cognitive-functional linguistics – some basic tenets ii

Cognitive-Functional Linguistics– Some Basic Tenets II

June 19, 2006 RT/CFL 2

Why did we introduce the terms entrenchment, abstraction, comparison, composition, and association? The first answer: “Regarding the issue of innate specification I

make no a priori claims. I do however sub-scribe to the general strategy in cognitive and functional linguistics of deriving lan-guage structure insofar as possible from the more general psychological capacities (e.g. perception, memory, categorization), positing inborn language-specific structures only as a last resort.”

R. W. Langacker (2000: 2)


Why did we introduce the terms entrenchment, abstraction, comparison, composition, and association? The second answer: “The usage-based model … is applicable to

all domains of language structure: semantics, phonology, lexicon, morphology, syntax. A linguistic system comprises large numbers of conventional units in each domain … A few basic psychological phenomena … [apply] repeatedly in all domains and at many levels of organization ….”

R. W. Langacker (2000: 2)


Six Theses About Grammar

In “The English Passive”, chapter 4 in Con-cept, Image, and Symbol (1991), R. W. Langacker compares six theses about gram-mar – “accepted virtually without question by many theorists” (e.g. generativists) – with the corresponding cognitive view.

They are listed on the next slide. Afterwards, we shall look at each of them in

detail.


The Seven Theses

Descriptive Minimalism

Descriptive Maximalism

Self-Contained Components

Continuum

Autonomous Syntax Symbolic SyntaxUniversal Semantics Language-Spec. SemanticsMeaningless Morphemes

Meaningful Morphemes

Abstract Syntax Overt GrammarSyntax-Lexicon Dichotomy

Non-Generality of Syntax


Descriptive Economy

The Descriptive Minimalism Thesis

Economy is to be sought in linguistic description. Specifically, particular statements are to be ex-cluded if the grammar contains a general state-ment (rule) that fully subsumes them.

The Descriptive Maximalism Thesis

Economy must be consistent with psychological reality. The grammar of a language repre-sents conventional linguistic knowledge and includes all linguistic structures learned as established “units”. “Content units” coexist in the grammar with subsuming “schemas”.


Rules and Lists – 1

Cognitive grammar seeks an accurate characterization of the structure and orga-nization of linguistic knowledge as an integral part of human cognition. … The question whether the grammar of a language should include both general statements and particular statements sub-sumed by them is a factual rather than a methodological issue.


Rules and Lists – 2

If speakers in fact master and manipulate both lists (particular statements) and rules (general statements) from which these lists could be predicted, a truthful descrip-tion of their linguistic knowledge must contain both the lists and the rules.


Components of Grammar

The Self-Contained Components Thesis

Linguistic structure can be resolved into nume-rous separate, essential-ly self-contained compo-nents.

The Continuum Thesis

Only semantic, phonologi-cal, and bipolar symbolic units are posited. Sharp dichotomies are usually found only by arbitrarily selecting examples from opposite endpoints of a continuum.

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Bipolar Symbolic Units = Constructions

All levels of grammatical analysis involve constructions: learned pairings of form with semantic or

discourse function

– including morphemes or words, idioms, partially lexically filled and fully general phrasal patterns.

P. 5 in Adele E. Goldberg (2006):

Constructions at Work. The Nature of Generalization in Language.

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Examples of Constructions – Varying in Size and

Complexity Morpheme Word Complex word Complex word

(partially filled) Idiom (filled) Idiom (partially

filled) Ditransitive

pre-, -ing Avocado, and daredevil [N-s] (for regular

plurals) going great guns jog <someone’s>

memory Subj V Obj1 Obj2

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Autonomy of Syntax

The Autonomous Syntax Thesis

As a special case of the modularity of grammar, syntax is an autono-mous component dis-tinct from both seman-tics and lexicon.

The Symbolic Syntax Thesis

Syntax is not autonomous, but symbolic, forming a continuum with lexicon and morphology. Syntactic units are bipolar, with semantic and phonological poles.

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Universality of Semantics

The Universal Semantics Thesis

Supporting the autonomy of syntax thesis, it can be pre-sumed that semantic struc-ture is universal, while gram-matical structure varies greatly from language to language.

The Language-Specific Semantics Thesis

Semantic structure is language specific, involving layers of con-ventional imagery. Semantic structure is conventionalized conceptual structure, and gram-mar is the conventional sym-bolization of semantic structure.

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Universal Semantics

Language has means for making reference to the objects, relations, properties and events that popu-late our everyday world. It is possible to suppose that these linguistic categories and structures are more or less straightforward mappings from a pre-existing conceptual space, programmed into our biological nature. Humans invent words that label their concepts.

P. 266 in Li and Gleitman (2002):“Turning the tables: language and spatial reasoning.”

Cognition, 83, 265–94. (Cited in Evans & Green 2006: 62)

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Conventionalized Conceptual Structure

Cognitive linguists argue against the view that language is pre-specified in the sense that … semantic organization [is mapped out by] a set of primitives. Instead linguistic organization is held to reflect embodied cognition …, which serve to constrain what is possible to experi-ence, and thus what is possible to express in language.

P. 63-64 in V. Evans and M. Green (2006):Cognitive Linguistics. An Introduction.

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From Embodiment To Conceptual Structure

(Evans and Green 2006: 177)

SEMANTIC STRUCTUREConsists of ŌmeaningÕ units

like lexical concepts

CONCEPTUAL STRUCTUREConsists of conceptual

representations including image schemas

EMBODIMENT

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Meaningless Morphemes

The Meaningless Morphemes Thesis

In accordance with the auto-nomy of syntax thesis and the universality of semantics thesis, syntactic structure relies crucially on gramma-tical morphemes, which are often meaningless and serve purely formal purposes.

The Meaningful Morphemes Thesis

Grammatical morphemes are meaningful, and are present be-cause of their semantic contri-bution.

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Meaningful Grammatical Morphemes –

1[T]he claim [in autonomous syntax] that gram-matical morphemes are for the most part mean-ingless, being inserted for purely formal or grammatical purposes, is almost a necessary one, since the autonomy of syntax would ap-pear very dubious if we admitted that gram-matical markers are meaningful, and that their syntactic use is determined by the meanings they convey.

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Meaningful Grammatical Morphemes

2 The distinction between lexical and gramma-tical morphemes represents an artifactual dichotomization based on sharp differences between examples selected from the end-points of what is really a continuum.

In reality, however, both lexical and gramma-tical morphemes vary along a continuum in regard to such parameters as the complexity and abstractness of their semantic specifi-cations.

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Meaningful Grammatical Morphemes

3 While so-called lexical morphemes tend to cluster near the complex/concrete end of the continuum, we see a clear gradation in series like ostrich–bird–animal–thing.

So-called grammatical morphemes tend to cluster near the simple/abstract end of the continuum, but here too we observe a gradation: above–may–have–of.

The scales clearly overlap.

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Abstract Syntactic Structure

The Abstract Syntactic Structure Thesis

Syntactic structure is ab-stract. Surface structures often derive from deep struc-tures which are significantly different in character, and contain elements (grammati-cal morphemes) that have no place in underlying struc-ture.

The Overt Grammatical Structure Thesis

Grammatical structure is entire-ly overt. No underlying struc-tures or derivations are posited.

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The Content Requirement

The only units permitted in the grammar of a language are:

(i) semantic, phonologi-cal, and symbolic structures that occur overtly in linguistic expressions;

(ii) structures that are schematic for those in (i).

This requirement rules out all arbi-trary descriptive devices, i.e. those with no direct grounding in phonetic or semantic reality:

(a) contentless features or dia-critics;

(b) syntactic dummies with neither semantic nor phonological content, introduced solely to drive the formal machinery of autonomous syntax;

(c) the derivation of overt structures from abstract, underlying structures of a substantially different charac-ter.

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The Generality of Syntax

The Syntax-Lexicon Dichotomy Thesis

Syntax consists primarily of general rules. It is to be distinguished sharply from lexicon, the repository for ir-regularity and idiosyncrasy.

The Non-Generality of Syntax Thesis

Lexicon and grammar form a continuum of symbolic struc-tures. This continuum contains no sharp dichotomies based on generality, regularity, or analy-zability.

Grammar versus Lexicon

A Classical Generative Solution

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Grammar versus Lexicon – 1

Lexicon hopar / JUMP, PRES

hopa / JUMP, PAST

dansar / DANCE, PRES

dansa / DANCE, PAST

spe:lar / PLAY, PRES

spe:la / PLAY, PAST

se:r / SEE, PRES

so:g / SEE, PAST

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hopa / JUMP, PAST


dansa / DANCE, PAST


spe:la / PLAY, PAST

se:r / SEE, PRES

so:g / SEE, PAST

Grammar1. [V, PRES] → [V, PRES] +ar2. [V, PAST] → [V, PAST] +a

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hopa / JUMP, PAST


dansa / DANCE, PAST


spe:la / PLAY, PAST

se:r / SEE, PRES

so:g / SEE, PAST


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hopa / JUMP, PAST


dansa / DANCE, PAST


spe:la / PLAY, PAST

se:r / SEE, PRES

so:g / SEE, PAST


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Lexicon hop / JUMP

dans / DANCE

spe:l / PLAY

se:r / SEE, PRES

so:g / SEE, PAST

kvi:ler / REST, PRES

kvi:lte / REST, PAST

de:ler / DIVIDE, PRES

de:lte / DIVIDE, PAST

Grammar1. [V, PRES] → [V, PRES] +ar2. [V, PAST] → [V, PAST] +a3. [V, PRES] → [V, PRES] +er4. [V, PAST] → [V, PAST] +te

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Lexicon hop / JUMP

dans / DANCE

spe:l / PLAY

se:r / SEE, PRES

so:g / SEE, PAST






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Lexicon hop / JUMP

dans / DANCE

spe:l / PLAY

se:r / SEE, PRES

so:g / SEE, PAST

kvi:ler/ REST, PRES





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Lexicon hopα / JUMP

dansα / DANCE

spe:lα / PLAY

kvi:lβ / REST

de:lβ / DIVIDE

se:r / SEE, PRES

so:g / SEE, PAST

Grammar1. [Vα, PRES] → [Vα, PRES]

+ar2. [Vα, PAST] → [Vα, PAST]

+a3. [Vβ, PRES] → [Vβ, PRES]

+er4. [Vβ, PAST] → [Vβ, PAST]

+te

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Lexicon hopα / JUMP

dansα / DANCE

spe:lα / PLAY

kvi:lβ / REST

de:lβ / DIVIDE

se:r / SEE, PRES

so:g / SEE, PAST

le:r / LAUGH, PRES

lu: / LAUGH, PAST

Grammar1. [Vα, PRES] → [Vα, PRES]

+ar2. [Vα, PAST] → [Vα, PAST]

+a3. [Vβ, PRES] → [Vβ, PRES]

+er4. [Vβ, PAST] → [Vβ, PAST]

+te

The Emergent Grammar A Cognitive Solution

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The Emergent Grammar

Predictable features need not be excluded from repre-sentation in individual items. The presence of a feature on a list does not exclude it from being predictable by rule. Rather the notion of rule takes a very different form. Linguistic regularities are not expressed as cogni-tive entities or operations that are independent of the forms to which they apply, but rather as schemas or organizational patterns that emerge from the way that forms are associated with one another in a vast network of phonological, semantic, and sequential relations.

P. 21 in Joan Bybee (2001):

Phonology and Language Use

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The Rule/List Fallacy 1

The exclusionary fallacy holding, on grounds of simplicity, that particular statements (lists) are to be excised from the grammar of a language if gen-eral statements (rules) can be estab-lished that subsumes them.

P. 492 in R. W. Langacker (1987):Foundations of Cognitive Grammar

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The Rule/List Fallacy 2

If all the regularity is factored out of a linguistic structure, the residue is sel-dom if ever recognizable as a coherent entity plausibly attributed to cognitive autonomy.

P. 393 in Langacker (1987):

Foundations of Cognitive Grammar

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The Cheshire Dog

That is to say, if our memories for dogs ex-cluded all the predictable features (two ears, a muzzle, fur, a tail, wet nose, etc.), what is left would not be a recognizable or coherent entity. Similarly, if all predictable features are removed from a word, it would not be recognizable as an English word, or as a linguistic object at all.

P. 21 in Joan Bybee (2001):Phonology and Language Use

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The Emergent Grammar 1

hopar / JUMP, PRES hopa / JUMP, PAST

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hopa... / JUMP, TNS

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hopa... / JUMP, TNS


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hopa... / JUMP, TNS


σ…ar / VERB, PRES

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hopa... / JUMP, TNS


σ…ar / VERB, PRESdansa / DANCE, PAST

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hopa... / JUMP, TNS



dansa... / DANCE, TNS

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hopa... / JUMP, TNS



dansa... / DANCE, TNS σ…a / VERB, PAST

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hopa... / JUMP, TNS





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hopa... / JUMP, TNS




kvi:ler / REST, PRES σ…Vr / VERB, PRES

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hopa... / JUMP, TNS






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hopa... / JUMP, TNS





kvi:lte / REST, PAST kvi:l…e… / REST, TNS

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hopa... / JUMP, TNS







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hopa... / JUMP, TNS







σ…er / VERB, PRES

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hopa... / JUMP, TNS








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hopa... / JUMP, TNS








se:r / SEE, PRES

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hopa... / JUMP, TNS








se:r / SEE, PRES

… and then?

cognitive-functional linguistics – some basic tenets ii

Documents

symbolic syntax thesis

autonomous syntax thesis

autonomy of syntax thesis

domains of language

language specific

universal semantics

cognitive grammar

continuum thesis