November 13, 2012

Cognitive Grammar is a model of linguistic description which relates language to our conceptual world and our human experience. Q: what are the common experiences that all humans share (due to our identical physiological make-up)? These bodily experiences shape our thinking

Language is part of our cognitive apparatus with which we percieve the world around us and form concepts (processes of perception and conceptualization). It is based on our bodily experiences and it serves to name them. Therefore, one of the basic tenets of cognitive grammar is that grammatical categories and grammatical constructions are meaningful. These meanings are rooted in our conceptual system and our basic human experiences of the world.

Categorization
Categorization is the process of combining a number of experiences into one conceptual category. Conceptual categories relate to the culture which we are part of . Conceptual categories only make sense if they are distinct from other conceptual categories (night day, villains heroes, snail-mail e-mail, cross country skiing downhill skiing)

Many (but not all) categories are given linguistic labels It is essential to distinguish between conceptual categories and linguistic categories Linguistic categories allow us to frame and communicate our experiences about the world mostly as words, but grammar of a language also plays an important role in our expression of concepts - on a very general, schematic level:

e.g. entities with clear boundaries such as nugget, car, lake, table, but there are entities related to them such as gold dust, traffic, water, wood that have no clear boundaries. The former can be counted as individualized entities, but the latter represent no individualized substance and cannot be counted. The grammatical expression that reflects such conceptual distinction between countable objects(entities) and substance is the one of plural of nouns: the former can be pluralized, the latter cannot .

NB: the concepts of nuggets and dust do not reflect objective reality, but rather our perception of it, our experience of it. The case of nuggets and dust proves it, as there is no objective (chemical or else) distinction between the nuggets of gold and dust of gold, but it is our experience of them that shapes two different concepts.

The reverse is also possible: owing to our experience, we lump together as similar entities that are different in nature and we put them into one conceptual category: convertible, van, pick up, limo, sedan, SUV. They are all categorized as cars, which then group together with trains, bikes, motorbikes, as vehicles.

Our world of conceptual categories is richer than our inventory of linguistic expressions (e.g. cars + bikes are vehicles that travel on roads , but there is no word for it in English). Linguistic categories can be quite seductive, and dangerous too, when they make us believe in distinctive features of social groups. They are at the root of stereotypes :(Gypsies, illegal immigrants , WASPs, Jews, etc.)

Conceptual hierarchies

Most conceptual categories are interrelated in a hierarchical fashion , i.e. vertically, although they may be interrelated in different ways (causally, temporally etc) . That means that lower ranking concepts are types of higher ranking concepts (i.e. type of taxonomies).

TAXONOMY
vehicle

train

car

truck

bike

limo

convertable

sports

sedan

SUV

pickup

Level 1 superordinate category Level 2 - basic level categories Level 3 - subordinate categories

Each member of the subordinate level can be further expanded, for instance sports car

Porsche Carrera Mazda RX5 BMW740i

Basic level categories are conceptually more salient than those at superordinate or subordinate levels Salient = prominent, conspicuous, or striking Therefore, more frequent in everyday communication The vehicles are forbidden on the premises or Dad, can I take the BMW tonight? OK, Mums taking the Porsche and Ill be fine with the Merc!

PARTONOMY
A different kind of conceptual hierarchy is established by means of part of relations between categories : tires are parts of wheels, wheels, tank, body , chasis are parts of the car . In partonomies, the higher ranking categories are more salient than lower ranking ones. Thus, we say Fill 'er up!

instead of

instead of Fill the tank of the car up . or, I'm having the car washed and not I'm having the body of the car washed

Hierarchies of categories are characteristic of the lexical systems, but they are also relevant in grammar.

Prototypes

Conceptual categories are structured vertically in hierarchies, but they are aslo structured horizontally (limo, sedan, hatchback, station wagon, van, SUV, jeep, pick up truck, sports car, convertable). For most people, the best example of a car is the sedan,so we would say it is a prototype of a car. Other members of the category are more or less at a remove from the central or best example - member. Therefore, we say that categories have a radial structure (e.g. Mother)

The central member (best example) is conventional, hence culture dependant (concept of beauty, fashion!). Grammatical categories also have radial structure : e.g. Transitive verbs

Jenny bought lowfat yogurt. Jenny loves lowfat yogurt.

Jenny had lowfat yogurt.

Buy is a better example of transitive verb than the other two , which can be tested by means of passivization:
Lowfat yougurt was bought (by Jenny).

?Lowfat yogurt is loved (by Jenny).

*Lowfat yourt was had (by Jenny).

Creating new concepts from existing ones: Metaphor

and metonymy

Conceptual domain : The basic idea is that one cannot understand the meaning of a single word without access to all the essential knowledge that relates to that word. Q: Would you be able to understand the word sell without understanding the situation of commercial transfer? What else does that situation involve? a seller, a buyer, goods, money, the relation between the money and the goods, the relations between the seller and the goods and the money, the relation between the buyer and the goods and the money and so on. any coherent organization of human experience: similar to Fillmores frame :

by the term frame I have in mind any system of concepts related in such a way that to understand any one of them you have to understand the whole structure in which it fits (Fillmore:1977)

Conceptual transfer: our cognitive abilities allow us to extend our repertoire of concepts by creating new ones on the basis of old, familiar ones. e.g. nugget = lump of valuable metal, such as gold, found in nature , but

This book is full of nuggets of useful information.

In order to understand the sentence, we mentally transfer the concept which belongs to the domain of gold to the domain of information: the information that I find in this book is as valuable as nuggets of gold found in the earth.

Domain : no phenomenon is concieved in isolation ; each formed concept is associated with some other concepts that belong to the same conceptual frame: e.g. printed page, reading, library books, whereas tears, low spirits, drooping posture sadness So, mentioning one member of the domain usually brings to mind the whole domain, or a scene typically associated with it.

Therefore , in the following: I am married to a library (metaphor) Married conceptual domain of marriage Library conceptual domain of books The two domains are incompatible, which gives rise to metaphorical understanding of the sentences, in two possible ways:

the metaphor may reside in library rendering reading: I am married to an extremely well read person. or the metaphor may reside in married rendering reading : I spend so much time in the library as if I were married to it. The girl was in tears (metonymy: the use of a word to denote a meaning other than literal ) To be in tears conceptual domain of sadness

The sentence then means 'The girl was very sad' , although we have not mentioned sadness. In this particular case of metonimy, the EFFECT stands for CAUSE (sadness is usually the cause of tears) Therefore, metaphor and metonymy do not reside in the expressions themselves ; they arise from conceptual transfer which, in case of metaphor, involves two conceptual domains (the source domain and the target domain) and in the case of metonymy, only one (part of the domain is used to refer to the domain as a whole):

(1)Microprocessors are the brains of a computer. 2 incompatible domains 2-sided metaphor source domain ---- target domain human body-----computers microprocessor ----- brain Metaphor: the mapping of a structure of one conceptual domain onto the structure of another

(2)The company wants to hire new brains. 1 domain only : human body brain --- human Take a look at the following examples:

The french fries is getting impatient . They played lots of Mozart. She heard the piano. Im in the phone book.

Food (the person ordered) Person Composer music (the person composed) Object/Instrument music the instrument produces Person (owning the phone number) Phone number Metonymy: mapping of a structure within one conceptual domain

Metaphors are a matter of cognition as opposed to language, and are fundamental to conceptualizing the world. Metaphor is mapping across conceptual domains, from source to target, and normally from the concrete to the more abstract.

There are conceptual metaphors that are not felt as metaphors any longer: e.g. a) Lily finally got the message. b) Wendy was overcome by grief. received (literal meaning) Got understood the contents of

The metaphorical meaning builds upon the literal one It is part of a larger conceptual metaphor in which communication is seen as transmitting physical objects, known as CONDUIT metaphor

In b) the meaning of overcome has become fully lexicalized in English The original meaning was to get better of in a struggle or fight e.g. We shall overcome! Clearly, the verb belonged to the domain of fighting What happens in a physical fight?

The winner ends on top of the opponent: thus the use of prefix over as in overthrow , overpower, overcome, overwhelm or the other way round the use of prefix sub as in subdue, surrender

Image Schemas

The first step in acquiring a category is forming a structural description of an entity (elementary properties of an entity include lines, surfaces, weight, vertical or horizontal extension , toughness or softness, switness or bitterness, etc); When these properties occur repeatedly , certain schematic structures begin to emerge and get represented in the brain. The structures that emerge are called image schemas. a recurring, dynamic pattern of our perceptual interactions and motor programs that gives coherence to our experience (Johnson:1987) . Image scemas provide an important part of our understanding of the world Here are some common image schemas:
CONTAINER, BALANCE, COMPULSION, BLOCKAGE, COUNTERFORCE, PATH, LINK, CENTER-PERIPHERY, VERTICALITY , PART-WHOLE, ETC...

The examples show how the language exploits the scale of verticality to express the relationship of power The powerful entity is at the higher end (the top - UP) and the powerless entity is at the lower end (the bottom DOWN) Why is the scale of verticality (UP DOWN) so exploitable a domain for metaphorical transfer?

Force of gravity Deeply entrenched in our cognitive and perceptual system Enable our understanding of symbols/language, therefore The vertical axis with its UP and DOWN ends represents a meaningful conceptual structure The basic relational configurations (such as the UP-DOWN schema) are called Image Schemas

Most common image schemas:

FRONT BACK: the assymetry of our body; we communicate and interact with the world via the front part CONTACT: among other ways, we percieve the reality around us by getting into physical contact with it CONTAINER: some objects are hollow and can be filled by other objects (glass filled with wine); MOTION: the experience of our motor and locomotive activities FORCES COUNTERFORCES: experience of various forces , like the wind blowing into our face, or blowing off leaves from the ground, or our parents sending us to bed

Image Schemas as exploitable domains

A. The wind was calming down. B. The Chairman put forward his proposal. C. Hold on, please. Stick to the topic, please. D. She was born outside marriage. We are outsiders to the idea. E. The TV has gone mute. F. His permanent nagging sent me into frenzy/ drove me up the wall./ It must be the postman.

These image schemas serve as source domains for understanding more abstract relations in the target domain:
A. Verticality intensity in A.

B. Front-Back action in B.
C. Contact action in C. D. Container state in D.

E. Motion change of state in E.

F. Forces cause in F.

Examples from English include:

'Life Is A Journey' Metaphor He got a head start in life. He's without direction in his life. I'm where I want to be in life. I'm at a crossroads in my life. He'll go places in life. He's never let anyone get in his way. He's gone through a lot in life. Hierarchical organization, as mentioned, is a prominent feature of conceptual metaphors. The higher structurally the metaphor, the more widespread it tends to be.

Recommended reading
Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George. (1987). Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kovecses, Zoltan. (2006). Language , Mind and Culture. Oxford. Oxford University Press.