewpoint The perspective and orientation
taken on a scene provides a different way of
construing it, e.g., from the perspective of the
agent or patient as in active/passive distinction
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Abstraction

• Abstraction relates to the degree of specificity
  at which a scene is portrayed.
• a. The basketball player is tall
• b. The basketball player is over six feet tall
• c. The basketball player is about six feet five
  inches tall
• d. The basketball player is exactly six feet five
  and one half inches tall

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Some concepts in Langackers cognitive grammar
(1991)

• Force-dynamics
• Active zone
• energy flow,
• energy source
• energy sink

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Examples in Chinese- the verb da
Gao, 2001 27
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Gao, 2001 27
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Gao, 2001 27
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Gao, 2001 31
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Gao, 2001 181
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Gao, 2001 181
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Gao, 2001 181
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Different Scenarios of da qiu
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Physical Contact and Social Interaction
Gao, 2001 131
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Gao, 2001 131
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• Human cognitive system is built up on the basis
  of a whole complex structure but on the surface
  level of linguistic structures details are
  backgrounded or visualized only in the brain but
  not explicitly expressed in speech. (Gao, 2001
  27)