Cognitive grammar a basic introduction

Cognitive Grammar This page intentionally left blank Cognitive Grammar A Basic Introduction Ronald W Langacker 2008 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2008 by Oxford University Press, Inc Published by Oxford University Press, Inc 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Langacker, Ronald W Cognitive grammar : a basic introduction / Ronald Langacker p cm Includes bibliographical references ISBN 978-0-19-533195-0; 978-0-19-533196-7 (pbk.) Cognitive grammar I Title P165.L345 2007 415—dc22 2007009457 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper To Sherridan, Julian, and Tre This page intentionally left blank PREFACE As you may have guessed from the title, this book presents the linguistic theory known as Cognitive Grammar (CG) Research in CG began in 1976, and the basic framework of the theory has now existed for over a quarter century Under the rubric “space grammar”, it was first extensively described in Langacker 1982, whose numerous and unfortunately rather crudely drawn diagrams must have startled and dismayed the readers of Language The most comprehensive statement of the theory resides in the hulking two-volume mass called Foundations of Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 1987, 1991) More accessible—or easier to lift at any rate—is Concept Image and Symbol (Langacker 1990), a collection of articles tailored as a single text A second collection of this sort is Grammar and Conceptualization (Langacker 1999a) For ease of reference, these four books are cited here as FCG1, FCG2, CIS, and GC First proposed as a radical alternative to the theories then prevailing, CG may no longer seem so drastically different for the simple reason that the discipline has gradually evolved in its direction There is no longer any clear distinction (if there ever was) between “formalist” and “functionalist” traditions in linguistic theory (Langacker 1999c) Nevertheless, CG is still regarded as extreme by most formalists, and even by many functionalists And having been trained as a formalist, I myself first placed it at the extreme periphery of the theoretical landscape But after spending several decades in that outpost, I have come to see it as occupying the very center I perceive it as striking the proper balance between formalist and functionalist concerns It straightforwardly reflects the dual grounding of language in cognition and social interaction I further see it as able to accommodate, integrate, and synthesize the wealth of findings and insights emerging in the varied traditions of cognitive and functional linguistics By now there are more opportunities for reading about CG and cognitive linguistics than you probably care to know about Many references are cited in this book To appreciate the full scope of the enterprise, you need only peruse the many volumes of Cognitive Linguistics (journal of the International Cognitive Linguistics Association) and the monograph series Cognitive Linguistics Research (Mouton de viii PREFACE Gruyter) And these are just the tip of the iceberg Not yet available, though, are a broad selection of introductory textbooks Several now exist for cognitive linguistics in general—Ungerer and Schmid 2007, Lee 2001, Croft and Cruse 2004, Evans and Green 2006—as well as two collections of readings (Geeraerts 2006; Evans, Bergen, and Zinken 2006) and a glossary (Evans 2007) For CG in particular, the only current option is Taylor 2002, which covers the basics quite well Still lacking, however, is an introduction that is less elementary and presented in greater depth and technical detail Here is my attempt to fill this need The book is designed to be usable at different levels and in different ways Though I have tried to make it accessible to general readers, some basic training in linguistics will be helpful As a textbook, it is aimed at the advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate levels, having developed out of a course for first-year graduate students I see it as being ideally suited for a two-semester graduate course, parts I and II being covered in the first semester, parts III and IV in the second Parts I and II can also stand alone as a basic introduction to the theory Their chapters are shorter and a bit less challenging, hence more suitable for less advanced students The four parts however form an integrated whole, which only collectively affords a real appreciation of CG’s vision of language structure and potential for describing it This being a prime objective, the volume is not conceived exclusively as a textbook It has enough linguistic depth and substance that it should prove useful for professionals in related disciplines And for linguists of other theoretical persuasions, it offers a one-stop opportunity to put their assessment and criticisms on a firmer, more accurate basis On a personal level, this work brings closure to an initial phase of investigation that has stretched out for several decades It has been a chance to refine and clarify my thoughts on many issues, to present them more effectively, and to make their rationale more evident This has led to a fuller, more unified treatment of the interactive and conceptual basis of language structure There remain, to be sure, important gaps in coverage (e.g a systematic exposition of phonology) And while the final product is less than perfect (as reviewers will undoubtedly attest), it will have to Further attempts at presenting CG will concern a second phase of investigation, which has been under way for a number of years Some of its major themes are previewed in part IV (Frontiers) The future is harder to predict than the past, but it does seem clear that—even after thirty years—research in CG is only starting CONTENTS Part I Orientation Preliminaries 1.1 Grammar and Life 1.2 The Nature of the Beast 1.3 Grammar as Symbolization 14 Conceptual Semantics 27 2.1 Meaning and Semantic Representations 2.2 Conceptual Content 43 Construal 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 55 Specificity 55 Focusing 57 Prominence 66 Perspective 73 Evidence for Semantic Claims Part II 27 85 Fundamentals Grammatical Classes 93 4.1 Are Conceptual Characterizations Conceivable? 4.2 Nouns and Verbs 103 4.3 Classes of Relational Expressions 112 Major Subclasses 128 5.1 Count and Mass Nouns 128 5.2 Perfective and Imperfective Verbs 147 Constructions: General Characterization 6.1 Symbolic Assemblies 161 6.2 Constructional Schemas 167 6.3 Unipolar vs Bipolar Organization 174 Constructions: Descriptive Factors 183 7.1 Correspondences 183 161 93 INDEX reflexive, 509–510 relative, 425–426 Proper name, 267 n.8, 272, 316–318, 476–477, 494 Proposition, 409, 431–433, 445–453, 513 vs occurrence, 441 Prosody, 177 n.13, 178 n.16, 199, 209 n.19, 429, 461–462 Prospective element, 460–461, 466, 475, 488 Prototype, 8–9, 18, 107, 239, 538–539 Quality, 107, 133, 140 Quality space, 104 n.10, 144–146 Quantificational strategy, 280, 344 Quantifier, 129, 340–346, 532 absolute, 279, 292 n.32, 320 floating, 379 n.22 grounding, 274–275, 278–280, 292–296, 526 proportional, 292–293 relative, 279–280, 292 representative instance, 292–296 scope, 527 universal, 293–296 Question word, 412 Questioning, 74 n.18, 471–472, 474–475 Raising construction, 435–437 Reality, 297–298 conceived, 298, 301–302, 446–453 immediate, 301 potential, 306–307 projected, 307 Reconceptualization, 80, 82, 88, 501 n.1, 503 Reddy, M J., 216 Reduction, Redundancy, 156, 187–188, 350, 496 Reduplication, 20, 346 Reference, 269–272, 277, 282 Reference mass See Maximal extension Reference point, 83, 314 n.6, 333, 512–513 chain, 85, 504 relationship, 83–85, 389 n.34 temporal, 87 Reflexive, 386 n.30, 395 Region, 105 n.11, 144 Register, 467 n.7 Regularity, 244–255 Reid, W., 496 n.38 559 Reification, 95, 105–108, 119, 194, 279, 433, 528 Relationship, 67, 200 atemporal, 99, 117–122 complex, 99, 109, 117–122, 152, 398 non-processual, 99–100, 119, 123–125, 274, 319 simplex, 99, 109, 396 temporal, 117–118, 122 Relative clause, 423–429, 434 n.22, 514 n.16 discontinuous, 211–214, 330, 427–428 finite, 127, 319 internally headed, 426–427 restrictive vs non-restrictive, 327–328, 429 Repair, 490 Repetitive, 156 Replicability, 142, 154 Representation analogical, 12, 32 diagrammatic, 9–12, 166 n.5 formulaic, 11, 24 n.18, 32, 162 n.1, 172 imagistic, 32 propositional, 12, 32 Resolution See Specificity Restrictiveness, 9, 14, 24–26, 206, 221, 230–237 Result phase, 450 Retemporalization, 126 Retrospective element, 460–461, 466, 488, 497 Rice, S., 387, 405 Role and Reference Grammar, 366 n.14 Role description, 530 Romance languages, 184 Root, 20, 402 Ross, J R., 412 n.5, 425 n.15 Ruhl, C., 38 Rule, 23, 218 n.3 constructive, 23 n.17, 218–219, 221, 236 grammatical, 23–24 phonological, 251 n.35 phrase structure, 219 Rule feature, 238 Salience See Prominence Samoan, 359–360, 373, 376, 379–380, 382, 384 Sanction, 24, 192, 215, 234, 244 560 INDEX Scale, 116, 501, 503, 533–534 See also Adjective, scalar Scale, of representation, 63, 79, 82, 149–150, 521 Scanning, 82–83, 109–112, 503, 529, 532–534 sequential, 111, 529 n.30, 532 n.32 summary, 83, 88, 99, 111, 118–120, 124, 127, 529 n.30 Scenario covert, 531–535 cultural, 412, 470, 476, 478–479, 530 speech-act, 471–475, 531 n.31 Schachter, P., 380 n.23 Scheduled future, 534–535 Schema, 23–24, 26, 57, 215–227, 480, 538–539 class, 23, 206, 337 constructional, 167–173, 191–192, 231–237, 240, 245, 249, 336, 491, 498 phonological, 15 n.10, 175 Schematicity, 19, 55, 244 See also Specificity Schematization, 17, 24 n.19, 25, 56, 168, 225, 244, 336, 458, 525 of categorizations, 249–251 Scope, 62–67, 150 immediate, 63–65, 120, 133, 143, 160, 196, 288, 452, 468 maximal, 63–65, 463 temporal, 65, 147, 152, 157 Script, 46 n.18 Segment, 25, 461–462 Selection, 57, 62 Selectional restriction, 190 Semantic anomaly, 62, 190–191 Semantic feature, 38 Semantic pole, 15, 163, 170, 330 Semantic role, 355–356, 365–366 Semantic structure, 15, 25, 161 Semantics conceptual, 4, 7, 27–54, 85–89 dictionary view, 38 encyclopedic view, 39, 47–49, 57, 316, 332 vs pragmatics, 39–43, 81 n.22 Semitic, 20 Seneca, 381–382 Sense, 37 Sentence, 482 complex, 406–453, 480 Sentence fragment, 54 Sequence of tenses, 302–303 Serial verb construction, 403 Setting, 355, 386–390 abstract, 451, 452 n.39, 496 See also Location; Participant, vs setting Setting-subject construction, 389–390, 451 Shibatani, M., 384 Siouan, 377 Smith, M B., 392 Social interaction, 216–218, 459–463 relation to cognition, 8, 28–29, 218, 479–480, 500 Space builder, 272 n.12 Spanish, 251–255, 338–340, 347–348, 351–352, 386, 395, 467 Specificity, 19, 43, 55–57, 98, 267 Speech act, 74, 159, 357, 382, 470–475 fictive, 471–473 overriding, 472–473 Speech community, 218, 317, 467 Speech event, 157–160, 449, 469 Speech time, 163, 206 Split self phenomenon, 468 n.9 Stage model, 356 Starting point, 372–373, 376, 390, 492, 495, 501–503, 524 State See Component state Statement, 471–473 Stative verb, 147 n.13 Stem, 200, 401, 461 Stress, 169, 175, 199, 209, 325, 428, 463 Structural description, 222, 459 Structural frame, 240–244, 336–340, 461 Structure building, 486–499 Subject, 210–211, 363–382, 437, 492, 495, 516–524, 539 construction, 212 same vs different, 423 universality, 365, 378–382 Subject of conception, 52, 77–78, 260, 468, 484 Subjectification, 528–530, 537–540 Subjective construal, 295 vs objective construal, 77–78, 260–264, 445, 450, 537 Subordination, 412–419 Subordinator, 401, 413, 439–440, 443–445 INDEX Summary view See Scanning, summary Summation See Scanning, summary Superlative, 287, 494 Suppletion, 378 Sweetser, E., 245 n.30, 306, 323, 442 n.30, 488, 530, 538 Syllable, 25, 175, 199 Symbolic assembly, 5, 16, 21–24, 161–167, 171 n.9, 206–207, 323–325, 347, 482, 499 degenerate, 16 Symbolic complexity, 15–17, 24, 60, 173 Symbolic structure, 5, 15, 25, 458 Symbolization, 5, 14–26, 162, 207–209, 213–214, 462–463 Synchrony, vs diachrony, 13 Syntax, 6, 24, 174 Tagalog, 380–381, 382 n.26, 385 Talmy, L., 55 n.1, 103, 261, 306, 468 n.9, 528 n.29, 531, 538 Target of categorization, 165, 228 domain, 36, 51 of reference point, 83 Temporal profile, 112 n.18 Tense, 78, 157, 299–304, 402–403 past, 178, 233–235 present, 147–148, 156–160, 469 n.12, 534–535 Thai, 340–341, 403 Thematic process, 370–373, 396–400 Theme, 366, 370, 390 Theme orientation, 366, 370–375, 379 Theoretical austerity, 15, 25 Thing, 23, 67, 98, 105–108, 200 Thompson, S A., 58, 387, 419 Tomasello, M., 218, 221 n.7, 241 n 25, 419 Tomlin, R S., 365 n.13 Topic, 60, 289, 382, 481, 483, 489 clause-internal, 211, 515–516, 521 n.24 construction, 514–516 marker, 514, 515 n.17 vs subject, 512–517 Trace, 26 Trajector (tr) 70–73, 113–117, 210, 321, 380–382, 388, 404, 424, 445, 483, 516–518 relational, 115 561 unspecified, 395 Trajector/landmark alignment, 70–73, 86, 365, 401, 421, 483, 518–524 Transformation, 219, 236 Transitivity, 387–390 Traugott, E., 538 n.36 Tree structure, 18–19, 205–207, 210–211, 219 Truth conditions, 28 Turn taking, 462–463, 479 Turner, M., 36, 527 Type, 56, 279, 323, 525–526 vs instance, 134, 264–272 specification, 134, 265, 322, 328–329 Type/predictability fallacy, n.2 Typology, 7–8, 365 Unaccusative, 371–372 n.18 Underlying structure, 212, 219, 221, 236, 251 n.35, 435–436 Ungrammaticality, 49 n.21, 189–192, 223 Unipolar structure, 175, 199 vs bipolar structure, 174–182, 208 Unit, 16, 61, 228, 238 See also Conventional linguistic unit Unit status, 17, 21 n.13 Unitization, 342 Universality, 8, 34, 96–97, 264, 378–382 Usage event, 17, 25, 220, 228, 449, 457–459, 466, 471 Usage-based model, 220, 320–321, 336, 458, 506 Uto-Aztecan, 113 n.19, 182 n.19, 401 Vandeloise, C., 193 n.7 van Hoek, K., 59, 314 n.6, 509, 522 Vantage point, 75–77, 416, 445–447 fictive, 76, 440, 536 temporal, 76, 121 Variation, 13, 217–218 Verb, 95, 100, 108–112, 354, 539 complex, 400–405 grounded, 300 imperfective, 147–160 lexical, 300 perfective, 147–160 phrasal, 400, 403–405 possessive, 538 punctual, 150–151 schematic, 125–126 562 INDEX Verhagen, A., 419 Viewing, 261 Viewing arrangement, 73–78, 467–470, 478 default, 74, 158–159, 357–358, 467 Viewing framework, 387–388 Virtual entity See Fictivity Vocative, 475–477 Voice, 361, 382–386 Well-formedness, 13, 57, 155 See also Conventionality; Grammaticality Wierzbicka, A., 46 n.17, 120 n.27, 132 Word, 16, 181, 202 Word order, 82, 192, 232–233, 245, 319–320, 326, 363, 373, 380, 382 n.27, 502, 521–522 See also Order, of presentation Writing, 15, 461 n.4, 477, 481 Zero marking, 74, 179, 272, 275 n.17, 290–291, 302, 376 Zero role, 356, 366, 370–371 Zeugma, 408 n.1 [...]... it is actually expected that certain elements should be ambivalent as to their lexical or grammatical status The essential point, though, is that even the most “grammatical” of grammatical markers—forms like be, do, of, the infinitival to, agreement markers, case inflections, and derivational affixes—are viewed in CG as being meaningful 2 Grammatical markers are closely related to grammatical classes,... of a usage event and understand it in a certain way They also have intrinsic content related to broader realms of experience—the sounds of speech represent a particular class of auditory phenomena, and linguistic meanings are special cases of conceptualization By contrast, grammar is not per se something that untrained speakers are aware of It is not directly apprehended in the same way that sounds and... where grammar is sharply distinguished from lexicon and described using a special set of primitives with no intrinsic meaning Here I argue that a clear demarcation between lexicon and grammar is far from evident I also indicate how grammar can be described with symbolic assemblies that vary along the same parameters as those describing lexicon, and within the same ranges of values In the standard conception,... view of language structure, with the further advantages (I would argue) of being intuitively natural, psychologically plausible, and empirically viable It is nonetheless a decidedly nonstandard view for which orthodox training in linguistics gives little preparation A presentation of Cognitive Grammar must therefore start by articulating its general nature and basic vision 1.1 Grammar and Life Having... does this mean? How does symbolic grammar work? Later sections and chapters answer these questions in some detail For now, let us focus on three basic matters: grammatical markers, grammatical classes, and grammatical rules These are all describable by means of symbolic assemblies What distinguishes them are the regions they occupy in the abstract space defined by the parameters of schematicity and symbolic... the category on the basis of an association or perceived similarity A is then a prototype (at least locally), and B an extension from it For this I use a dashed arrow: A -> B A possible example is (3)(b), the extension applying ring to rectangular arenas, as used in boxing 1.3.2 Lexicon and Grammar If lexicon resides in assemblies of symbolic structures, can we say the same for grammar? Not according... investigating grammar, I am quite aware that this passion is not shared by the general populace Let’s face it grammar has a bad reputation For most people, it represents the danger of being criticized for breaking arcane rules they can never quite keep straight In foreign-language instruction, grammar is often presented through mechanical exercises, the learning of irregularities, and the memorization... elements of grammar like vocabulary items—have meanings in their own right Additionally, grammar allows 3 4 PRELIMINARIES us to construct and symbolize the more elaborate meanings of complex expressions (like phrases, clauses, and sentences) It is thus an essential aspect of the conceptual apparatus through which we apprehend and engage the world And instead of being a distinct and self-contained cognitive. .. reluctance to make strong claims and working hypotheses, however 1.3 Grammar as Symbolization Enough preliminaries It is time to offer an initial sketch of Cognitive Grammar, to be fleshed out in later chapters The central matters to be addressed are the global organization of a linguistic system and what it means to say that grammar is symbolic in nature If it proves empirically adequate, CG represents... signal A class per se, however, is not overtly manifested but resides in a set of symbolic structures that function alike in certain respects CG maintains that grammatical classes are definable in symbolic terms and, more controversially, that basic classes like noun, verb, adjective, and adverb can be given uniform semantic characterizations (see ch 4) Hence the members of a class all instantiate a schematic