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Cognitive linguistics is one of the most rapidly expanding schools in linguisticswith, by now, an impressive and complex technical vocabulary. This alphabeticguide gives an up-to-date introduction to the key terms in cognitive linguistics,covering all the major theories, approaches, ideas and many of the relevant theoretical constructs. The Glossary also features a brief introduction to cognitive linguistics, a detailed annotated reading list and a listing of some ofthe key researchers in cognitive linguistics. The Glossary can be used as a companion volume to Cognitive Linguistics, by Vyvyan Evans and MelanieGreen, or as a stand-alone introduction to cognitive linguistics and its two hitherto best developed sub-branches: cognitive semantics, and cognitiveapproaches to grammar.

Key features

• A handy and easily understandable pocket guide for anyone embarking on courses in cognitive linguistics, and language and mind.

• Supplies numerous cross-references to related terms.

• Includes coverage of newer areas such as Radical Construction Grammar,Embodied Construction Grammar, Primary Metaphor Theory and PrincipledPolysemy.

Vyvyan Evans is Professor of Cognitive Linguistics at the University of Brightonand author and editor of numerous books relating to cognitive linguistics. Theseinclude: The Structure of Time: The Semantics of English Prepositions (withAndrea Tyler); Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction (with Melanie Green); and The Cognitive Linguistics Reader (co-edited with Benjamin Bergen and Jörg Zinken). His research relates to cognitive lexical semantics, meaning-construction, conceptual structure and figurative language.

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A Glossary of Cognitive Linguistics VYVYAN EVANS

A Glossary of Cognitive Linguistics VYVYAN EVANS

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Cognitive

LinguisticsVYVYA

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‘This Glossary is impressively exhaustive in its coverage. Itwill be an indispensable aid to students in linguistics andother disciplines who need to understand a theory whichis now coming of age, and advanced researchers will alsofind it a useful companion both for reference and forhelping to access original texts.’

Professor Chris Sinha, University of Portsmouth

‘Cognitive Linguistics is now developing rapidly, and, likeall new fields, this one has developed its own technicalmeta-language. Anyone needing a jargon-free guidethrough this fascinating new terrain will find exactly whatis needed in Vyv Evans’ joined-up explanations of thelandmark concepts and theories. The Glossary is far morethan an alphabetical list – it gives unity and coherence tothe Cognitive Linguistics project.’

Professor Paul Chilton, University of Lancaster

TITLES IN THE SERIES INCLUDE

Peter TrudgillA Glossary of Sociolinguistics978 0 7486 1623 7

Jean AitchisonA Glossary of Language and Mind978 0 7486 1824 8

Laurie BauerA Glossary of Morphology978 0 7486 1853 8

Alan DaviesA Glossary of Applied Linguistics978 0 7486 1854 5

Geoffrey LeechA Glossary of English Grammar978 0 7486 1729 6

Paul Baker, Andrew Hardie and Tony McEneryA Glossary of Corpus Linguistics978 0 7486 2018 0

Alan CruseA Glossary of Semantics and Pragmatics978 0 7486 2111 8

Philip CarrA Glossary of Phonology978 0 7486 2234 4

Lyle Campbell and Mauricio J. MixcoA Glossary of Historical Linguistics978 0 7486 2379 2

A Glossary of Cognitive Linguistics

Vyvyan Evans

Edinburgh University Press

This book is dedicated to Max and Isabella

© Vyvyan Evans, 2007

Edinburgh University Press Ltd22 George Square, Edinburgh

Typeset in Sabonby Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Manchester, and

printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wilts

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 7486 2279 5 (hardback)ISBN 978 0 7486 2280 1 (paperback)

The right of Vyvyan Evansto be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with

the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Contents

Preface vi

Glossary of Cognitive Linguistics 1

Annotated Further Reading 225

Authors Mentioned 234

Preface

About cognitive linguisticsCognitive linguistics is a modern school of linguisticthought that originally emerged in the early 1970s. It is alsofirmly rooted in the emergence of modern cognitive sciencein the 1960s and 1970s, particularly in work relating tohuman categorisation, and in earlier traditions such asGestalt psychology. Cognitive linguistics is primarily con-cerned with investigating the relationship between lan-guage, the mind and socio-physical experience. The earliestpioneers in cognitive linguistics were responding, in part, todissatisfaction with formal approaches to language. Earlyresearch, especially in the 1970s, was dominated by a rela-tively small group of scholars based on the westernseaboard of the United States. During the 1980s, cognitivelinguistic research began to take root in northern continen-tal Europe, particularly in Belgium, Holland and Germany.By the early 1990s, there was a growing proliferation ofresearch in cognitive linguistics throughout Europe andNorth America, and a relatively large internationally dis-tributed group of researchers who identified themselvesas ‘cognitive linguists’. In 1989/1990, the InternationalCognitive Linguistics Society was established, together withthe journal Cognitive Linguistics. In the words of RonaldLangacker ([1991] 2002: xv), this ‘marked the birth ofcognitive linguistics as a broadly grounded, self conscious

intellectual movement.’ Today, cognitive linguistics is oneof the most rapidly expanding schools of theoretical lin-guistics with a flourishing international cognitive linguisticscommunity and national cognitive linguistics associationsin many countries throughout the world. Due to its inter-disciplinary nature, it is also one of the most exciting areasof study within cognitive science.

Further details about cognitive linguistics, including itshistorical development, its founding principles and assump-tions, and some of the main theoretical approaches whichpopulate it, are provided in an article length overview: seeEvans, Bergen and Zinken (2007). For a comprehensivebook-length introduction see Evans and Green (2006).

About this GlossaryThis Glossary represents an introduction to the hithertotwo best developed areas of cognitive linguistics: cognitivesemantics and cognitive approaches to grammar. That is,this Glossary represents an introduction to terms that havea special status in cognitive linguistics. Hence, it is not aGlossary of terms in general linguistics nor in cognitivescience. Accordingly, it does not include entries for termsthat have currency outside cognitive linguistics, unlesssuch terms have a ‘special’ status or interpretation withincognitive linguistics.

One of the difficulties in compiling a book of this sort liesin the fact that cognitive linguistics (and its two significantsub-branches) represents an approach to the study of lan-guage, the mind and embodied experience, rather than asingle closely articulated theory. The consequence of this isthat now, after nearly three decades since the publication ofLakoff and Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By in 1980, thereis a wide range of distinctive theoretical frameworks whichare cognitive linguistic in nature, and which each have theirown specialist terms and vocabulary.

A GLOSSARY OF COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS vii

To be sure, there are many terms employed in cognitivelinguistics that enjoy wide currency within the field.Nevertheless, there are many others which are primarilyused within the context of one of the two main sub-branches. There are also other terms that are only used inthe context of a specific approach or theory. Hence thereare inherent difficulties in selecting the terms to be coveredso as to avoid a volume of this sort becoming toounwieldy.

In order to constrain the nature and scope of termscovered in this volume, the selection has been based on theterms used in Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction,authored by Vyvyan Evans and Melanie Green. For themost part I have selected from the terms used in that bookas the basis for this volume, with a few additions. This hasnecessarily meant that some relatively important terms arenot covered in this volume. However, this would havebeen the case even with a volume twice the size of thepresent one. The rationale behind selecting terms based onthe Evans and Green book is that the present volume,while it could indeed be used as a stand-alone work of ref-erence, can also be employed by instructors and studentsas a companion volume to the Evans and Green textbook.This, I hope, will bring with it more advantages than dis-advantages, not least in that it provides a handy listing inA–Z format of many of the key terms featured in the Evansand Green textbook.

The entries provided in this Glossary have been writtenin a way so that related terms from within the same theorycan be read in conjunction with one another, providing auseable characterisation of a related and overlapping setof ideas rather than merely providing ‘dictionary-like’ def-initions. Entries contain items in bold-face, which lead tofurther entries. By following items in bold-face throughthe Glossary, it is envisaged that the reader should be able

viii A GLOSSARY OF COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS

to get a basic grasp of the key theories, approaches, prin-ciples and other ideas in cognitive linguistics and some ofthe key theoretical constructs within each of the theoriesand approaches covered. The reader can then refer to theEvans and Green textbook introduction for more detailedexplication and examples.

Alternatively, the interested reader can use the Glossaryas a means of delving deeper into the by now voluminousliterature in cognitive linguistics. In order to aid thisprocess, the Glossary features an annotated list of furtherreading at the end of the book. This includes textbooks,works of reference and essential ‘primary literature’addressing all the areas of cognitive linguistics covered inthe Glossary. In addition, key researchers associated witheach of the constructs and/or theories are identified. Thefirst mention of a key researcher in cognitive linguistics ineach entry is italicised. There is a listing of all such namedscholars at the end of the Glossary, together with key-words relating to the areas of investigation with whichthey are associated. It is envisaged that this listing can beused as a means of further identifying and narrowingtopics and scholars of interest for further reading.

Cognitive linguistics offers exciting glimpses into hith-erto hidden aspects of the human mind, human experienceand, by consequence, what it is to be human. I hope thatby making the technical language associated with cogni-tive linguistics more readily accessible, students, interestedlay-readers and scholars from neighbouring disciplinesmay thus be able to get a glimpse into what it is that makesthose of us engaged in cognitive linguistics research soexcited.

Vyvyan EvansBrighton, September 2006www.vyvevans.net

A GLOSSARY OF COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS ix

ReferencesEvans, Vyvyan and Melanie Green (2006) Cognitive

Linguistics: An Introduction. Mahwah, NJ andEdinburgh: Edinburgh University Press/LawrenceErlbaum Associates.

Evans, Vyvyan, Benjamin Bergen and Jörg Zinken (2007)‘The Cognitive Linguistics Enterprise: An Overview’, inV. Evans, B. Bergen and J. Zinken (eds), The CognitiveLinguistics Reader. London: Equinox.

Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson (1980) Metaphors WeLive By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Langacker, Ronald ([1991] 2002) Concept, Image,Symbol, 2nd edn. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

x A GLOSSARY OF COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS

abstract domain A domain (1) which is not directlygrounded in embodied experience and thus stands incontrast to a basic domain. Abstract domains includemarriage, love or medieval musicology. Althoughsuch domains are ultimately derived from embodiedexperience, they are more complex in nature. Forinstance, our knowledge of love may involve knowl-edge relating to basic domains, such as directly emb-odied experiences like touch, sexual relations andphysical proximity, and may also involve knowledgerelating to abstract domains, such as experience ofcomplex social activities like marriage ceremonies,hosting dinner parties and so on. (See also CognitiveGrammar.)

abstraction (1) In a usage-based model of language, theprocess whereby structure emerges as the result ofthe generalisation of patterns across instances of lan-guage use. For example, a speaker acquiring Englishwill, as the result of frequent exposure, ‘discover’recurring words, phrases and sentences in the utter-ances they hear, together with the range of meaningsassociated with those units. A special kind of abstrac-tion is schematisation. (See also usage-based thesis,utterance.)

A

abstraction (2) One of the three parameters of focaladjustment. Relates to how specific or detailed thedescription of a scene is. This also has consequencesfor the type of construction selected. Consider the fol-lowing examples:

1. Isabella threw a rattle at the TV and smashed it2. Isabella smashed the TV

The example in (2) is more abstract (less detailed)than the example in (1). In this way, abstraction relatesto the level of attention paid to a scene, in terms of levelof detail. (See also construal, focal adjustment, per-spective, selection.)

access Refers to the phenomenon in LCCM Theorywhereby the selection of a given lexical concept makesa particular cognitive model profile accessible for acti-vation. In practice only a small part of a cognitivemodel profile is ever activated in the construction ofany given conception. (See also access site, cognitivemodel, lexical concept selection.)

Access Principle (also ID Principle) Captures one ofthe central structuring properties associated withmental space formation and their proliferation interms of a mental spaces lattice. The Access Principleholds that any linguistic expression that names ordescribes a particular element in a given mentalspace may be employed in order to access an elementin a distinct mental space that is linked to it via aconnector. In other words, the Access Principle cap-tures the insight that an element in one mental spacecan be accessed by its counterpart element in anotherby virtue of the counterparts being related by con-nectors.

2 A GLOSSARY OF COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS

To illustrate, consider the following example: JamesBond is a top British spy. In the film, Sean Connery getsto kiss Pussy Galore. In this example, each sentence setsup its own mental space, involving the elements JamesBond in the first, and Sean Connery and Pussy Galorein the second. As James Bond and Sean Connery (theactor who played James Bond in the movie Goldfinger)are counterparts linked by a connector, the expression

A GLOSSARY OF COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS 3

a1

a1: NAME: JAMES BOND

Base

NAME: SEANCONNERY

NAME: PUSSYGALORE

a2 b

MOVIE

a2:

b:

Figure 1. Illustration of the Access Principle

Sean Connery can be used to access or identify the char-acter he plays: we are meant to understand that in themovie it is James Bond (rather than Sean Connery whois not in fact a spy) who does the kissing. This is set indiagrammatic form in Figure 1 where the circles repre-sent distinct mental spaces and the elements in each,James Bond (a1) and Sean Connery (a2) are linked by aconnector, signalled by the line relating a1 and a2. (Seealso Mental Spaces Theory, Optimisation Principle.)

access route The path of activation through a cognitivemodel profile afforded by a lexical concept given theparticular linguistic and extralinguistic context inwhich it is embedded. (See also access, access site,LCCM Theory.)

access site The point in a cognitive model profile where alexical concept affords access. (See also access route,LCCM Theory.)

action chain A model proposed in Cognitive Grammarwhich serves as the conceptual basis for the semanticnotions of agent and patient. An action chaininvolves an active ‘energy source’ that transfers energyto an ‘energy sink’. The ‘prototypical action’ is char-acterised in terms of the transfer of energy from agentto patient, resulting in a change of state of thepatient, as in the following sentence: Isabella smashedthe TV. This is illustrated in Figure 2, where A repre-sents agent and P represents patient.

activation The process, in LCCM Theory, whereby partof the semantic potential to which a lexical conceptaffords access is recruited for purposes of local com-munication in a given utterance.


active zone That part of an entity which is cognitivelyactivated, and thus ‘active’, by virtue of linguisticcontext. For instance, in examples such as the fol-lowing:

1. Max heard the trumpet2. Max saw the trumpet

the verbs hear and saw serve to activate differentaspects of our knowledge associated with trumpets. In(1), the active zone relates to knowledge concerningthe kind of sound emitted by trumpets, while in (2) theactive zone concerns the visual properties associatedwith trumpets, such as their shape and colour. Thenotion of an active zone is an important construct inCognitive Grammar.

altered replication The process of language changewhereby innovation occurs. Altered replication takesplace when a replicator is altered slightly in an utter-ance. For an innovation to give rise to languagechange, the lingueme which has been subject to alteredreplication must undergo propagation through alanguage community. Altered replication can involveboth an innovation with respect to form, for inst-ance the sound pattern of a given word, or use, forexample the meaning associated with a given word.(See also usage-based thesis, Utterance SelectionTheory.)


Figure 2. The prototypical action chain model

A P

argument roles In Construction Grammar (2), a semantic‘slot’ associated with sentence-level constructionssuch as verb argument constructions. Argument rolesinclude agent and patient and contrast with the morespecific construct of participant roles. (See also con-structional profiling, fusion (1).)

argument structure (also valence) The number of argu-ments, that is participants or entities, that a word-levelrelational predication such as a verb may be combinedwith. For instance, a verb like die only involves a singleparticipant: She died, while a verb such as loveinvolves two: I love you, and a verb like put involvesthree: He put the butter on the table. The notion ofargument structure is central to the verb argumentconstructions studied in Construction Grammar (2).

Atemporal relations A sub-category of the larger categoryrelational predication. Atemporal relations includeprepositions, adjectives, adverbs and non-finite verbforms (infinitives and participles), and contrast withtemporal relations. The domain of time underlies thedistinction between temporal and atemporal relations.Atemporal relations are accessed via summary scan-ning. Atemporal relations can be divided into twotypes: simple atemporal relations and complex atem-poral relations. (See also conceived time, processingtime, sequential scanning.)

attentional system One of the four schematic systemswhich form part of the conceptual structuring system.The attentional system governs the distribution ofattention over matter and action (scenes and their par-ticipants), and is governed by three main factors:strength, pattern, and mapping. (See also Conceptual


Structuring System Approach, configurational system,force-dynamics system, perspectival system, schematiccategories.)

autonomy A termed coined by Alan Cruse in hisapproach to lexical semantics. Refers to the degree ofconventionalisation associated with a word-meaningthat secures relative context-independence and thusidentifies a distinct sense. Examples of word senseswhich are not fully autonomous include a sub-senseand a facet.

axiality One of the schematic categories in the configura-tional system. Axiality relates to the way a quantity ofspace or time is structured according to a directed axis.For example, the adjectives well and sick are points onan axis relating to health. On the axis, well is the end-point, whereas sick is the remainder of the axis. Thisexplains the different distribution of the closed classdegree modifiers like almost and slightly. While it ispossible to be slightly sick or almost well, it is not pos-sible to be *slightly well or *almost sick. This followsfrom the axiality model because it is not possible to be‘slightly’ at an endpoint, nor ‘almost’ on the journeytowards that endpoint. This is illustrated in Figure 3.(See also boundedness, Conceptual Structuring SystemApproach, degree of extension, dividedness, pattern ofdistribution, plexity, schematic systems.)

axial properties In a spatial scene the figure is located byvirtue of the axial properties associated with a givenreference object. For instance, in a sentence of the fol-lowing kind: The bike is in front of the house, the bikecan be located by virtue of ‘searching’ for the bike, thefigure, in the region in front of the house. However,


this process occurs by virtue of the reference object, thehouse, having a number of ‘axial’ divisions: front, backand side areas. These areas of the reference object con-stitute axial properties and are employed in the estab-lishment of a spatial relation. Some reference objectsare symmetric and thus fail to manifest intrinsic axialproperties. In such situations a secondary referenceobject is required in order to provide the (primary) ref-erence object with axial properties. (See also referenceframe, figure-ground organisation.)

Aymara An indigenous language of South America,spoken in the Andean region of Peru, Chile andBolivia. Aymara is notable for the way in which itstructures time. Rafael Núñez and Eve Sweetser reportthat while Aymara features variants of both an ego-based cognitive model for time and a time-based cog-nitive model for time, in the ego-based model, Aymaraspeakers conceptualise the future as being locatedbehind the ego, while past is conceptualised as beingin front of the ego. (See also cognitive models for time,moving ego model, moving time model.)

backstage cognition A term coined by Gilles Fauconnier.Refers to the observation that much of what goes on in

B


Figure 3. The axiality model

sick

well

the construction of meaning occurs ‘behind the scenes’.Fauconnier argues that language does not encodethought in its complex entirety but encodes rudimen-tary instructions for the creation of rich and elaborateideas. Fauconnier gives the label ‘backstage cognition’to these ‘behind-the-scenes’ conceptualisation processesthat are involved in meaning construction.

backward projection A consequence of conceptual inte-gration. As the input spaces in an integration networkremain connected to the blended space, they can bemodified as a result of emergent structure in theblended space: the process of backward projection.For instance, consider the clinton as french presi-dent blend discussed in the entry for conceptualintegration, and which arises due to the followingutterance: In France, Clinton would not have beenharmed by his affair Monica Lewinsky. The structurethat emerges in the blended space is projected back tothe input spaces. This is the process that gives rise tothe disanalogy between the USA and France. In otherwords, a contrast is established between the nature ofFrench and American moral attitudes governing thebehaviour of politicians. (See also Blending Theory.)

base That part of the domain matrix necessary for under-standing the profile of a linguistic unit. For instance,the lexical item hypotenuse profiles the longest side ofa right-angled triangle. The base constitutes the largerstructure, the right-angled triangle, of which thehypotenuse constitutes a sub-structure. The largerstructure, the base, is essential for understanding thenotion hypotenuse. (See also Cognitive Grammar,scope of predication.)


base space The mental space which represents the startingpoint for a particular stage in discourse, such as thebeginning of a conversation. The base space serves toset up the discourse; it is with respect to the base spacethat a mental spaces lattice is anchored. In ongoing dis-course, the base space is the mental space to which theconversation can return at any time. (See also eventspace, focus space, Mental Spaces Theory, viewpointspace.)

basic domain A domain (1) which derives directly fromhuman embodied experience, and which stands in con-trast to an abstract domain. Basic domains are derivedfrom both sensory experience and subjective experience.A non-exhaustive list of basic domains, and their expe-riential basis, is given in Table 1. (See also CognitiveGrammar.)

basic level According to Prototype Theory, the level ofcategory formation which is held to be optimal forhuman beings in terms of cognitive economy. Thislevel of categorisation provides a level of informationat the mid-level of detail, between the most inclusiveand least inclusive levels: the superordinate and thesubordinate levels respectively. The basic level is asso-ciated with categories like car, dog and chair. Thesuperordinate level (more inclusive) is associated withcategories such as vehicle, animal and furniture. Thesubordinate level (less inclusive) is associated with cat-egories such as sportscar, collie and rockingchair, respectively. The basic level also maximises dif-ferences between categories at the same level. Forinstance, a car is extremely distinct from a dog (bothare at the basic level), whereas a collie is relativelyless distinct from an Alsatian (both at the subordinate


level). It has been claimed by Eleanor Rosch that cate-gories formed at the basic level tend to emerge firstboth developmentally and in language acquisition, andcategories at this level are most easily recognised andidentified. (See also cue validity, prototype, prototypestructure.)

blend see blended space

blended space (also blend) In an integration network, themental space which results from conceptual integra-tion, giving rise to emergent structure. (See alsoBlending Theory.)

blending see conceptual integration


Table 1. Basic domains

Basic domain Pre-conceptual basis

space Visual system; motion and position(proprioceptive) sensors in skin, musclesand joints; vestibular system (located inthe auditory canal; detects motion andbalance)

colour Visual system

pitch Auditory system

temperature Tactile (touch) system

pressure Pressure sensors in the skin, muscles andjoints

pain Detection of tissue damage by nervesunder the skin

odour Olfactory (smell) system

time Temporal awareness

emotion Affective (emotion) system

Blending Theory (also known as Conceptual BlendingTheory, Conceptual Integration Theory, Many SpaceModel) Developed by Gilles Fauconnier and MarkTurner, Blending Theory derives from two traditionswithin cognitive semantics: Conceptual MetaphorTheory and Mental Spaces Theory. Blending Theoryholds that meaning construction involves integration ofstructure that gives rise to more than the sum of itsparts. The mechanism that facilitates this, known asconceptual integration or ‘blending’, is held to be ageneral and basic cognitive operation which is centralto the way we think. In terms of its architecture, and interms of its central concerns, Blending Theory is mostclosely related to Mental Spaces Theory, not least dueto its use of mental spaces and mental space construc-tion as a key part of its architecture. However, BlendingTheory is a distinct theory that has been developed toaccount for phenomena that Mental Spaces Theory,and indeed Conceptual Metaphor Theory, cannot ade-quately account for. Moreover, Blending Theory addssignificant theoretical sophistication of its own.

Blending Theory was originally developed in orderto account for the role of language in meaning con-struction, particularly ‘creative’ aspects of meaningconstruction like novel metaphors, counterfactualsand so on. However, recent research has given rise tothe view that conceptual blending is central to humanthought and imagination, and that evidence for thiscan be found not only in human language, but also ina wide range of other areas of human activity. In par-ticular, Fauconnier and Turner argue that the ability toperform conceptual integration or blending may havebeen the key mechanism in facilitating the develop-ment of advanced human behaviours that rely oncomplex symbolic abilities. These include rituals, art,


tool manufacture and use, and the development of lan-guage. (See also constitutive processes, goals of blend-ing, governing principles, integration network.)

bodily mimesis see mimesis

boundedness One of the schematic categories in the con-figurational system. Boundedness relates to whether aquantity is understood as having inherent boundaries(bounded) or not (unbounded). In the domain ofspace, this is the basis of the count/mass noun distinc-tion. For example, count nouns like nightdress andblouse have bounded structure, in that each designatesan entity with inherent ‘edges’, which can thus be indi-viduated and counted. On the other hand, mass nounslike champagne and money do not have inherent‘edges’ and therefore cannot be individuated andcounted. In the domain of time, boundedness is thebasis of the distinction between perfect and imperfectgrammatical aspect, as illustrated below:

1. Max has left the toy shop [Perfect]2. Max is leaving the toy shop [Imperfect]

Example (1) is grammatically marked for perfect aspectby the presence of the perfect auxiliary have followedby the past participle left. Perfect aspect encodes anevent that is completed and can thus be thought of asbounded. Example (2) is grammatically marked forimperfect (progressive) aspect by the progressive auxil-iary be, followed by the progressive participle leaving.Imperfect aspect encodes an event that is ‘ongoing’and can thus be thought of as unbounded. (See alsoConceptual Structuring System Approach, degree ofextension, dividedness, pattern of distribution, plexity,schematic systems.)


building block metaphor A term coined by RonaldLangacker. Relates to the view, held by scholars informal linguistics, that the meaning of a complexexpression is the result of compositionally adding themeaning of the individual units, the ‘principle of com-positionality’. For Langacker, and others in cognitivelinguistics, this principle is erroneous.

caused motion construction One of the verb argumentconstructions studied by Adele Goldberg in the devel-opment of her theory of Construction Grammar (2).This construction (1) has the syntax [subj [v objobl]], where obl (which is short for ‘oblique’ object)denotes a directional PP. The construction has thesemantics X causes Y to move Z, where Z desig-nates a path of motion expressed by the directionalPP. The construction is illustrated by the followingexample: Max sneezed the birthday cards off thetable. Like several of the constructions studied byGoldberg, the caused motion construction exhibitsconstructional polysemy. The properties of the con-struction are summarised in Table 2. (See also argu-ment roles.)

C


Table 2. Properties of the English caused motionconstruction

The English caused-motion construction: X causes Y to move Z

Contributes caused motion semantics that cannot be attributed to the lexical verb

Contributes caused motion semantics that cannot be attributed to the preposition

The causer argument role cannot be an instrument

chaining A phenomenon exhibited in a radial categorybetween distinct senses (or lexical concepts) associatedwith a given word. Chaining relates to the situationwhereby new senses emerge that are intermediate withrespect to the prototype (or ideal meaning) and theperipheral senses. Chaining is therefore the phenome-non whereby the central and peripheral senses are con-nected by virtue of intermediate senses. The range ofmechanisms that have been proposed within the cog-nitive lexical semantics literature as giving rise tochaining include metaphor, metonymy, image schematransformation and pragmatic strengthening.

classical category A category, so called because it is possi-ble to provide necessary and jointly sufficient condi-tions for determining that an entity belongs to aparticular category. Examples of such categoriesinclude the categories bachelor and odd number.Nevertheless, since the advent of Eleanor Rosch’swork on Prototype Theory it has become clear thateven classical categories exhibit typicality effects. Forinstance, some members of the odd number categorysuch as 1, 3, 5 and 9 are typically judged as being betterexamples of the category than high odd numbers suchas 1001. (See also Classical Theory.)

Classical Theory The widely accepted account of the wayhumans categorise that was the prevalent model fromthe time of Aristotle until the early 1970s. This theoryholds that conceptual and linguistic categories have‘definitional structure’. This means that an entity repre-sents a category member by virtue of fulfilling a set ofnecessary and (jointly) sufficient conditions for categorymembership. These conditions are called ‘necessaryand sufficient’ because they are individually necessary


but only collectively sufficient to define a category.Traditionally, the conditions were thought to be sensoryor perceptual in nature. To illustrate, consider the cate-gory bachelor. For an entity to belong to this category,it must adhere to the following conditions: ‘is notmarried’; ‘is male’; ‘is an adult’. Each of these condi-tions is necessary for defining the category, but none ofthem is individually sufficient, because ‘is not married’could equally hold for spinster, while ‘is male’ couldequally hold for husband, and so on. During the 1970sexperimental findings which emerged under the bannerof Prototype Theory showed the Classical Theory ofcategorisation to be implausible as a model of humancategorisation.

closed class forms A set of linguistic forms to which it istypically more difficult for a language to add newmembers. Closed class forms are normally taken toinclude the ‘grammatical’ or ‘function’ words of a lan-guage. In English these include articles, prepositions,pronouns, inflectional morphemes and so forth. Interms of the meaning contributed by the closed classelements they provide schematic meaning. They con-tribute to the interpretation of an utterance in impor-tant but often subtle ways, providing a kind of‘scaffolding’ which supports and structures the contentmeaning provided by open class forms. (See also con-ceptual structuring system, implicit closed class form,overt closed class form.)

cluster model Consists of a number of converging ICMswhich collectively give rise to a complex cluster whichthus forms a stable large-scale model. The clustermodel is held to be psychologically more complex thanthe individual ICMs which comprise it. According to


George Lakoff who developed the notion of ICMs, thecategory mother is an instance of cluster model.Lakoff suggests that the mother cluster model is madeup of the following ICMs:

1. the birth model: a mother is the person whogives birth to the child.

2. the genetic model: a mother is the person whoprovides the genetic material for the child.

3. the nurturance model: a mother is the personwho brings up and looks after the child.

4. the marital model: a mother is married to thechild’s father.

5. the genealogical model: a mother is a particu-lar female ancestor.

coding In Cognitive Grammar, the process whereby aspeaker searches for a linguistic expression in order toexpress a concept. If the symbolic assembly the speakerarrives at matches symbolic assemblies existing in hisor her inventory, this represents a case of sanction andthus well-formedness.

cognition Relates to all aspects of conscious and uncon-scious mental function. In particular, cognition consti-tutes the mental events (mechanisms and processes)and knowledge involved in a whole host of tasksranging from ‘low-level’ object perception to ‘high-level’ decision-making tasks.

cognitive approaches to grammar A cognitive approach togrammar is concerned with modelling the languagesystem (the mental ‘grammar’) in ways which are con-sistent with the generalisation commitment and the cog-nitive commitment associated with the larger cognitive


linguistics enterprise. Cognitive approaches also adhereto the two guiding principles of cognitive approaches togrammar. These are the symbolic thesis and the usage-based thesis. In addition, cognitive approaches take astheir starting point the conclusions of work in cognitivesemantics. This follows as meaning is central to cogni-tive approaches to grammar; although the study of cog-nitive semantics and cognitive approaches to grammarare occasionally separate in practice, this by no meansimplies that their domains of enquiry are anything buttightly linked. Indeed, most work in cognitive linguisticsfinds it necessary to investigate both semantics andgrammar in tandem.

Researchers who adopt a cognitive approach togrammar have typically adopted one of two foci.Scholars such as Ronald Langacker have emphasisedthe study of the cognitive principles that give rise tolinguistic organisation. In his theory of CognitiveGrammar, Langacker has attempted to delineate theprinciples that structure a grammar and to relate theseto aspects of general cognition.

The second avenue of investigation, pursued byresearchers including William Croft, Charles Fillmoreand Paul Kay, Adele Goldberg, George Lakoff, LauraMichaelis and others, and more recently BenjaminBergen and Nancy Chang, aims to provide a moredescriptively and formally detailed account of the lin-guistic units that comprise a particular language. Theseresearchers attempt to provide a broad-ranging inven-tory of the units of language, from morphemes towords, idiomatic expressions and phrasal patterns,and seek accounts of their structure, compositionalpossibilities and relations. Researchers who havepursued this line of investigation are developing a setof theories that are collectively known as construction


grammars. This general approach takes its name fromthe view in cognitive linguistics that the basic unit oflanguage is a form-meaning pairing known as a con-struction (1). (See also linguistic unit.)

cognitive commitment One of the two foundational com-mitments of cognitive linguistics. Represents the viewthat the principles of linguistic structure should reflectwhat is known about human cognition from otherdisciplines, particularly the other cognitive sciences(philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence and neu-roscience). It follows from the cognitive commitmentthat language and linguistic organisation should reflectgeneral cognitive principles rather than cognitive prin-ciples that are specific to language. This commitment,central to and definitional of cognitive linguistics, leadsto the generalisation commitment and the rejection bycognitive linguists of the modular approach to languageand the mind adopted in formal linguistics.

cognitive economy Relates to the way in which humancategorisation works so as to provide a maximallyefficient way of representing information about fre-quently encountered objects. Cognitive economy isoften stated in terms of the probabilistic notion cuevalidity. Cue validity is maximised at the basic level,because basic level categories share the largest numberof attributes possible while minimising the extent towhich these features are shared by other categories.This means that basic level categories simultaneouslymaximise the amount of detail they include in theirrepresentations (their ‘level of inclusiveness’), whilemaximising their distinctiveness from other categories.This results in optimal cognitive conomy. (See also pro-totype, Prototype Theory.)


Cognitive Grammar The theoretical framework associ-ated with Ronald Langacker which has been underdevelopment since the mid-1970s and is best repre-sented in his two Foundations of Cognitive Grammarvolumes published in 1987 and 1991 respectively. Thisis also the most detailed and comprehensive theory ofgrammar to have been developed within cognitive lin-guistics, and to date has been the most influential of thecognitive approaches to grammar.

Cognitive Grammar attempts to model the cognitivemechanisms and principles that motivate and licensethe formation and use of linguistic units of varyingdegrees of complexity. Like the Conceptual StructuringSystem Approach developed by Leonard Talmy andthe group of theories known as construction gram-mars, Langacker argues that grammatical or closedclass forms are inherently meaningful. Unlike Talmy,he does not assume that open class forms and closedclass forms represent distinct conceptual subsystems.

Instead, Langacker argues that both types of unitbelong within a single structured inventory of conven-tionalised linguistic units which represents knowledgeof language in the mind of the speaker, giving rise to alexicon-grammar continuum. For Langacker, knowl-edge of language (the mental grammar) is represented inthe mind of the speaker as an inventory of symbolicassemblies. The symbolic assembly, which can besimplex or complex, is the basic unit of grammar.Accordingly, Cognitive Grammar subscribes to the sym-bolic thesis. It is only once an expression has been usedsufficiently frequently and has undergone entrench-ment: acquiring the status of a habit or a ‘cognitiveroutine’, that it achieves the status of a linguistic unit.From this perspective, a linguistic unit is a symbolicentity that is not built compositionally by the lang-


uage system but is stored and accessed as a whole.Furthermore, the linguistic units represented in thespeaker’s grammar reflect usage conventions. The con-ventionality of a linguistic unit relates to the idea thatlinguistic expressions become part of the grammar of alanguage by virtue of being shared among members ofa speech community. Thus conventionality is a matterof degree. For instance, an expression like dog is moreconventional (shared by more members of the English-speaking community) than an expression like allo-phone, which is shared only by a subset of Englishspeakers with specialist knowledge relating to the studyof linguistics. The roles of entrenchment and conven-tionality in this model of grammar emerge from theusage-based thesis. Accordingly, Cognitive Grammar issometimes referred to as the usage-based model ofgrammar.

The repository of entrenched symbolic assemblies isconceived in Cognitive Grammar as a mental inventory.Yet the contents of this inventory are not stored in arandom way. The inventory is structured, and this struc-ture lies in the relationships between symbolic assem-blies. For example, some units form sub-parts of otherunits which in turn form sub-parts of other units (forexample, morphemes make up words and words makeup phrases which in turn make up sentences). This set ofinterlinking and overlapping relationships is conceivedas a structured network, and Langacker presents this interms of a network model. The entities which populatethe network of symbolic assemblies are constrained bywhat Langacker refers to as the content requirement.

cognitive lexical semantics An approach to lexical seman-tics (word-meaning) that assumes the guiding princi-ples of cognitive semantics. Key contributors to this


approach include Claudia Brugman, Hubert Cuyckens,Paul Deane, Vyvyan Evans, Dirk Geeraerts, AnetteHerskovits, George Lakoff, Andrea Tyler and ClaudeVandeloise. (See also chaining, cognitive semantics,over, semantic network.)

cognitive linguistics (also cognitive linguistics enterprise)A school of linguistics and cognitive science whichemerged from the early 1980s onwards. Places centralimportance on the role of meaning, conceptualprocesses and embodied experience in the study of lan-guage and the mind and the way in which they intersect.Cognitive linguistics is an enterprise or an approach tothe study of language and the mind rather than a singlearticulated theoretical framework. It is informed by twooverarching principles or commitments: the generalisa-tion commitment and the cognitive commitment. Thetwo best developed sub-branches of cognitive linguisticsare cognitive semantics and cognitive approaches togrammar. While cognitive linguistics began to emerge inthe 1980s as a broadly grounded intellectual movement,it traces its roots to work that was taking place in the1970s, particularly in the United States, which wasreacting to formal linguistics. Early pioneers in the1970s who were instrumental in formulating this newapproach include Gilles Fauconnier, Charles Fillmore,George Lakoff, Ronald Langacker and Leonard Talmy.

cognitive linguistics enterprise see cognitive linguistics

cognitive model A central construct in LCCM Theory.Cognitive models, while related to the notion of frame,semantic frame and domain (1), are distinct from allthree. The distinct notion of cognitive model is necessaryfor understanding the way lexical concepts contribute to


meaning construction. The main claim is that a givenlexical concept provides an access site to cognitivemodels and are relativised with respect to them. A cog-nitive model is a coherent, in large-part non-linguistic,knowledge structure. That is, it is a richly specified con-ceptual entity which represents an interface betweenrichly specified conceptual knowledge and nodes ofaccess at particular points in the cognitive model pro-vided by specific lexical concepts. Thus lexical conceptsprovide particular established (i.e. conventional) per-spectives or construals with respect to the set of cogni-tive models: the cognitive model profile, accessed via agiven lexical concept.

Cognitive models relate to coherent bodies ofknowledge of any kind, being multi-modal conceptualentities, which can be used as a basis for perceptualsimulation. For instance, they include knowledge relat-ing to specific entities, such as the complex knowledgeassociated with a ‘car’, or a more specific entity suchas ‘my car’. They include information such as whetherthe car needs filling up and when I last cleaned its inte-rior. Cognitive models can relate to ‘procedural’ bodiesof knowledge such as ‘cultural scripts’ which formtemplates for how to interact in restaurants in order tobe seated and secure a meal, for instance. Cognitivemodels also include bodies of knowledge relating tomore abstract entities such as containment, love andphysics. They operate at varying levels of detail andwhile stable, are dynamic, being in a perpetual state ofmodification and renewal by virtue of ongoing experi-ence, mediated both by linguistic and non-linguisticinteraction with others and one’s environment.

cognitive model profile A theoretical construct in LCCMTheory. Refers to the set of cognitive models to which


a given lexical concept affords access. The cognitivemodel profile serves to provide the semantic potentialfrom which, in conjunction with processes of lexicalconcept integration, conceptual structure is selected,contributing to the emergence of a conception.

By way of illustrating the relationship between alexical concept and its cognitive model profile, considerthe lexical concept [france]; note that a lexicalconcept is glossed using small capitals in square brack-ets. This lexical concept provides access to a largenumber of cognitive models – its cognitive modelprofile – at a particular access site, which is to say a par-ticular point in the cognitive model profile. A verypartial cognitive model profile for this lexical conceptis provided in Figure 4. In Figure 4, the lexical concept[france] provides access to a potentially large numberof knowledge structures. As each cognitive model con-sists of structured knowledge providing access to othersorts of knowledge, we can distinguish between cogni-tive models which are directly accessed via the lexicalconcept and those cognitive models which form sub-structures of the directly accessed cognitive models.That is, such ‘secondary’ models are indirectly accessedvia the lexical concept. Accordingly, a cognitive modelprofile is a structured inventory of knowledge whichlexical concepts afford access to.

For instance, the directly accessed cognitive modelsinclude (at the very least) the following: geographi-cal landmass, nation state and holiday destina-tion. Each of these cognitive models provides accessto a sophisticated and large body of knowledge.In Figure 4 a flavour of this is given by virtue ofthe various ‘secondary’ cognitive models which areaccessed via the nation state cognitive model. Theseinclude national sports, political system and


cuisine. For instance, we may know that in France,the French engage in national sports of particulartypes, for instance football, rugby, athletics and so on,and take part in competitions of various kinds includ-ing the FIFA football World Cup, the Six Nationsrugby competition and the Rugby World Cup, theOlympics and so on. That is, we may have access to alarge body of knowledge concerning the sorts of sportsFrench people engage in. We may also have someknowledge of the funding structures and social andeconomic conditions and constraints that apply tothese sports in France, France’s international standingin these particular sports and further knowledge aboutthe sports themselves including the rules that governtheir practice, and so on. This knowledge is derivedfrom a large number of sources.


GEOGRAPHICALLANDMASS

NATIONSTATE

CONSTITUTIONALSYSTEM

POLITICALSYSTEM

[FRANCE]

ELECTORATE

HOLIDAYDESTINATION

HEAD OFSTATE

NATIONALSPORTS

CUISINE

Figure 4. Partial cognitive model profile for [france]

With respect to the indirectly accessed cognitivemodel of political system, Figure 4 illustrates asample of further cognitive models which are accessedvia this cognitive model. In other words, each ‘sec-ondary’ cognitive model has further secondary cogni-tive models which it provides access to. For instance,(french) electorate is a cognitive model accessedvia the cognitive model (french) political system.In turn the cognitive model (french) politicalsystem is accessed via the cognitive model nationstate.

cognitive poetics An approach to the study of literaturewhich applies ideas, constructs and methodology fromcognitive linguistics. One of the most influential pio-neers in cognitive poetics is Mark Turner.

cognitive representation (also CR) A term coined byLeonard Talmy, similar in nature to the notion of theconceptual system. In Talmy’s Conceptual StructuringSystem Approach the language user employs linguisticresources specialised for encoding and externalisinghis/her cognitive representation.

cognitive semantics The area of study known as cognitivesemantics is concerned with investigating the relation-ship between experience, the conceptual system andthe semantic structure encoded by language. In spe-cific terms, scholars working in cognitive semanticsinvestigate conceptual structure (knowledge represen-tation) and conceptualisation (meaning construction).Cognitive semanticists have employed language as thelens through which these cognitive phenomena canbe investigated. Consequently, research in cognitivesemantics tends to be interested in modelling the


human mind as much as it is concerned with investi-gating linguistic semantics.

Like the larger enterprise of cognitive linguistics ofwhich it forms a subset, cognitive semantics representsan approach rather than a single articulated theory.There are four guiding principles of cognitive seman-tics that characterise the approach. Some examples oftheories in cognitive semantics include BlendingTheory, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, FrameSemantics, Mental Spaces Theory, LCCM Theory,Principled Polysemy and approaches to linguisticsemantics such as cognitive lexical semantics and ency-clopaedic semantics.

communicative intention The second important aspect ofthe human intention-reading ability, central to firstlanguage acquisition, involves the recognition of com-municative intention. This happens when the childrecognises that others are intentional agents and thatlanguage represents a special kind of intention: theintention to communicate. For example, when theadult says rubber duck, the adult is identifying the toythat is the joint focus of attention and is employingthis linguistic symbol to express the intention that thechild follow the attention of the adult. (See also jointattention frame, pattern-finding ability, role reversalimitation, socio-cognitive mechanisms in languageacquisition.)

completion (also known as pattern completion) InBlending Theory, one of the three component processesthat give rise to emergent structure. Completion invol-ves schema induction: the recruitment of backgroundframes. These complete the composition. For instance,in the clinton as french president integration


network, which is prompted by the utterance: In France,Clinton wouldn’t have been harmed by his affair withMonica Lewinsky, the process of completion introducesthe frames for french politics and french moralattitudes. (For discussion of this blend see the entry forconceptual integration.) Without the structure providedby these frames, we would lose the central inferenceemerging from the blend, which is that Clinton’s affairwith Lewinsky would not harm Clinton in France. Thisprocess of schema induction is called ‘completion’because structure is recruited to ‘fill out’ or complete theinformation projected from the inputs in order to derivethe emergent structure in the blended space. (See alsocompletion, constitutive principles, elaboration (1),frame.)

complex Refers to a symbolic assembly which containssmaller symbolic assemblies as subparts. Complexsymbolic assemblies vary according to the level ofcomplexity, from words (for example, dogs) andphrases (for example, John’s brown dog) to whole sen-tences (for example, Geoff kicked the dog). (See alsoCognitive Grammar, construction (2), simplex.)

complex atemporal relations A sub-category of atempo-ral relations. A complex atemporal relation encodes acomplex static scene, as in the following example: thesand all over the floor. What makes this scene‘complex’ is that it involves a multiplex trajector. (Seealso simple atemporal relations.)

complex metaphor see compound metaphor

complex temporal relations A sub-category of temporalrelations. Complex temporal relations like simple


temporal relations involve a process, and hence a tem-poral relation, because they construe scenes that holdover a given span of time. However, a complex tem-poral relation designates a dynamic process involvingchange over time, as illustrated by the followingexample: Max is eating the chocolate.

composite prototype A prototype derived from two ormore ICMs providing highly schematic information. Acomposite prototype can give rise to further variantsestablished via convention, and thus provides proto-type structure for a radial category. The composite pro-totype for the category mother, for instance, includesa female who gave birth to the child, was supplier of 50per cent of the genetic material, stayed at home in orderto nurture the child, is married to the child’s father, isone generation older than the child and is also thechild’s legal guardian. Thus the composite prototypedraws upon information from a number of distinctICMs associated with the cluster model for motherincluding: the birth model, the genetic model,the nurturance model, the marital model, thegenealogical model and the housewife-mothermodel.

composition In Blending Theory, one of the three com-ponent processes that give rise to emergent structure.For instance, in the clinton as french presidentintegration network, due to the utterance: In France,Clinton wouldn’t have been harmed by his affair withMonica Lewinsky, composition brings together thevalue bill clinton with the role french presidentin the blended space, resulting in the emergent struc-ture: clinton as french president. See the entry forconceptual integration where this blend is described in


detail. (See also completion, constitutive principles,elaboration (1).)

compound metaphor (also known as complex metaphor)In Primary Metaphor Theory, a compound meta-phor is a metaphor formed by unification of moreprimitive primary metaphors. In other words, while aprimary metaphor relates two ‘simple’ concepts fromdistinct domains, in contrast, compound metaphorsrelate entire complex domains of experience. A cele-brated example of a compound metaphor is theo-ries are buildings, as evidenced by an examplesuch as: Your theory lacks a solid foundation. Sinceboth theories and arguments are relatively com-plex and rich in detail, they do not qualify as aprimary target concept nor a primary source conceptrespectively.

compression In an integration network, the processwhich operates on a vital relation. Compression con-stitutes the process whereby an outer-space relationholding between counterparts in distinct input spacesis ‘shortened’ so as to ‘tighten’ the connection betweencounterparts. This results in emergent structure, aninner-space relation in the blended space. (See alsoBlending Theory, decompression.)

conceived time A term coined by Ronald Langacker torefer to the cognitive representation of time, wheretime is an object of conceptualisation. Conceivedtime contrasts with the notion of processing time.Langacker argues that there are two types of conceivedtime, depending upon how events are accessed orprocessed: these are sequential scanning and summaryscanning.


concept (also representation) The fundamental unit ofknowledge central to categorisation and conceptuali-sation. Concepts inhere in the conceptual system, andfrom early in infancy are redescribed from perceptualexperience through a process termed perceptualmeaning analysis. This process gives rise to the mostrudimentary of concepts known as an image schema.Concepts can be encoded in a language-specific formatknow as the lexical concept. While concepts are rela-tively stable cognitive entities they are modified byongoing episodic and recurrent experiences. (See alsoconceptualising capacity, conceptual structure.)

conception In LCCM Theory, the meaning associatedwith an utterance. A conception emerges due to theprocesses of lexical concept integration guided bycontext and the processes of backstage cognition.

conceptual alternativity A term coined by LeonardTalmy. Relates to the ability to conceptualise amember of one domain, for instance time, in terms ofanother, for instance space. Conceptual alternativity isfacilitated by a conceptual conversion operation and isencoded by a given linguistic unit such as closed classforms.

conceptual archetype A term employed in CognitiveGrammar. Refers to a concept that has a direct expe-riential basis but which constitutes an abstraction rep-resenting commonalities over ubiquitous everydayexperiences. Conceptual archetypes include conceptssuch as the following: the human body, the humanface, a discrete physical object, an object movingthrough space, the use of one instrument to affectanother, one person giving an object to a recipient and


so on. Conceptual archetypes form the basis for thecategory prototype of grammatical notions of variouskinds. For instance, while the grammatical subject ischaracterised as the clause-level trajector in a profiledrelationship, the conceptual archetype of agentdefines the category prototype.

Conceptual Blending Theory see Blending Theory

conceptual content system One of two systems withinLeonard Talmy’s Conceptual Structuring SystemApproach. The conceptual content system provides therich meaning supported by the conceptual structuringsystem. The meaning associated with the conceptualcontent system is content meaning, which is encodedby open class forms.

conceptual conversion operation The mechanism wherebythe phenomenon of conceptual alternativity is achievedin homologous categories. One kind of conceptual con-version operation is reification.

conceptual domain see domain (2)

conceptual integration (also known as blending) Theprocess that results in the formation of a blended spacein an integration network, giving rise to emergentstructure.

To illustrate, consider the following utterance: InFrance Clinton wouldn’t have been harmed by hisaffair with Monica Lewinsky. This utterance promptsfor a blended space in which we understand that asPresident of France, Clinton would not have beenharmed politically by his relationship with Lewinsky.The integration network for this expression includes


two input spaces. One input space contains clinton,lewinsky and their relationship. This space is struc-tured by the frame american politics. In this frame,there is a role for american president together withcertain attributes associated with this role such asmoral virtue, a symbol of which is marital fidelity. Inthis space, marital infidelity causes political harm. Inthe second input space, which is structured by theframe french politics, there is a role for frenchpresident. In this frame, it is an accepted part ofFrench public life that the President sometimes has amistress. In this space, marital infidelity does notresult in political harm. The two inputs are related byvirtue of a generic space which contains the genericroles country, head of state, sexual partner andcitizens. The generic space establishes cross-spacecounterparts in the input spaces. The blended spacecontains bill clinton and monica lewinsky, as wellas the roles french president and mistress offrench president, with which Clinton and Lewinskyare respectively associated. Crucially, the frame thatstructures the blend is french politics rather thanamerican politics. It follows that in the blend,Clinton is not politically harmed by his marital infi-delity. The integration network for this blend is repre-sented in Figure 5.

Conceptual integration has a number of constitutiveprinciples, goals of blending and governing principlesthat govern the way in which the process of integrationoccurs. (See also Blending Theory.)

Conceptual Integration Theory see Blending Theory

Conceptual Metaphor Theory A theoretical frameworkdeveloped by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, but


also associated with other influential scholars includingZoltán Kövecses, Raymond Gibbs, Eve Sweetser andMark Turner. Conceptual Metaphor Theory was firstpresented by Lakoff and Johnson in their 1980 volumeMetaphors We Live By. Conceptual Metaphor Theorywas one of the earliest theoretical frameworks to bedeveloped in cognitive semantics and provided much ofthe early theoretical impetus for this approach to therelationship between language, mind and embodiedexperience. The basic premise of Conceptual MetaphorTheory is that metaphor is not simply a stylistic featureof language but that thought itself is fundamentally


USCLINTON

AMERICANSLEWINSKY

FRANCEPRESIDENT

THE FRENCHMISTRESS

Input 2Input 1

COUNTRYPRESIDENTCITIZENS

SEXUAL PARTNER

Generic space

FRANCECLINTON/PRESIDENT

FRENCH VOTERSLEWINSKY/MISTRESS

CLINTON UNHARMED

Blend

Figure 5. The integration network for clinton as frenchpresident blend

metaphorical in nature. According to this view, concep-tual structure is organised by cross-domain mappings orcorrespondences between conceptual domains. Some ofthese mappings are due to pre-conceptual embodiedexperiences while others build on these experiences inorder to form more complex conceptual structures. Forinstance, we can think and talk about the concept ofquantity in terms of the concept of vertical eleva-tion, as in She got a really high mark in the test, wherehigh relates not literally to physical height but to a goodmark. According to Conceptual Metaphor Theory, thisis because the conceptual domain (2) quantity is con-ventionally structured and therefore understood interms of the conceptual domain vertical elevation.Conceptual operations involving mappings, such asconceptual metaphor, are known more generally asconceptual projection. (See also Primary MetaphorTheory.)

conceptual metonymy see metonymy

conceptual projection Relates to conceptual operationsinvolving mappings, such as conceptual metaphor,conceptual metonymy, connectors holding betweenone mental space and another, and processes central toconceptual integration such as the matching of coun-terparts across input spaces and the compression of anouter-space relation into a inner-space relation.

conceptual structure Pertains to knowledge representa-tion, including the structure and organisation of con-cepts in the human conceptual system. Can relate tostable or temporary knowledge structures assembledfor purposes of local meaning construction. Cognitivelinguists have modelled conceptual structure in terms


of relatively stable knowledge structures such as adomain (1), a cognitive model, a semantic frame, anidealised cognitive model and different kinds of con-ceptual projection including cross-domain mappingssuch as metaphor. Conceptual structure has also beenmodelled in terms of mental space formation, theestablishment of a mental spaces lattice and the for-mation of a conceptual integration network. (See alsoconcept, conceptualisaton, lexical concept.)

conceptual structuring system One of two systemswithin Leonard Talmy’s Conceptual Structuring SystemApproach. The conceptual structuring system providesthe structure, skeleton or ‘scaffolding’ for a given scene,across which the rich substantive detail provided by theconceptual content system can be ‘draped’. It followsfrom this that the meaning associated with the con-ceptual structuring system is schematic meaning, asencoded by closed class forms. The conceptual struc-turing system is organised into a number of distinctschematic systems, each of which are further dividedinto schematic categories. The four schematic systemsare: configurational system, attentional system, per-spectival system and force-dynamics system, a summaryof which is presented in Figure 6.

Conceptual Structuring System Approach The approachto grammar developed by Leonard Talmy. Like othercognitive approaches to grammar Talmy assumes thesymbolic thesis and thus treats grammatical unitsas being inherently meaningful. However, Talmy’smodel is distinguished by its emphasis on the qualit-ative distinction between closed class forms (gram-matical subsystem) and open class forms (lexicalsubsystem). Talmy argues that these two forms of


linguistic expression represent two distinct conceptualsubsystems which encode qualitatively distinct aspectsof the human conceptual system. These are the con-ceptual structuring system and the conceptual contentsystem. While closed class forms encode schematicmeaning and constitute the conceptual structuringsystem, open class elements encode meanings that arefar richer in terms of content, content meaning, andthus constitute the conceptual content system. In hisresearch, Talmy is primarily interested in delineatingthe nature and organisation of the conceptual structur-ing system. In particular, Talmy is concerned withestablishing the nature and function of the conceptualstructuring system as encoded by closed class elements.For Talmy this issue is a particularly fascinating one asin principle, language could function with a lexical orconceptual content system alone. The fact that lan-guages do not makes establishing the distinction interms of the respective contributions of the two sub-systems in encoding and externalising our cognitiverepresentation a particularly intriguing one. (See alsoschematic systems.)


CONCEPTUALSTRUCTURING

SYSTEM

CONFIGURATIONALSYSTEM

ATTENTIONALSYSTEM

PERSPECTIVALSYSTEM

FORCE-DYNAMICS

SYSTEM

Figure 6. The Conceptual Structuring System

conceptual system The repository of concepts available toa human being. The repository constitutes a structuredand organised inventory which facilitates categorisa-tion and conceptualisation. Each concept in the con-ceptual system can, in principle, be encoded andexternalised via language. Concepts encoded in lan-guage take a modality-specific format known as alexical concept. Cognitive linguists assume that lan-guage reflects the conceptual system and thus can beemployed in order to investigate conceptual organisa-tion; they also assume that linguistic organisationwhich is modified due to use can influence the natureand make-up of the conceptual system. (See alsoconceptual structure, conceptualising capacity, usage-based model.)

conceptualisation The process of meaning construction towhich language contributes. It does so by provid-ing access to rich encyclopaedic knowledge and byprompting for complex processes of conceptual integra-tion. Conceptualisation relates to the nature of dynamicthought to which language can contribute. From theperspective of cognitive linguistics, linguistic units suchas words do not ‘carry’ meaning(s), but contribute to theprocess of meaning construction which takes place atthe conceptual level. (See also conceptual structure, con-ceptual system, conceptualising capacity, level C.)

conceptualising capacity A common capacity, shared byall humans, to generate concepts, which derives fromfundamental and shared aspects of human cognition.Rather than positing universal linguistic principles,cognitive linguists posit a common set of cognitiveabilities which serve to both facilitate and constrainthe development of our conceptual system.


conceptually autonomous The property of being inde-pendently meaningful which is associated with nom-inal predications. For instance, expressions such as bedor slipper invoke concepts that are independentlymeaningful. The property of being conceptuallyautonomous contrasts with concepts which are con-ceptually dependent.

conceptually dependent The property associated withrelational predications which rely on other concepts inorder to have their meaning completed. For example,in a sentence such as: Max hid his mum’s mobile phoneunder the bed, the verb hid relates the conceptuallyautonomous entities Max, mum’s mobile phone andbed, establishing a relationship involving ‘hiding’between them. Similarly, under establishes a spatialrelation between mum’s mobile phone and bed.

configurational system One of the four schematic systemswhich form part of the conceptual structuring system.The configurational system imposes structure upon thecontents of the domains of space and time. This isachieved by virtue of six schematic categories: plexity,dividedness, boundedness, degree of extension, patternof distribution, axiality. These categories structurethe scenes encoded by language and the participantsthat interact within these scenes. (See also attentionalsystem, Conceptual Structuring System Approach,force-dynamics system, perspectival system, schematiccategories.)

connectors In Mental Spaces Theory, the cognitive linkthat holds between elements in distinct mental spacesthat are counterparts. Connectors represent a specialkind of conceptual projection.


For instance, elements in different mental spacesthat are coreferential, which is to say are related byidentity, are linked by an ‘identity’ connector. To illus-trate, consider the following example: James Bond is atop British spy. In the war, 007 was an officer in theRoyal Navy. In this example, each sentence sets up itsown mental space. In the first sentence the expressionJames Bond prompts for the assignment of an elementrelating to James Bond. In the second sentence theexpression 007 prompts for the assignment of theelement 007 in the second mental space. Backgroundknowledge tells us that 007 is the code name conven-tionally assigned to James Bond. This knowledgeserves to establish an identity connector linking theelements in the two distinct mental spaces. This is setout in diagrammatic form in Figure 7 where the circlesrepresent distinct mental spaces and the elements ineach, James Bond (a1) and 007 (a2), are linked by anidentity connector, signalled by the line relating a1 anda2. (See also element, property.)

constitutive processes The processes which together giverise to the formation of an integration network andconsequently a blended space. These include: (1) theconstruction of a generic space; (2) the matching ofcounterparts in input spaces; (3) selective projection ofstructure from the input spaces; (4) conceptual inte-gration in order to form a blended space; (5) whichinvolves the development of emergent structure due tothe processes of composition, completion and elabora-tion (1). (See also Blending Theory.)

construal An idea central to Cognitive Grammar. Relatesto the way a language user chooses to ‘package’ and‘present’ a conceptual representation as encoded in


language, which in turn has consequences for the con-ceptual representation that the utterance evokes in themind of the hearer. This is achieved by choosing a par-ticular focal adjustment and thus linguistically ‘organ-ising’ a scene in a specific way. In so doing, the speakerimposes a unique construal upon that scene. Forexample, the active construction focuses attentionupon the agent of an action (e.g. Max hid Angela’s


a1

a1: NAME: JAMES BONDPROPERTY : TOP BRITISHSPY

Base

PROPERTY : OFFICERIN THE ROYAL NAVY

a2

WAR

a2 : 007

Figure 7. A cross-space connector

keys), while the passive construction focuses attentionupon the patient (e.g. Angela’s keys were hidden byMax). Each of these constructions conventionallyencodes a distinct construal. (See also objective con-strual, subjective construal.)

constructicon The term given to the mental inventoryof constructions in Adele Goldberg’s theory ofConstruction Grammar (2). As Goldberg makes no dis-tinction between simplex and complex symbolic assem-blies (since either kind may count as a construction (1)in her theory, in contrast to Cognitive Grammar), theconstructicon is her term for the lexicon-grammar con-tinuum. (See also construction (2), symbolic assembly.)

construction (1) A unit of language and the central theo-retical construct in construction grammars. A con-struction constitutes a conventional unit pairing formand meaning. Form typically concerns a particularphonological string of sound segments conventional ina particular language, e.g. [kaet] in English. Meaningrelates to a mental representation, namely a lexicalconcept, conventionally associated with a form.Hence, [kaet] is conventionally associated with theconcept of a kind of animal which is often treated as adomesticated pet in many parts of the world. Thus thelinguistic unit cat constitutes a construction, beingcomprised of a conventional pairing of form andmeaning.

In addition to whole words, constructions may be ameaningful sub-part of a word, or morpheme (anti-dis-establish. . . .), a string of words that ‘belong’together, as in an idiom such as: He kicked the bucket,or ‘syntactic constructions’ which have more schem-atic meaning associated with them. For instance, the


ditransitive construction has the following syntax: NP1VERB NP2 NP3, and the schematic meaning: X causesY to receive Z. Such constructions are not lexi-cally filled, but represent a grammatical schema whichcan be instantiated with particular words as in thefollowing sentence: John gave Mary the flowers. (Seealso construction grammars, constructional meaning,constructional polysemy, constructional profiling,lexicon-grammar continuum, relationships betweenconstructions, symbolic assembly.)

Construction (2) In Cognitive Grammar, a constructionrefers to a symbolic assembly which is complex asopposed to simplex in nature.

Construction Grammar (1) A theory of grammar devel-oped by Charles Fillmore, Paul Kay and their collabo-rators. While this theory is broadly generative inorientation, it set the scene for the development of cog-nitively realistic theories of construction grammarwhich adopted the central thesis of Fillmore and Kay’sapproach. This thesis is the position that grammar canbe modelled in terms of constructions rather than‘words and rules’. Thus Fillmore and Kay developedthe symbolic thesis as the basis for a theory ofgrammar. In particular, Construction Grammar ismotivated by the fact that certain complex grammati-cal constructions, in particular idiomatic expressionssuch as kick the bucket or throw in the towel, havemeaning that cannot be predicted on the basis of theirsub-parts and might therefore be ‘stored whole’ ratherthan ‘built from scratch’. Fillmore and Kay authoredtwo classic Construction Grammar papers which pre-sented case studies of the let alone construction and theWhat’s X doing Y construction.


One of the notable features of ConstructionGrammar is that this model is ‘monostratal’: contain-ing only one level of syntactic representation ratherthan a sequence of structures linked by transfor-mations: a feature that characterises theories ofgrammar in formal linguistics such as generativemodels of grammar. Furthermore, the representationsin Construction Grammar contain not only syntacticinformation but also semantic information relating toargument structure as well as pragmatic information.(See also construction grammars.)

Construction Grammar (2) A theory of ConstructionGrammar developed by Adele Goldberg which has itsroots in the theory of Construction Grammar (1) devel-oped by Charles Fillmore, Paul Kay and their variouscollaborators, and is also influenced by the work ofGeorge Lakoff. In her model, Goldberg developedthe constructional approach of Fillmore and Kay byextending it from ‘irregular’ idiomatic expressions to‘regular’ constructions. In order to do this, she focusedon verb argument constructions. In other words, sheexamined ‘ordinary’ sentences, such as ones with tran-sitive or ditransitive structure, and built a theory ofconstruction grammar to account for the argumentstructure patterns she found there. In so doing, one ofGoldberg’s notable achievements was to apply receivedideas from cognitive semantics, such as polysemy andmetaphor, and incorporate them in a new theory ofConstruction Grammar. Thus her approach revealsthat grammar exhibits the same sorts of phenomena asother linguistic units such as words. Accordingly,Goldberg’s Construction Grammar posited a lexicon-grammar continuum, which she refers to as the con-structicon. (See also construction grammars.)


construction grammars A set of cognitive approaches togrammar which assume that the construction (1) is thefundamental unit of grammar. There are several dis-tinct varieties of construction grammars including:Fillmore and Kay’s Construction Grammar (1),Goldberg’s Construction Grammar (2), EmbodiedConstruction Grammar and Radical ConstructionGrammar. (See also guiding principles of cognitiveapproaches to grammar.)

constructional meaning The idea, associated with thefamily of construction grammars, that a construction(1) has a conventional meaning associated with it. (Seealso caused motion construction, intransitive con-struction, let alone construction, resultative construc-tion, What’s X doing Y? construction.)

constructional polysemy The view in ConstructionGrammar (2) that a construction (1), just like a word,exhibits polysemy. Consider the following examples ofthe ditransitive construction:

1. Max gave Bella a biscuit2. Angela knitted Bella a jumper3. John owes me a fiver

While each of these examples has to do with transfer,they each differ in subtle but important ways. Example(1) implies successful transfer of a biscuit to Bellawhile example (2) only implies intended transfer(it’s possible that Angela may never complete thejumper). In (3), we have transfer which dependson certain satisfaction conditions being met:for instance, it depends on John being able to, willingto and/or intending to repay the money. Thus examplessuch as these are held to provide evidence that the


ditransitive construction exhibits polysemy. (See alsoScene Encoding Hypothesis.)

constructional profiling In Construction Grammar (2),the realisation of argument roles in terms of core gram-matical relations (subject, direct object or indirectobject). Other argument roles may optionally bepresent in the sentence but represented as prepositionalphrases, sometimes called ‘oblique’ objects. Forinstance, in the example: The thief opened the windowwith the crowbar, the argument roles agent andpatient lexicalised by the thief and the windowrespectively are constructionally profiled as they areassociated with a ‘direct’ grammatical relation: subjectand object. However, the argument role instrumentlexicalised by the crowbar is not constructionally pro-filed as it is not associated with a ‘direct’ grammaticalrelational but rather is introduced by a preposition andthus constitutes an ‘oblique’ object.

content function see content meaning

content meaning (also content function) The kind ofmeaning associated with elements in the conceptualcontent system, as encoded by open class forms.Meaning of this kind is rich in nature and thus con-trasts with the meaning associated with elements in theconceptual structuring system as encoded by closedclass forms. Content meaning relates to conceptshaving to do with things, people, places, events, prop-erties of things and so on. For instance, compare thefollowing two sentences:

1. The movie star kissed the directors.2. The sunbeam illuminated the rooftops.


The grammatical structure of these two sentences isidentical (the closed class or ‘grammatical’ wordsare highlighted in bold). For instance, both partici-pants in the events described by these sentences caneasily be identified by the hearer; the event tookplace before now; there’s only one movie star/sunbeam but more than one director/rooftop. Yet thesentences differ in a rather dramatic way. They nolonger describe the same kind of event at all. This isbecause the open class forms (unbolded in thesesentences) prompt for certain kinds of concepts thatare richer and less schematic in nature. That is, theunbolded elements are associated with contentmeaning.

content requirement A constraint proposed by RonaldLangacker which places limits on how the theory ofCognitive Grammar operates. This requirement holdsthat the only entities permissible within the grammarof a language are: (1) phonological, semantic and sym-bolic units; (2) the relations that hold between them;and (3) the schemas that represent these units. Thisrequirement excludes abstract rules from the model, incontrast to theories of grammar in formal linguistics.Instead, knowledge of any given linguistic pattern isconceived in terms of a schema. (See also symbolicassembly, symbolic thesis.)

contextual modulation A term coined by Alan Cruse.Relates to the fact that in ordinary speech the meaningassociated with a lexical item undergoes ‘modulation’as a result of the context in which it is used. Forinstance, in the following examples, the semantic con-tribution of fast is adjusted as a consequence of thecontext in which it is embedded:


1. That parked BMW is a fast car2. That BMW is travelling fast3. That’s the fast lane of the motorway

In the example in (1), fast relates to the potential forrapid locomotion. In (2) fast relates to rapid locomo-tion. In (3) fast relates to a venue for rapid locomotion.

contrast set A notion developed within the theory ofPrincipled Polysemy as applied to prepositions.Certain clusters of prepositions appear to pattern as asystem serving to divide up various spatial dimen-sions. For example, above, over, under and belowform a contrast set that divides the vertical dimensionof space into four related subspaces, as illustrated inFigure 8.

As Figure 8 shows, over and under tend to refer tothose subspaces along the vertical axis that are physi-cally closer to the landmark, while above and belowtend to designate relations in which the trajector isfurther away from the landmark. In the figure, the boldhorizontal line represents the landmark, while thedotted lines refer to areas of vertical space higher andlower than the landmark which count as proximal.The dark circles represent trajectors in each subspace,corresponding to the prepositions listed on the left ofthe diagram.

conventional blend A cognitive entity that whilehaving emerged via the dynamic processes of concep-tual integration has nevertheless become relativelywell established in a particular linguistic community.Consequently, the blend is not reconstructed eachtime it is prompted for but is conventionalised asa ‘pre-assembled’ cognitive routine. An example of


a conventional blend is the grim reaper blend dis-cussed in the entry for megablend. (See also BlendingTheory.)

conventional mappings see cross-domain mappings

conventions The ‘norms’ of linguistic behaviour in a par-ticular linguistic community. These include, among


��

��

��

��

Figure 8. A prepositional contrast set

other things, lexical forms, grammatical patterns, supra-segmental phonology and discourse strategies.

correlation-based metaphor A metaphor based on tightand recurring correlations or co-occurrences inexperience rather than being motivated by perceivedsimilarity or resemblance between two entities.Correlation-based metaphor thus contrasts withresemblance-based metaphor. An example of a corre-lation-based metaphor is I N T I M A C Y I S WA R M T H asevidenced by the expression: Those two have a warmrelationship. As intimacy co-varies with warmth inexperience, intimacy and warmth are tightly corre-lated. This is held to give rise to a conceptual associa-tion at the cognitive level between intimacy andwarmth thus establishing the conceptual metaphor:intimacy is warmth.

Correspondence Principle One of the two principles thatfacilitate fusion (1) in Construction Grammar (2). TheCorrespondence Principle governs constructional pro-filing as it relates to the integration of argument rolesand participant roles. The Correspondence Principlestates that profiled argument roles are obligatorilymatched with profiled participant roles, but buildssome flexibility into the system by allowing that one ofthe participant roles may or may not be construction-ally profiled in the case of a verb with three participantroles. Equally, the ditransitive construction can con-tribute a third argument role to a two-participant verb.

counterparts In Mental Spaces Theory, elements in differ-ent mental spaces that are linked by connectors.Counterparts are established on the basis of ‘pragmaticfunction’. That is, when two (or more) elements in


different mental spaces have a related pragmaticfunction, they are counterparts. One salient type ofpragmatic function is ‘identity’. For instance, in IanFleming’s novels, James Bond is the name of the fic-tional British spy character and 007 is the code nameused by the British Secret Service (MI6) to identify thisspy. The pragmatic function relating the entities referredto as James Bond and 007 is coreference or identity. Inother words, both expressions refer to the same indi-vidual and together form a ‘chain of reference’.

To illustrate this, consider the following example:James Bond is a top British spy. In the war, 007 was anofficer in the Royal Navy. In this example, each sen-tence sets up its own mental space. In the first sentencethe expression James Bond prompts for the assignmentof an element relating to James Bond. In the secondsentence the expression 007 prompts for the assign-ment of the element 007 in the second mental space.Background knowledge tells us that 007 is the codename conventionally assigned to James Bond. Thisknowledge provides a pragmatic function which servesto establish the two elements as counterparts. This isset out in diagrammatic form in Figure 9 where thecircles represent distinct mental spaces and the ele-ments in each, James Bond (a1) and 007 (a2), are linkedby an identity connector, signalled by the line relatinga1 and a2, and are thus counterparts. (See also element,property.)

CR see cognitive representation

cross-domain mappings The species of mappings centralto Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Mappings of thiskind persist in long-term memory and serve to struc-ture one conceptual domain (2), the target domain, in


terms of another domain, the source domain. Cross-domain mappings are held to provide one of the keyways in which the conceptual system is organised.According to Conceptual Metaphor Theory, it is dueto the existence of cross-domain mappings that we canthink and talk about one domain, for instance thedomain of quantity in terms of another domain, forinstance the domain of verticality. This is evidenced


a1

a1: NAME: JAMES BONDPROPERTY : TOP BRITISHSPY

Base

PROPERTY : OFFICERIN THE ROYAL NAVY

a2

WAR

a2 : 007

Figure 9. Counterparts across mental spaces

by an example such as She got a really high mark in thetest. In this example, high relates not literally to phys-ical height but to a good mark. That is, we understandquantity in terms of height due to a conventional asso-ciation between the two domains facilitated by long-term cross-domain mappings projecting structure fromthe source domain onto the target domain. In practicecross-domain mappings are conceived of as a stablerelationship holding between sets of concepts belong-ing to two distinct domains, as set out diagrammicallyin Figure 10.

In this diagram the small black circles represent con-cepts and the connecting lines represent cross-domainmappings. A set of cross-domain mappings holdingbetween two distinct conceptual domains is referred toas a conceptual metaphor.

cue validity A probabilistic concept developed inPrototype Theory. Cue validity is a statistical measurewhich predicts that a particular cue – or attribute –becomes more valid or relevant to a given category themore frequently it is associated with members of thatcategory. Conversely, a particular attribute becomes


Figure 10. Cross-domain mappings

source domain target domain

less valid or relevant to a category the more frequentlyit is associated with members of other categories.Thus, ‘is used for sitting on’ has ‘high cue validity’ forthe category chair, but ‘is found in the home’ has lowcue validity for the category chair because many otherdifferent categories of object can be found in the homein addition to chairs. Cue validity is closely associatedwith the notion of cognitive economy. (See also basiclevel, prototype.)

debounding A grammatical operation in which a countentity is converted into a mass entity. For instance inthe following:

1. I have a tomato2. After my fall there was tomato all over my face

the count noun tomato undergoes a debounding oper-ation by virtue of the grammatical construction therewas which serves to render tomato as a mass noun, adebounded entity. Debounding contrasts with thegrammatical operation known as excerpting. (See alsoConceptual Structuring System Approach.)

decoding idioms An expression such as kick the bucketthat has to be decoded or ‘learnt whole’. Decodingidioms are those whose meaning cannot be constructedfrom the sum of the individual lexical items that con-stitute the idiom and contrast with encoding idioms.(See Construction Grammar (1), idiomatic expres-sions.)

decompression In an integration network, the processwhereby the emergent structure in the blended space is

D


separated, so that the counterparts and outer-spacerelations that produced it can be reconstructed. Inother words, decompression is the process whereby ahighly conventional blend can serve to reconstruct theinputs that gave rise to the blended space in the firstplace. (See also Blending Theory.)

degree of extension One of the schematic categories inthe configurational system. Degree of extension relatesto how far quantities of space or time ‘stretch’ overdistance. This category interacts with boundedness,but introduces a more detailed structure. For example,space or time can be either a point (speck, to die), abounded extent (ladder, to wash up) or an unboundedextent (river, to sleep). Focusing on the domain oftime, examples (1–3) below illustrate that each ofthese degrees of extension (encoded by the verb) iscompatible with different types of adverbial expres-sions, given in square brackets.

1. The soldier died [at three o’clock] [point]2. Max washed up [in ten minutes] [bounded

extent]3. Isabella slept [for an hour] [unbounded

extent]

(See also axiality, boundedness, Conceptual StructuringSystem Approach, degree of extension, dividedness,pattern of distribution, plexity, schematic systems.)

direction One of the four schematic categories in the per-spectival system. This category interacts closely withthe attentional system and concerns the direction inwhich an event is viewed relative to a given perspectivepoint. The direction can be ‘prospective’ or ‘retrospec-tive’ as illustrated below:


1. Edith finished the glass of rosé before she went home [prospective]

2. Before she went home, Edith finished the glass of rosé [retrospective]

In these examples, it is not the order of the eventsthemselves that is different; in both cases, Edith firstfinishes her drink and then goes home. The differ-ence relates to the direction from which the twoevents are viewed, which is illustrated in the Figures11 and 12.

In the prospective direction, the event-sequence isviewed from the perspective of the first event, event A.That is, the perspective point is located at the temp-orally earlier event, from which the speaker looks‘forward’ to the later event. In the retrospective direc-tion, the event-sequence is viewed from the perspectiveof the second event, event B (going home). That is, theperspective point is located at the temporally later event(going home) and the viewing direction is ‘backwards’,


Event A Event B

perspective point

time

Figure 11. Prospective direction

towards the earlier event. (See also conceptual system,direction, distance, location.)

discourse metaphor A construct developed in the work ofJörg Zinken. Discourse metaphors emerge in discourseand are conventionally tied to a particular linguisticform. That is, they are explicitly claimed not to bemotivated by an underlying conceptual metaphor. Inthis, the theoretical account of discourse-basedmetaphors can be seen as standing in opposition to theorthodoxy of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and rep-resents a usage-based model of metaphor. Discoursemetaphors are associated with particular communica-tive needs and may often be polemical, dying out whenthe communicative need they serve is no longerrequired or relevant. For instance, the discoursemetaphor Frankenfood was applied to food based ongenetically modified crops in European public dis-course during the 1990s. The purpose of the metaphor,employed initially in publications by the Friends of the


Figure 12. Retrospective direction

Event A Event B

perspective point

time

Earth organisation, was to stigmatise GM-based foodsby associating them with the Frankenstein frame, relat-ing to an abhorrent man-made creation which led tounforeseen and disastrous consequences.

distance One of the four schematic categories in the per-spectival system. This category relates to distance of areferent relative to a speaker or hearer and is encodedby closed class forms. For instance, Hausa, a WestAfrican language belonging to the Chadic branch ofthe Afroasiatic family, exhibits a four-way distance dis-tinction. In this language, demonstrative determiners,pronouns and adverbs are marked for relative distancewhich can be glossed as follows: ‘speaker-proximal’,‘addressee proximal’, ‘speaker/addressee medial’ and‘speaker/addressee distal’. (See also conceptual system,direction, location, mode.)

distributed spatial semantics An approach to analysingmeaning and expression in spatial language developedby Chris Sinha and Tania Kuteva. This approach startsfrom the rejection of the assumption that spatialmeaning (for instance, path, source, goal and so forth)is ‘packaged’ by selecting single classes of lexical items.It is often, in fact, assumed that fully specified spatialmeaning is expressed universally by closed class gram-matical classes such as prepositions. According to thedistributed spatial semantics approach, this view isproblematic. For instance, the semantic value associ-ated with the English lexical item in, as evidenced byexamples such as the following, varies: the coffee in thebowl versus the spoon in the cup. While coffee isenclosed by the cup, the spoon is not wholly enclosed.The distributed spatial semantics approach holds thatto assume that variation in meaning of this kind is the


result of distinct senses being conventionally associ-ated with a form such as in would lead to the polysemyfallacy. In contrast, Sinha and Kuteva propose thatspatial meaning itself is distributed over several gram-matical classes, not only those conventionally consid-ered to have locative meaning such as prepositions.This leads to the general proposition that spatialmeaning is characterised by many-to-many mappingsbetween spatial meaning and the particular formsemployed to encode the given spatial meaning. In thisapproach, the mappings may be many-to-one (conf-lation), one-to-one (compositional) or one-to-many(distribution). Additionally, Sinha and Kuteva arguethat there is a typological distinction in the languagesof the world in the way in which spatial meaning isdistributed. Some languages, for instance Japanese,frequently repeat the same spatial information in dif-ferent places in the utterance, sometimes using thesame morpheme in different grammatical roles. Thisthey refer to as ‘overt’ distributed spatial semantics.Other languages, including English, tend to compressthe spatial meanings, omitting explicit encoding ofsome parts of it, as in for example the boy jumped thefence, where the preposition is optional. This isreferred to as ‘covert’ distributed spatial semantics.(See also cognitive lexical semantics.)

ditransitive construction (also double object construction)One of the verb argument constructions studied byAdele Goldberg in the development of her theory ofConstruction Grammar (2). The ditransitive construc-tion is associated with the syntactic frame [subj [v objobj2]] (e.g. Paul gave Edith flowers), where bothobjects are noun phrases (NPs). There are claimed tobe a number of properties that are specific to the


ditransitive construction which cannot be predictedeither from the lexical items that fill the constructionor from other constructions in the language. These aresummarised in Table 3. Crucially the ditransitive, aswith other verb argument constructions, is held toexhibit constructional polysemy.

dividedness One of the schematic categories in the con-figurational system. Dividedness relates to the internalsegmentation of a quantity and underlies the distinc-tion between discrete and continuous matter. Discretematter can be broken down into distinct parts, forinstance the categories timber and furniture, which aremade up of discrete entities. Continuous matter cannotbe broken down into discrete matter, for instanceoxygen and water. Dividedness overlaps with but isnot the same as the schematic category of bounded-ness. For instance, the properties ‘unbounded’ and‘continuous’ are not the same, although they can cor-relate. While the mass noun oxygen is both continuousand unbounded, in contrast the mass noun furniture isunbounded but has internally discrete structure. The


Table 3. Properties of the English ditransitive construction

The English ditransitive construction: X causes Y to receive Z

Contributes transfer semantics that cannot be attributed to the lexical verb

The goal argument must be animate (recipient rather than patient)

Two non-predicative NPs are licensed in post-verbal position

The construction links recipient role with object functionThe subject function must be filled with a volitional

agent, who intends transfer

schematic category dividedness is not encoded byclosed class forms. (See also axiality, boundedness,Conceptual Structuring System Approach, degree ofextension, pattern of distribution, plexity, schematicsystems.)

domain (1) A conceptual entity posited in CognitiveGrammar. A domain constitutes a coherent knowl-edge structure possessing, in principle, any level ofcomplexity or organisation. For instance, a domaincan constitute a concept, a semantic frame or someother representational space or conceptual complex.Crucially, a domain provides a particular kind ofcoherent knowledge representation against whichother conceptual units such as a concept are charac-terised. For instance, linguistic terms such as hot, coldand lukewarm relate to different kinds of lexicalconcept which can only be fully characterised withrespect to the domain of temperature. Hence, thecentral function of a domain is to provide a relativelystable knowledge context in terms of which otherkinds of conceptual units can be understood. (See alsoabstract domain, base, basic domain, domain matrix,hierarchy of domain complexity, profile.)

domain (2) (also conceptual domain, experiential domain)A conceptual entity employed in Conceptual MetaphorTheory and related approaches to conceptual projec-tion such as approaches to conceptual metonymy andprimary metaphor theory. Conceptual domains are rel-atively complex knowledge structures which relate tocoherent aspects of experience. For instance, the con-ceptual domain journey is hypothesised to includerepresentations for things such as traveller, mode oftransport, route, destination, obstacles encountered on


the route and so forth. A conceptual metaphor servesto establish correspondences known as cross-domainmappings between a source domain and a targetdomain by projecting representations from one con-ceptual domain onto corresponding representations inanother conceptual domain.

Domain Highlighting Model A model of lexical and con-ceptual relations, especially conceptual metonymy,built on the Cognitive Grammar view of the domain(1) and developed by William Croft. On this account,a target is accessed within a domain as a result ofdomain ‘highlighting’. Croft’s proposal is that, fromthe perspective of encyclopaedic semantics, which isassumed by this model, metonymy functions by high-lighting one domain within a concept’s domain matrix.Thus a particular usage of a lexical concept can high-light distinct domains within the concept’s domainmatrix on different occasions depending on the utter-ance context. Consider the following examples:

1. Proust spent most of his time in bed2. Proust is tough to read

Part of the domain matrix associated with MarcelProust is that he was man known for particular habitsrelating to how much time he spent in bed. This isknowledge about Proust the man. Another aspect ofthe domain matrix relates to Proust’s literary work andhis career as a writer. While the expression Proust in(1) highlights the domain for Proust (Proust the man),the expression Proust in (2) highlights the literarywork of Proust. Thus, from the perspective of domainmatrices, a particular expression can metonymicallyhighlight distinct, albeit related, aspects of our ency-clopaedic knowledge relating to Proust.


domain matrix The range of possible domains to whicha lexical item serves as a point of access. For instance,the lexical item uncle provides access to a large inven-tory of domains including, at the very least, thefollowing: genealogy, person, gender, sexualintercourse, birth, life cycle, parent/child rela-tionship, sibling relationship. (See also base,domain (1), profile, scope of predication.)

dominion A key idea in the Cognitive Grammar accountof reference point phenomena. The dominion consti-tutes the possible set of targets that a given referencepoint can invoke. (See also target (2).)

double object construction see ditransitive construction

double-scope network A type of integration networkin which both input spaces also contain distinct framesbut the blended space is organised by structure takenfrom each frame, hence the term ‘double-scope’. Oneconsequence of this is that the blend can sometimesinclude structure from inputs that is incompatible andtherefore ‘clashes’. It is this aspect of double-scopenetworks that makes them particularly important,because integration networks of this kind are highlyinnovative and can lead to novel inferences.

An example of a double-scope network in which thetwo organising frames clash is prompted for by thefollowing example: You’re digging your own grave.This idiomatic expression relates to a situation inwhich someone is doing something foolish that willresult in unwitting failure of some kind. For instance,a businessman who is considering taking out aloan that stretches his business excessively mightbe warned by his accountant that the business risks


collapse. At this point, the accountant might say:You’re digging your own financial grave. This double-scope blend has two input spaces, each structured bya frame: one in which the businessman takes out aloan his company can ill afford and another relatingto grave digging. Both these frames are projected tothe blended space, the loan proves to be excessive andthe company fails: the businessman and his businessend up in a financial grave. In this example, theframes projected clash in a number of ways. Forexample, they clash in terms of causality. While in thebusiness input the excessive loan is causally related tofailure, in the grave digging input, digging a gravedoes not cause death; typically it is a response todeath. Despite this, in the blended space, digging thegrave causes death-as-business failure. Becausethe accountant’s utterance gives rise to the death-as-business failure interpretation, the businessmanis able to understand that the loan is excessive andwill cause the business to fail. (See also BlendingTheory, mirror network, simplex network, single-scope network.)

ECG see Embodied Construction Grammar

ego-based cognitive model for time A temporal referenceframe which serves to ‘locate’ events by virtue of theirrelationship to the subjective experience of now or thepresent. There are two ego-based cognitive modelsfor time in many languages, including English: movingtime model and moving ego model. (See also time-based cognitive model for time.)

E


elaboration (1) (also running the blend) In BlendingTheory, one of the three component processes thatgive rise to emergent structure in the blended space.Elaboration is the process whereby structure whichemerges due to composition and completion can befurther developed by virtue of a simulation in order todevelop further new structure. (See also completion,composition, constitutive principles.)

Elaboration (2) The idea in Cognitive Grammar that theprofile of a particular expression ‘fills in’ or completesthe meaning of another expression. It does so by com-bining with a particular elaboration site of anotherexpression: the schematic trajector or landmark of alarger relational predication. For instance, consider theexpression under the sofa. The landmark of under is aschematic representation of some thing in space. Theprofile of the sofa ‘fills in’ or elaborates this schematiclandmark, and the prepositional phrase as a wholeinherits its specificity or content meaning from the noun.

elaboration site (also e-site) The schematic trajector orlandmark that a particular expression can fill in orderto complete an expression via the process known aselaboration (2).

element An entity within a mental space established by aspecific linguistic expression. Elements are entitieswhich can either be constructed on-line in the momentof thinking and speaking or can relate to pre-existingentities in the conceptual system. The linguistic expres-sions that serve to prompt for elements are nounphrases (NPs). These include linguistic expressions likenames (Fred, Elvis, Madonna, Elizabeth Windsor,Tony Blair, James Bond), descriptions (the Queen, the


Prime Minister, a green emerald, a Whitehouse intern,an African elephant), and pronouns (she, he, they, it).Elements in distinct mental spaces can serve as coun-terparts if connectors are established between them.(See also Mental Spaces Theory, property, relation,role-value readings.)

embodied cognition (also thesis of embodied cognition)One of the guiding principles of cognitive semanticsand at the heart of much research in cognitive linguis-tics. This thesis holds that the human mind and con-ceptual organisation are a function of the way in whichour species-specific bodies interact with the environ-ment we inhabit. In other words, the nature of con-cepts and the way they are structured and organised isconstrained by the nature of our embodied experience.As cognitive linguists hold that language reflects con-ceptual structure, then it follows that language reflectsembodied experience. Scholars who have championedversions of the thesis of embodied cognition includeGeorge Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their work onmetaphor and the image schema, Ronald Langacker inhis development of Cognitive Grammar and LeonardTalmy in his investigations on how language encodesconceptual structure (See also embodiment, situatedembodiment, variable embodiment.)

Embodied Construction Grammar (also ECG) EmbodiedConstruction Grammar (ECG) is a recent theory ofconstruction grammar developed by Benjamin Bergenand Nancy Chang together with various collaborators.In this model, the emphasis is on language processing,particularly language comprehension or understand-ing. While other construction grammars place theemphasis on modelling linguistic knowledge rather


than on on-line processing, the ECG model takes it forgranted that constructions form the basis of linguisticknowledge, and focuses instead on exploring how con-structions are processed in on-line or dynamic lan-guage comprehension. Moreover, ECG is centrallyconcerned with describing how the constructions of agiven language relate to embodied cognition in theprocess of language understanding, and how the con-structions of a language give rise to simulation.Therefore much of the research to date in ECG hasbeen focused on developing a formal ‘language’ todescribe the constructions of a language like English;this formal language also needs to be able to describethe embodied concepts that these constructions giverise to in dynamic language comprehension.

embodied experience The idea that experience is embod-ied entails that we have a species-specific view of theworld due to the unique nature of our physical bodies.In other words, our construal of reality is mediated inlarge measure by the nature of our bodies.

One example of the way embodiment affects thenature of experience is in the realm of colour. While thehuman visual system has three kinds of photoreceptorsor colour channels, other organisms often have a dif-ferent number. The visual system of squirrels andrabbits, for instance, makes use of two colour chan-nels, while animals such as goldfish and pigeons havefour colour channels. Having a different range ofcolour channels affects our experience of colour interms of the range of colours accessible to us along thecolour spectrum. Some organisms can see in theinfrared range, like rattlesnakes which hunt prey atnight and can visually detect the heat given off by otherorganisms. Humans are unable to see in this range.


Accordingly the visual system – one aspect of our phys-ical embodiment – determines the nature and range ofhuman visual experience. (See also embodied cogni-tion, embodiment, variable embodiment.)

embodiment Pertains to the body, especially species-specific physiology and anatomy. Physiology has to dowith biological morphology, which is to say body partsand organisation, such as having hands, arms and(bare) skin rather than wings and feathers. Anatomyhas to with internal organisation of the body. Thisincludes the neural architecture of an organism, whichis to say the brain and nervous system. The notion ofembodiment plays an important role in many cognitivelinguistic theories. (See embodied cognition, embodiedexperience, variable embodiment.)

EMCL Empirical Methods in Cognitive Linguistics. Aworkshop series that promotes empirical investigationand methods in cognitive linguistics.

emergent grammar A view of grammar associated withPaul Hopper which adopts the usage-based thesis.According to Hopper, the grammar of a language is notmost insightfully conceived as a fixed or stable systemthat precedes discourse. Rather, he argues that the con-structions which make up the grammar are in a con-tinual state of modification, emerging from and beingshaped by ongoing discourse as much as they shapediscourse. (See also construction (1).)

emergent structure The conceptual structure which arisesin the blended space in an integration network due tothe process known as conceptual integration. Thestructure is emergent or novel as it is not a property of


any of the input spaces, taken individually, that com-prise an integration network.

To illustrate consider the metaphoric blend: Thatsurgeon is a butcher. Although butchery is a highlyskilled profession, involving considerable expertiseand skill including detailed knowledge of the anatomyof particular animals, knowledge of different cuts ofmeat and so on, by conceptualising a surgeon as abutcher we are evaluating the surgeon as incompetent.Blending Theory is able to account for the negativeassessment arising from understanding a surgeon interms of a butcher by allowing for emergent structure.While a blend contains structure projected from bothinputs, it also contains additional structure projectedfrom neither. In the input space for butcher, we havea highly skilled professional. However, in the blendedspace, these skills are inappropriate for performingsurgery on human patients. While surgeons attemptto save lives, butchers perform their work on deadanimals. While the activity performed by butchers isdismembering, the activity performed by surgeons typ-ically involves repair and reconstruction and so on.The consequence of these contrasts is that in theblended space a surgeon who is assessed as a butcherbrings inappropriate skills and indeed goals to the taskat hand and is therefore incompetent. This emergentmeaning of incompetence represents the additionalstructure provided by the blend. The emergent struc-ture provided by the blend includes the structurecopied from the input spaces together with the emer-gent structure relating to a surgeon who performs anoperation using the skills of butchery and is thereforeincompetent. This individual does not exist in eitherof the input spaces. The structure in the blend is‘emergent’ because it emerges from ‘adding together’


structure from the inputs to produce an entity uniqueto the blend. Furthermore, it is precisely by virtueof the mismatch between goal (healing) and means(butchery), which exists only in the blend, that theinference of incompetence arises. This means that allthe structure in the blend can be described as emergent,even though its ‘ingredients’ are provided by the inputspaces. The integration network for this blend is givenin diagrammatic form in Figure 13.

Emergent structure is a function of three of the con-stitutive processes of blending: composition, patterncompletion and elaboration (1).


Figure 13. Emergent structure in a metaphoric blend

SURGEONIDENTITY OF SURGEON

PATIENTSCALPEL

OPERATING THEATREGOAL: HEALING

MEANS: SURGERY

ROLE:BUTCHER

ANIMALCLEAVERABATTOIR

GOAL: SEVERING FLESHMEANS: BUTCHERY

Input 2Input 1

AGENTUNDERGOERINSTRUMENTWORK SPACEPROCEDURE

(GOAL/MEANS)

Generic space

IDENTITY OF SURGEONROLE: BUTCHER

PATIENTOPERATING THEATRE

GOAL: HEALINGMEANS: BUTCHERY

INCOMPETENCE

Blend

emergentism A view of first language acquisition advo-cated by Elizabeth Bates, Michael Tomasello andothers which stands in direct opposition to nativism.This view holds that when children acquire a language,what they are actually doing is acquiring construc-tions: linguistic units of varying sizes and increas-ing degrees of abstractness. As the complexity andabstractness of the units increases, linguistic creativitybegins to emerge. According to this view, the creativityexhibited by young children in their early languagehappens because they are constructing utterances outof already mastered constructions in ways that facili-tate expression of a situated communicative intention.Thus from this perspective the process of languageacquisition is ‘emergent’, involving a huge amount oflearning, rather than due to an innate pre-specificationfor language, a ‘universal grammar’.

encoding idioms An example of an encoding idiom is wideawake. While idioms of this kind may be understood onfirst hearing: the adjective wide functions as a degreemodifier, and while it is possible to work out that thisexpression means ‘completely awake’, the speakerwould not be able to predict the conventionality of theexpression. In other words, there is nothing in the ‘rules’of English that enables a speaker to predict that this isthe conventional way in which the meaning associatedwith wide awake is encoded, as opposed to, say, broadawake, big awake, large awake and so on. Encodingidioms contrast with decoding idioms. (See alsoConstruction Grammar (1), idiomatic expressions.)

encompassing secondary reference object A kind ofsecondary reference object. Provides a means, oftendetermined by invariant aspects of the physical


environment, of furnishing the primary referenceobject with axial properties. This in turn facilitateslocation of the figure. This is achieved by virtue of areference object which encompasses the primary refer-ence object thus providing an absolute ‘field’ of refer-ence. For instance, in the sentence: Big Ben is south ofthe river Thames, Big Ben is the figure, the entity weare attempting to locate, and the river Thames is theprimary reference object. However, in order to locateBig Ben and establish which side of the river the figureis to be found a secondary reference object is invoked.In this case, the term south invokes the planet Earth assecondary reference object. It is because this particularreference object, the Earth, encompasses the primaryreference object that it is referred to as encompassing.(See also external secondary reference object.)

encyclopaedic knowledge The structured body of non-linguistic knowledge to which a linguistic unit such asa word potentially provides access. Encyclopaedicknowledge is modelled in terms of a number of con-structs including the domain (1), the cognitive modeland the idealised cognitive model. (See also ency-clopaedic semantics.)

Encyclopaedic semantics The general approach to linguis-tic semantics adopted in cognitive semantics. There arefive key assumptions which comprise this perspective.Firstly, There is no principled distinction betweensemantics and pragmatics, that is there is no distinctionbetween ‘core’ meaning on the one hand, and prag-matic, social or cultural meaning on the other.Secondly, encyclopaedic knowledge is structured: theknowledge structures that words provide access to rep-resent an organised inventory of knowledge. Thirdly,


encyclopaedic meaning arises in context(s) of use,so that the ‘selection’ of encyclopaedic meaning isinformed by contextual factors. For example, the wordsafe can have different meanings depending on the par-ticular context of use. Safe can mean ‘unlikely to causeharm’ when used in the context of a child playing witha spade. Alternatively safe can mean ‘unlikely to cometo harm’ when used in the context of a beach that hasbeen saved from development as a tourist resort.Fourthly, the encyclopaedic approach views lexicalitems as points of access to encyclopaedic knowledge.Accordingly, words selectively provide access to par-ticular parts of the vast semantic potential of ency-clopaedic knowledge. Fifthly, while the centralmeaning associated with a word is relatively stable, theencyclopaedic knowledge that each word providesaccess to is dynamic. For instance, the knowledge thatthe lexical concept [car] provides access to continuesto be modified as a result of our ongoing interactionwith cars, our acquisition of knowledge regarding cars.

entrenchment The establishment of a linguistic unit as acognitive pattern or routine in the mind of an individ-ual language user. The greater the frequency of the lin-guistic unit in the language input the more entrenchedthe unit is likely to become. Entrenchment is a notionassociated in particular with Cognitive Grammar. (Seealso usage-based model, usage-based thesis.)

Event space The mental space which encodes the time-reference currently in focus in discourse. Normally theevent space and the focus space coincide. However,sometimes an event space can be built with respect toa focus space and thus can diverge from it. One way inwhich this happens is due to perfect aspect, which


signals that an earlier or later event has relevance at alater or earlier point in time respectively. In this case,the earlier/later event is built in the event space, and theevent/time for which structure in the event space hasrelevance is contained in the focus space. (See also basespace, Mental Spaces Theory, viewpoint space.)

Event structure metaphor A series of metaphors thatoften interact in the interpretation of utterances. Theindividual metaphors that make up the Event StructureMetaphor, together with linguistic examples, areshown in Table 4.

As the individual metaphors in the Event StructureMetaphor work together they thereby comprise ametaphor system. They can also be employed by aspecific-level metaphor exhibiting the phenomenonknown as inheritance.

excerpting A grammatical operation in which anunbounded mass entity is converted into a countableentity by virtue of a portion of the mass being‘excerpted’. For instance in the following:

1. It is time to spend money2. It is time to spend some money

the mass noun money undergoes an excerpting oper-ation by virtue of the quantifier some which serves toexcerpt a portion of the unbounded entity money.Excerpting contrasts with the grammatical operationknown as debounding. (See also ConceptualStructuring System Approach.)

exclusionary fallacy According to Ronald Langacker,a fallacy in which linguists reason that one analysisor explanation for a given linguistic phenomenon


necessarily excludes another. One version of the exclu-sionary fallacy is the rule/list fallacy.

experiential basis According to Conceptual MetaphorTheory, conceptual metaphors are grounded in thenature of our everyday interaction with the world,either directly as in the case of primary metaphors orindirectly as in the case of compound metaphors. Inother words they have an experiential basis. To illus-trate, consider the following examples:


Table 4. The Event Structure Metaphor

Metaphor: states are locations (bounded regionsin space)

Example: John is in loveMetaphor: change is motion (from one location to

another)Example: Things went from bad to worseMetaphor: causes are forcesExample: Her argument forced me to change my mindMetaphor: actions are self-propelled movementsExample: We are moving forward with the new projectMetaphor: purposes are destinationsExample: We’ve finally reached the end of the projectMetaphor: means are paths (to destinations)Example: We completed the project via an

unconventional routeMetaphor: difficulties are impediments to motionExample: It’s been uphill all the way on this projectMetaphor: events are moving objectsExample: Things are going smoothly in the operating

theatreMetaphor: long-term purposeful activities are

journeysExample: The government is without direction

1. The price of shares is going up2. She got a high score in her exam

These utterances provide linguistic evidence for themetaphor quantity is vertical elevation (alsoknown as more is up): there is a conventional readingrelated to quantity. In (1) the sentence refers to anincrease in share prices. In (2) it refers to an examresult that represents a numerical quantity. Althougheach of these readings is perfectly conventional, thelexical items that provide these readings, going up andhigh, refer literally to the concept of vertical eleva-tion. Examples like these suggest that quantity andvertical elevation are associated in some way at theconceptual level.

According to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, thearchitects of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, quantityand vertical elevation are often correlated, andthese correlations are ubiquitous in our everyday expe-rience. For instance, when we increase the height ofsomething there is typically more of it. If water ispoured into a glass this results in a correspondingincrease in both height (vertical elevation) and quan-tity of water. According to Lakoff and Johnson, thiskind of correlation, experienced in our everyday lives,gives rise to the formation of an association at the con-ceptual level, which is reflected in the linguistic exam-ples. According to this view, conceptual metaphors arealways at least partially motivated by and grounded inexperience.

experiential domain see domain (2)

external secondary reference object A kind of secondaryreference object which serves to furnish the primary


reference object with axial properties in order to locatethe figure. An external secondary reference object isexternal to the primary reference object but notencompassing. For instance, in a sentence such as thefollowing: The church is to the left of the grocery store,the spatial scene is viewed from a particular locationand perspective by a viewer. Here the viewer consti-tutes an external secondary reference object whoimposes particular axial properties on the primary ref-erence object by virtue of projecting his/her ownleft/right axis on the spatial scene being viewed. (Seealso encompassing secondary reference object.)

extragrammatical idioms Examples of idiomatic expres-sions of this kind do not obey the usual rules ofgrammar. An example from English is: all of a sudden.In this expression, the quantifier all is followed by apreposition phrase where we would expect to finda noun phrase. Furthermore, an adjective, sudden,occurs after a determiner where we might expect to finda noun. Extragrammatical idioms contrast with gram-matical idioms. (See also Construction Grammar (1)).

facet A term coined by Alan Cruse. A facet is a word sensethat is due to the part-whole structure of an entity andis selected by a specific utterance context. As with asub-sense, a facet is context-dependent, because thedistinctions between facets only arise in certain sen-tential contexts. For example, consider the lexical itembook. By virtue of its structure, the concept book con-sists of both text (the informational content of abook) and tome (the physical entity consisting ofpages and binding). However, these facets only become

F


apparent in certain sentential contexts. This is illus-trated below:

1. That book is really heavy2. That book is really interesting

The example in (1) refers to the tome facet of bookwhile (2) refers to the text facet. It is sentential context(the presence of the expressions thick versus interest-ing) rather than context of use that induces a particu-lar facet. (See also autonomy, contexual modulation,sub-sense.)

family resemblance A notion in Prototype Theory inwhich a particular member of a category can beassessed as to how well it reflects the prototype struc-ture of the category it belongs to. This is achievedbased on how many salient attributes belonging to theprototype the category member shares. The degree ofoverlap between shared attributes reflects a categorymember’s degree of family resemblance. For instance,an ostrich cannot fly so lacks a salient attribute associ-ated with the prototype structure of the category bird.However, it shares other salient attributes, such ashaving a beak and wings. Thus it exhibits familyresemblance but does not exhibit the same strengthof family resemblance as a robin, for instance, whichcan fly.

fictive motion A term coined by Leonard Talmy. Theascription of motion to an entity that cannot undergoveridical motion. For instance, in the followingutterance: The fence runs across the field, motionis being ascribed to an entity which cannot actu-ally undergo motion. This is an instance of fictivemotion.


field-based reference frame A reference frame involvinga spatial relation established between a figure and areference object in which the axial properties associ-ated with the reference object derive from an encom-passing secondary reference object. For instance, inthe following example: John is in front of Mary in thequeue, the queue serves as an encompassing sec-ondary reference object, providing the primary refer-ence object with an orientational frame. That is,Mary can be turned with her back to John, and yetJohn is still ‘in front’ by virtue of the directionalityprovided by the queue. In other words, the referenceobject, Mary, is provided with particular axial prop-erties by virtue of being encompassed by the queue.(See also reference frame, region, spatial relation,spatial scene.)

figure The most salient element in figure-ground organ-isation. An idea developed in Gestalt psychologyand applied in cognitive linguistics in particular byLeonard Talmy in his conceptual structuring systemapproach.

figure-ground organisation Human perception appears toautomatically segregate any given spatial scene into afigure and a ground. A figure is an entity that, amongother things, possesses a dominant shape, due to adefinite contour or prominent colouring. The figurestands out against the ground, the part of a scene thatis relegated to ‘background’. In the scene depicted inFigure 14 the figure is the lighthouse and the ground ismade up of the grey horizontal lines against which thefigure stands out.

The phenomenon of figure-ground organisation waspointed out by the Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin


in 1915. Rubin proposed a number of perceptualdifferences between the figure and ground. Forinstance, a figure appears to be thing-like, a contourappears at the edge of the figure’s shape, it appearscloser to the viewer and in front of the ground, itappears more dominant and is better remembered. Incontrast, the ground appears to be substance-like, isrelatively formless, appears further away and extendsbehind the figure, is less dominant, and is less wellremembered. Figure-ground organisation has beeninfluential in cognitive linguistics, and has been gener-alised to language by Talmy with his notions of figureand ground, also known as reference object, and byLangacker with the theoretical constructs trajectorand landmark.

Talmy has proposed that in linguistic terms, smallerand more mobile objects are typically interpreted asfigures, while larger, more immovable objects which


Figure 14. Figure-ground organisation

serve to locate other objects are typically interpreted asthe ground. This observation accounts for the asym-metric behaviour of linguistically encoded spatialscenes. For instance, in the following utterances whichare straightforward reversals of one another, while thefirst utterance is acceptable the second is normallyjudged as being semantically anomalous as indicatedby the question mark.

1. The bike is near [the house]2. ?[The house] is near the bike

This suggests that the grammatical organisation oflinguistically encoded spatial scenes reflects figure-ground organisation. While the subject position cor-responds to the figure, the object position correspondsto the ground. The unnaturalness of the second sen-tence is due to the fact that an entity that would bemore likely to serve as the ground in a spatial relationholding between a bike and a house is placed in theposition associated with the figure (see also referenceframe, secondary reference object.)

focal adjustment A notion in Cognitive Grammar.Relates to the way in which attention is differentiallyfocused on a particular aspect of a given scene. Thisis achieved in language by a range of focal adjust-ments which ‘adjust the focus’ on a particularaspect of any given scene by using different linguisticexpressions or different grammatical constructionsto describe that scene. The visual metaphor that theexpression ‘focal adjustment’ rests upon emphasisesthe fact that visual perception is central to how wefocus attention upon aspects of experience. By choos-ing a particular focal adjustment and thus linguisti-cally ‘organising’ a scene in a specific way, the speaker


imposes a unique construal upon that scene. Thereare three parameters of focal adjustment whichprovide different ways of focusing attention upon andthus construing a scene.

focus input In a single scope network, the input spacewhose structure is the focus of the structuring in theblended space. That is, content from the focus input isstructured by the frame supplied by the framing input.(See also Blending Theory, input spaces, integrationnetwork.)

focus of attention One of the kinds of pattern which serveto govern the distribution of attention in the atten-tional system. This pattern is illustrated by the follow-ing examples:

1. The wine merchant sold the champagne to Edith 2. Edith bought the champagne from the wine mer-

chant

In the first sentence the seller, the wine merchant, is thefocus of attention while in the second example the pur-chaser, Edith, is the focus of attention. This results fromthe mapping of attention onto a particular entity in thescene. The conceptual structuring system encodes thisin two ways: firstly, by the selection of one of severalverbs relating to the commerical event frame (buyversus sell, for example); and secondly by the associ-ated word order. (See also Conceptual StructuringSystem Approach.)

focus space The mental space where new content is cur-rently being added at the moment of speaking. (Seealso base space, event space, Mental Spaces Theory,viewpoint space.)


force-dynamics system One of the schematic systemswhich make up the conceptual structuring system. Thissystem relates to our experience of how physical enti-ties interact with respect to force, including the exer-tion and resistance of force, the blockage of force andthe removal of such blockage.

The force-dynamics system assumes two entitiesthat exert force. The agonist is the entity that receivesfocal attention, and the antagonist is the entity thatopposes the agonist, either overcoming the force of theagonist or failing to overcome it. The force intrinsic tothe agonist is either ‘towards action’ or ‘towards rest’,and the force intrinsic to the antagonist is the opposite.Consider the set of examples below that encode phys-ical entities. The subscripts ago and ant represent‘agonist’ and ‘antagonist’, respectively:

1. [the ball]ago kept rolling because of [the breeze]ant 2. [Isabella]ago kept standing despite [the gale] ant3. [the ball]ago kept rolling despite [the mud] ant4. [the ball]ago stayed lying on the slope because of

[the grass]ant

In (1), the force tendency of the agonist the ball istowards rest, but this is overcome by the greater forceof the antagonist the breeze, which is towards motionand thus stands in a causal relationship with theagonist. In (2), the force tendency of the agonistIsabella is also towards rest, and in this case theagonist’s force is greater. In (3), the force tendency ofthe agonist, the ball, is towards motion, and theagonist’s force is greater than the opposing force of theantagonist, the mud. Finally, in (4), the force tendencyof the agonist, the ball, is also towards motion, but thistime the opposing force of the antagonist, the grass, isgreater and prevents the motion. In these examples the


force dynamics of the interaction are expressed byclosed class forms: the conjunctions because of ordespite. While because of encodes the greater force ofthe antagonist, which overcomes the force of theagonist and thus entails causality, despite encodes thegreater force of the agonist. (See also attentionalsystem, Conceptual Structuring System Approach,configurational system, perspectival system, schematiccategories.)

formal blend Involves selective projection of specificlexical forms (‘word projection’) to the blended spacein an integration network. For instance, the XYZ con-struction involves formal blending, in which the con-struction (1) provides a template which guides theprocess of formal blending: which sorts of forms canundergo conceptual integration and in which order, inorder to produce a specific instance of the XYZ con-struction, for example Death is the mother of beauty,in the blended space. (See also Blending Theory.)

formal idioms Idioms of this kind provide a syntacticframe or template into which different lexical items canbe inserted. An example of a formal idiom is the letalone construction. The template provided by this con-struction can be filled with all sorts of lexical items. Inother words, this type of idiom is productive. Formalidioms contrast with substantive idioms. (See alsoConstruction Grammar (1), idiomatic expressions.)

formal linguistics Approaches to modelling languagethat posit explicit mechanical devices or proceduresoperating on theoretical primitives in order toproduce the complete set of linguistic possibilities in agiven language. Such mechanical devices are stated in


terms of complex formalisms inspired by work inmathematics, computer science and logic. Formalapproaches typically take a modular approach tolanguage and the mind, and assume that the goal oflinguistic enquiry is to capture complex linguistic phe-nomena in as precise and economical a way aspossible. Examples of such approaches include theparadigm of Generative Grammar developed byNoam Chomsky and the tradition known as formalsemantics inspired by the work of philsopher of lan-guage Richard Montague.

foundation-expansion spaces In Mental Spaces Theory,the ‘If A then B’ construction (1) serves as a spacebuilder to set up two successive spaces: the foundationspace and the expansion space. The foundation spaceis a hypothetical mental space set up by the spacebuilder if. The expansion space is set up by thespace builder then. While the foundation space ishypothetical relative to the base space, whatever holdsin the foundation space is ‘fact’ relative to the expan-sion space and the structure in the expansion space isentailed by it. For instance, in the utterance, If I wonthe lottery then I would buy a Rolls-Royce, the ifclause builds a space in which I win the lottery. Thethen clause builds a space in which, given this ‘fact’, Ibuy a Rolls-Royce.

frame A schematisation of experience (a knowledge struc-ture), which is represented at the conceptual level andheld in long-term memory and which relates elementsand entities associated with a particular culturallyembedded scene, situation or event from human expe-rience. Frames include different sorts of knowledgeincluding attributes, and relations between attributes,


as illustrated by the diagrammatic representation forthe frame for car in Figure 15.

A frame is related to the notion of a domain (1).Important work on the notion of frames which has beeninfluential in cognitive linguistics has been carried outby Lawrence Barsalou. (See also Blending Theory, ency-clopaedic semantics, Frame Semantics, semantic frame.)

frame semantics An approach to cognitive lexical sem-antics developed by Charles Fillmore. Attempts touncover the properties of the structured inventory ofknowledge associated with words, and to considerwhat consequences the properties of this knowledgesystem might have for a model of semantics. Thecentral construct in Frame Semantics is that of thesemantic frame. (See also encyclopaedic knowledge,encyclopaedic semantics, frame.)


Figure 15. car frame

CAR

driver

wheels

transmission

engine

fuelpetrol

diesel

Bella

Max

4 cylinder

6 cylinder

8 cylinder

manual

automatic

steel

alloy

aspect

aspect

aspect

aspect

aspect

type

type

type

type

type

type

type

type

type

type

type

operates

operates

buys

flows

rotates

rotates

framing input In a single scope network, the input spacewhich serves to structure the blended space by virtueof projection of its frame. (See also Blending Theory,focus input, input spaces, integration network.)

frequency A central idea in a usage-based model of lan-guage. The relative frequency with which a particularword or construction is encountered by the speakeris held to affect the nature of the language system.This follows as a linguistic unit that is more fre-quently encountered becomes more entrenched (seeentrenchment) in the language system. According tothis view, the most entrenched linguistic units tend toshape the language system in terms of patterns of use,at the expense of less frequent and thus less wellentrenched words or constructions. (See also usage-based thesis.)

full-specification model An approach to cognitive lexicalsemantics associated with the work of George Lakoff.In his work on the English preposition over Lakoffargued for a highly detailed inventory of senses asbeing stored by the language user in semantic memory.This full-specification approach towards polysemy hassubsequently been criticised, for, among other things,being methodologically unconstrained and for failingto distinguish between lexical concepts that must bestored in the mind of a language user and meaningsassociated with a word due to context and pragmaticinferencing. (See also lexical concept, polysemyfallacy, Principled Polysemy.)

fusion (1) In Construction Grammar (2), the processwhereby a verb’s participant roles are integrated witha construction’s argument roles. The process of fusion


is governed by two principles: the Semantic CoherencePrinciple and the Correspondence Principle.

fusion (2) One of the two component processes of lexicalconcept integration in LCCM Theory. Fusion, thesecond compositional process, consists of two furtherconstituent processes which are held to occur intandem: (1) integration and (2) interpretation.

fuzzy category Relates to findings deriving from Proto-type Theory. A fuzzy category, which can be con-trasted with a classical category, is a category whosemembers exhibit degrees of family resemblance, withthe category borders not being clearly defined. Forinstance, furniture is a fuzzy category in that while‘table’ and ‘chair’ are clearly members, some peoplejudge artefacts such as ‘picture’ and ‘carpet’ as belong-ing to this category while for others such objects arebetter thought of as belonging to a related categorysuch as furnishings. Moreover, context may influ-ence which category we judge entities as belonging to.(See also Classical Theory.)

generalisation commitment One of two key commitmentsof the cognitive linguistics enterprise. It constitutes acommitment to the characterisation of general princi-ples that are responsible for all aspects of human lan-guage. This commitment follows from the assumptioncentral to cognitive linguistics that language reflectsgeneral cognitive mechanisms and processes. Hencethe generalisation commitment leads cognitive lin-guists to search for common organising principlesacross different language ‘systems’, such as phonology,

G


syntax, semantics and so on. Such common organis-ing principles include conceptual mechanisms likemetaphor, conceptual blending and phenomena suchas polysemy. The generalisation commitment stands indirect opposition to the modular approach taken informal linguistics. (See also cognitive commitment.)

generators A kind of metonymic ICM. Members of somecategories are ‘generated’ by a core subset of categorymembers called generators. These generators arejudged to be more prototypical than the other cate-gory members that they generate and thus stand forthe entire category. For example, the natural numbersare represented by the set of integers between zeroand nine, which are combined in various ways inorder to produce higher natural numbers. Forinstance, the number 10 combines the integers 1 and0. Thus, the entire category natural numbers is gen-erated from a small subset of single-digit integers.This is why the numbers 1 to 9 are judged as moreprototypical members of the category naturalnumbers than much larger numbers. (See also ideals,paragons, salient examples, social stereotypes, typicalexamples.)

generic space In an integration network, the generic spaceprovides information that is abstract enough to becommon to both (or all) the input spaces. BlendingTheory holds that integration networks are, in part,licensed by interlocutors identifying the structurecommon to the input spaces, thereby licensing concep-tual integration and thus the formation of a blendedspace. This is achieved by virtue of the generic space;elements in the generic space are mapped onto coun-terparts in each of the input spaces, which motivates


the identification of cross-space counterparts in theinput spaces.

generic-level metaphor A term coined by George Lakoffand Mark Turner in their application of ConceptualMetaphor Theory to poetic metaphor. Relates to a rel-atively schematic or abstract level of metaphoric rep-resentation which provides structure that can beinherited by specific-level metaphor. For instance, theindividual metaphors which make up the EventStructure Metaphor are generic-level metaphors andare inherited by more specific metaphors via a processknown as inheritance.

gestalt An organised whole or unit. The central notion inthe movement known as Gestalt psychology.

Gestalt psychology A movement in psychology whichemerged at the end of the nineteenth century, repre-senting a move away from the atomistic outlook thathad been prevalent in psychology, particularly in termsof perception research. Gestalt psychology startedwith the notion of a gestalt, and thus postulated that,in terms of perception, the whole is more than the sumof its parts. Gestalt psychology formalised the percep-tual mechanisms that facilitate our experience.

Gestalt psychologists such as Max Wertheimer(1880–1943), Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967) and KurtKoffka (1886–1941) were interested in the principlesthat allow unconscious perceptual mechanisms to con-struct wholes or gestalts out of incomplete perceptualinput. For instance, when a smaller object is located infront of a larger one, we perceive the protruding partsof the larger object as part of a larger whole, eventhough we cannot see the whole because the parts are


discontinuous. This is known as the Principle ofContinuation. Gestalt principles such as this are held tocapture innate structuring mechanisms that constrainperception. Gestalt psychology has been influential incognitive linguistics in that it provides evidence thatunconscious mental processes constrain experience.This general position is adopted by cognitive linguistsin refuting objectivist semantics. (See also figure-ground organisation.)

goals of blending In Blending Theory, conceptual inte-gration is held to be motivated by an overarching goaland a number of notable sub-goals. The overarchinggoal and primary motivation for the process of con-ceptual integration is to achieve human scale. As thecreation of a blended space is an imaginative feat thatallows us to ‘grasp’ a relatively complex idea byviewing it in a new way, this can be best achieved byreducing the complexity of ideas captured in inputspaces to the level of readily understandable humanexperience. The sub-goals of conceptual integration,which facilitate the overarching goal, include com-pression of diffuse structure in the input spaces,obtaining global insight and strengthening (by com-pression) of vital relations in the input spaces into aninner-space relation in the blended space. This therebyprovides a narrative, a ‘story’, which reduces com-plexity by decreasing the number of distinct elementsinto a single element in the blended space.

To illustrate, imagine that you are attending alecture on evolution, and the professor says ‘Thedinosaurs appeared at 10 pm, and were extinct byquarter past 10. Primates emerged at five minutes tomidnight, humans showed up on the stroke of 12.’This represents an attempt to achieve human scale by


blending the vast tracts of evolutionary time with thetime period of a 24-hour day. This is achieved by ‘com-pressing’ diffuse structure (over 4.6 billion yearsof evolution) into a more compact, and thus lesscomplex, structure (a 24-hour day). This achieveshuman scale, because the 24-hour day is perhaps themost salient temporal unit for humans. This concep-tual integration achieves global insight by facilitatingthe comprehension of evolutionary time, since wehave no first-hand experience of the vast timescalesinvolved. The goals of blending are summarised inTable 5.

goodness-of-example ratings An experimental means,devised by Eleanor Rosch in the early 1970s, to inves-tigate the prototype structure of categories. Rosch con-ducted a series of experiments in which subjects wereasked to provide so-called ‘goodness-of-example’ratings for between fifty and sixty members of eachcategory, based on the extent to which each memberwas representative of the category. Typically, subjectswere provided with a seven-point scale. They wereasked to rate a particular member of the categoryalong this scale, with a rating of 1 indicating that the


Table 5. Goals of blending

Overarching goal of blendingAchieve human scaleNotable sub-goalsCompress what is diffuseObtain global insightStrengthen vital relationsCome up with a storyGo from many to one

member is highly representative, and a rating of sevenindicating that the entity was not very representative.The experiments Rosch employed in order to obtaingoodness-of-example ratings were ‘linguistic’ experi-ments. That is, subjects were presented with word listsrather than visual images. Table 6 presents a summaryof some of the goodness-of-example ratings uncoveredby Rosch for five categories.

governing principles (also optimality principles) In BlendingTheory, the principles that have been proposed in orderto constrain the process of conceptual integration orblending. These principles operate in a way that facili-tates the goals of blending. A number of governing prin-ciples have been proposed by Gilles Fauconnier andMark Turner in their 2002 book The Way We Think.These are summarised in Table 7.

graded grammaticality A property associated with theutterance (an actual instance of language use).Concerns the observation that utterances occur spon-taneously and often exhibit degrees of grammaticalwell-formedness. Grammatical well-formedness is nota criterial property of an utterance, unlike the relatedconstruct of the sentence. For example, in terms ofstructure, an utterance may consist of a single word(Hi!), a phrase (No way!), an incomplete sentence (Didyou put the . . .?), or a sentence that contains errors ofpronunciation or grammar because the speaker istired, distracted or excited, and so on. (See also gradedgrammaticality judgements, usage-based thesis.)

graded grammaticality judgements These arise due to thephenomenon of graded grammaticality. Graded gram-maticality judgements relate to the observation that


Tab

le 6

.G

oodn

ess-

of-e

xam

ple

rati

ngs

Ran

kbi

rdfr

uit

veh

icle

furn

itu

rew

eapo

n

Top

eigh

t (f

rom

mor

e to

less

rep

rese

ntat

ive)

1R

obin

Ora

nge

Aut

omob

ileC

hair

Gun

2Sp

arro

wA

pple

Stat

ion

wag

onSo

fa

Pist

ol3

Blu

ejay

Ban

ana

Tru

ckC

ouch

Rev

olve

r4

Blu

ebir

dPe

ach

Car

Tabl

eM

achi

ne g

un5

Can

ary

Pear

Bus

Eas

y ch

air

Rifl

e6

Bla

ckbi

rdA

pric

otTa

xiD

ress

erSw

itch

blad

e7

Dov

eTa

nger

ine

Jeep

Roc

king

cha

irK

nife

8L

ark

Plum

Am

bula

nce

Cof

fee

tabl

eD

agge

r9

Swal

low

Gra

pes

Mot

orcy

cle

Roc

ker

Shot

gun

10Pa

rake

etN

ecta

rine

Stre

etca

rL

ove

seat

Swor

d

Bot

tom

ten

(fr

om m

ore

to le

ss r

epre

sent

ativ

e)10

Duc

kPa

wpa

wR

ocke

tC

ount

erW

ords

9Pe

acoc

kC

ocon

utB

limp

Clo

ckH

and

8E

gret

Avo

cado

Skat

esD

rape

sPi

pe7

Chi

cken

Pum

pkin

Cam

elR

efri

gera

tor

Rop

e6

Turk

eyTo

mat

oFe

etPi

ctur

eA

irpl

ane

5O

stri

chN

utSk

isC

lose

tFo

ot4

Tit

mou

seG

ourd

Skat

eboa

rdV

ase

Car

3E

mu

Oliv

eW

heel

barr

owA

shtr

aySc

rew

driv

er2

Peng

uin

Pick

leSu

rfbo

ard

Fan

Gla

ss1

Bat

Squa

shE

leva

tor

Tele

phon

eSh

oes


Table 7. Governing principles

Governing principle Definition

The Topology Principle Other things being equal, set upthe blend and the inputs so thatuseful topology in the inputs andtheir outer-space relations isreflected by inner-space relationsin the blend. (F&T, 2002: 327)

The Pattern Completion Other things being equal, Principle complete elements in the blend

by using existing integratedpatterns as additional inputs.Other things being equal, use acompleting frame that hasrelations that can be compressedversions of the important outer-space vital relations between theinputs. (F&T, 2002: 328)

The Integration Achieve an integrated blend. Principle (F&T, 2002: 328)

The Maximisation of Other things being equal, Vital Relations Principle maximize vital relations in the

network. In particular, maximizethe vital relations in the blendedspace and reflect them in outer-space vital relations. (F&T,2002: 330)

The Web Principle Other things being equal,manipulating the blend as aunit must maintain the web ofappropriate connections tothe input space easily andwithout additional surveillanceof composition. (F&T, 2002:331)

the grammatical ‘well-formedness’ associated with anygiven utterance is a matter of degree rather than an all-or-nothing affair. For example, the acceptability ofpassive constructions is determined by a number offactors and is a matter of degree. A question markbefore the sentence indicates that the sentence is notperfectly well-formed but is acceptable. Two questionmarks indicate somewhat less acceptability.

1. This view was enjoyed by Lily and George2. ?A view was enjoyed by Lily and George3. ??Views were enjoyed by Lily and George

The examples above become progressively less accept-able as the subject of the sentence moves from beingdefinite or ‘individuated’ to becoming less definite or


Table 7. continued

Governing principle Definition

The Unpacking Principle Other things being equal, theblend all by itself should promptfor the reconstruction of theentire network. (F&T, 2002:332)

The Relevance Principle Other things being equal, anelement in the blend should haverelevance, including relevancefor establishing links to otherspaces and for running theblend. Conversely, an outer-space relation between theinputs that is important for thepurposes of the network shouldhave a correspondingcompression in the blend. (F&T,2002: 333)

individuated. In the examples below, the utterancesbecome progressively less acceptable the less the verbrelates to a prototypical physical action.

4. George was tickled by Lily5. ?George was wanted by Lily6. ??George was resembled by his brother

grammar-lexicon continuum see lexicon-grammar con-tinuum

grammatical idioms These are idiomatic expressions thatobey the usual rules of grammar. For example, in thegrammatical idiom spill the beans, a verb takes a nounphrase complement. Grammatical idioms contrastwith extragrammatical idioms. (See also ConstructionGrammar (1).)

grammaticalisation (also grammaticisation) The processwhereby lexical or content words acquire grammaticalfunctions or existing grammatical units acquire furthergrammatical functions. Grammaticalisation has receiveda great deal of attention within cognitive linguistics. Thisis because grammaticalisation is characterised by inter-laced changes in the form and meaning of a given con-struction (1) and can therefore be seen as a process thatis essentially grounded in meaning. Furthermore, cogni-tive linguists argue that semantic change in grammati-calisation is a function of language use and thus is ausage-based phenomenon. (See also closed class forms,open class forms, usage-based thesis.)

grammaticisation see grammaticalisation

ground (1) see reference object


ground (2) In Cognitive Grammar, this term relates toany utterance and includes the participants, the timeof speaking and the immediate physical context.Subjective construal and objective construal are under-stood relative to the notion of ground.

ground-based reference frame The simplest kind of refer-ence frame. It involves just a (primary) reference objectand employs the intrinsic geometry of this referenceobject in order to locate the figure. For instance, in anutterance such as: The grocery store is next to the officebuilding, the office building has an intrinsic front, backand sides to which the speaker appeals in describingthe location of the grocery store. Therefore, this typeof reference frame is ground- (or reference-object)based.

grounding predication In Cognitive Grammar, a ground-ing predication is a schematic category that relates aparticular word class to the ground. This is referred toas ‘grounding’. For instance, nouns are grounded bydeterminers and finite clauses are grounded by tenseand by modals which link the process designated bythe clause to the specific utterance.

guidepost-based reference frame Involves an externalsecondary reference object which is typically a non-animate entity and which is external to the primary ref-erence object. For instance, in a sentence such as thefollowing: The bike is the river side of the office block,the river, the external secondary reference object, iden-tifies that portion of the office block, the primary ref-erence object, with respect to which the bike is located.(See also figure, figure-ground organisation, referenceframe, region, spatial relation, spatial scene.)


guiding principles of cognitive approaches to grammarThe two central assumptions which guide and therebygive rise to cognitive approaches to grammar. Theseare: the symbolic thesis and the usage-based thesis.

guiding principles of cognitive semantics As with thelarger enterprise of cognitive linguistics of which it isa part, cognitive semantics is not a single unifiedframework. Those researchers who identify them-selves as cognitive semanticists typically have adiverse set of foci and interests. Nevertheless, thereare four guiding principles that collectively charac-terise a cognitive approach to semantics. These are:(1) the thesis of embodied cognition; (2) the thesisthat semantic structure reflects conceptual structure;(3) the thesis that meaning representation is ency-clopaedic; and (4) the thesis that meaning construc-tion is conceptualisation.

hiding and highlighting The idea in Conceptual MetaphorTheory that when a target domain is structured interms of a particular source domain, this highlightscertain aspects of the target while simultaneouslyhiding other aspects. For example, invoking themetaphor argument is war highlights the adversarialnature of argument but hides the fact that argumentoften involves an ordered and organised developmentof a particular topic (He won the argument, I couldn’tdefend that point, and so on). In contrast, the metaphoran argument is a journey highlights the progressiveand organisational aspects of arguments while hidingthe confrontational aspects (We’ll proceed in step-by-step fashion; We’ve covered a lot of ground).

H


hierarchy of domain complexity A theoretical constructin Cognitive Grammar. Concepts presuppose thedomains against which they are understood, leadingultimately to domains that do not presuppose anythingelse. This gives rise to a hierarchy of domain complex-ity in which a domain lower in the hierarchy is pre-supposed by the domain(s) higher up. For instance,consider the lexical item knuckle. This profiles aconcept that is understood with respect to the domainhand. In turn, the domain hand is understood withrespect to the domain arm; arm is understood withrespect to the domain body, and body is understoodmore generally in terms of (three-dimensional) space.However, it is difficult to envisage another domain interms of which we understand space. This follows asspace is a basic domain: one that derives directly fromsensory experience of the world, such as visual per-ception and our experience of motion and touch. Thusspace is not understood in terms of a further concep-tual domain but is directly grounded in terms ofembodied experience. This hierarchy of complexity isillustrated in Figure 16. (See also abstract domain,base, domain (1), profile, scope of predication.)

highlighting see hiding and highlighting

holophrase When a child first produces identifiable unitsof language at around the age of twelve months theseare individual lexical items. Yet, these lexical items donot relate to the corresponding adult form in terms offunction. Instead, the child’s first words appear to beequivalent to whole phrases and sentences of adult lan-guage in terms of communicative intention. For thisreason, these early words are known as holophrases.These can have a range of goal-directed communicative


intentions. For instance, the developmental psycholin-guist Michael Tomasello in a study of his daughter’searly language acquisition reported a range of usesassociated with holophrases, as captured in Table 8.

homologous categories Domains such as time and spacewhich appear to share certain structural properties andcan thus exhibit conceptual alternativity. For instance,both space and time can be conceived in terms ofquantity. For example, in response to the following


Figure 16. Hierarchy of domain complexity

KNUCKLE

HAND

ARM

BODY

SPACE

question How far is London from Brighton? one couldanswer either Fifty miles (space) or About an hour(time).

homonymy A lexical relation which concerns two ormore distinct words that happen to share the sameform in sound (homophones) and/or in writing (homo-graphs). For example, the form bank relates to twodifferent words with unrelated meanings, ‘financialinstitution’ and ‘side of a river’. These two senses arenot only synchronically unrelated (unrelated in currentusage) but also historically unrelated. The word bankwith the meaning ‘side of a river’ has been in theEnglish language for much longer, and is related to theOld Icelandic word for ‘hill’, while the word bankmeaning ‘financial institution’ was borrowed from the


Table 8. Communicative functions of holophrases

Holophrase Communicative function

Phone First use: in response to hearing the telephone ring

Second use: to describe activity of ‘talking’ on the phone

Third use: to name the phoneFourth use: as a request to be picked up in

order to talk on the phone

Towel First use: using a towel to clean a spillSecond use: to name the towel

Make First use: as a request that a structure be built when playing with blocks

Mess First use: to describe the state resulting fromknocking down the blocks

Second use: to indicate the desire to knock down the blocks

Italian banca, meaning ‘money changer’s table’. (Seealso monosemy, polysemy.)

ICLA International Cognitive Linguistics Association. Theofficial website of the Association is: www.cognitivelin-guistics.org.

ICLC International Cognitive Linguistics Conference. Aseries of biennial conferences which was inauguratedin 1989 at the University of Duisburg in Germany.

ICM see idealised cognitive model

ID Principle see Access Principle

Ideal A kind of metonymic ICM. An ideal ICM contrastswith social stereotypes and typical examples. Forexample, we might have an ideal for the categorypolitician: someone who is public-spirited, altruistic,hardworking and so on. This may contrast with ourstereotype of politicians as egotistical and power-hungry. Typicality effects occur when the ideal standsmetonymically for the entire category. For instance,with respect to our ideal the utterance He’s a greatpolitician might be interpreted as a positive evaluation.However, with respect to our social stereotype, thesame utterance would be interpreted as a negativeevaluation. (See also generators, paragons, salientexamples.)

ideal meaning A term coined by Anette Herskovits in herwork on English prepositions to refer to the centralor most salient lexical concept associated with a given

I


linguistic unit. (See also cognitive lexical semantics,over, prototype.)

idealised cognitive model (also ICM) A theoretical con-struct developed by George Lakoff in order to accountfor the typicality effects uncovered by PrototypeTheory. An ICM is a relatively stable mental represen-tation that represents a ‘theory’ about some aspect ofthe world and to which words and other linguistic unitscan be relativised. In this respect, ICMs are similar tothe notion of a frame, since both relate to relativelycomplex knowledge structures. However, while ICMsare rich in detail, they are ‘idealised’ because theyabstract across a range of experiences rather than rep-resenting specific instances of a given experience. Forinstance, the lexical concept [bachelor] is understoodwith respect to a marriage ICM which includesschematic information relating a marriage age, a mar-riage ceremony, the social, legal, religious and moraldimensions and responsibilities associated with mar-riage, the participants involved in marriage and the con-ditions governing their status before and after the eventof the marriage ceremony, different events associatedwith the trajectory of marriage, including the marriageceremony itself, venues for performing the marriageceremony, and so forth. According to Lakoff, ICMs areemployed in cognitive processes such as categorisationand reasoning. As ICMs constitute coherent bodies ofknowledge representation, the way they are structuredis organised in various ways. These include being organ-ised by virtue of the image schema, metaphor andmetonymy. ICMs are also employed in order to struc-ture mental spaces during on-line meaning construc-tion. This is achieved via a process known as schemainduction. (See also cluster model, metonymic ICM.)


idiomatic expressions Conventional linguistic units whichare not predictable simply by knowing the grammar‘rules’ and the vocabulary of a language. For thisreason, idiomatic expressions are described as ‘non-compositional’ and have to be learned whole. Idiomaticexpressions were studied by Charles Fillmore and PaulKay in the development of Construction Grammar (1).With their colleague Catherine O’Connor they dev-eloped a typology of idiomatic expressions. Theseinclude: decoding idioms, encoding idioms, grammati-cal idioms, extragrammatical idioms, substantiveidioms, formal idioms, idioms with pragmatic pointand idioms without pragmatic point.

idioms with pragmatic point These idiomatic expressionshave a very clear pragmatic function, such as greeting(How do you do?) or expressing a particular attitude(What’s your car doing in my parking space?). Theycontrast with idioms without pragmatic point. (Seealso Construction Grammar (1).)

idioms without pragmatic point Idioms of this kind arepragmatically neutral, in the sense that they can beused in any pragmatic context. Expressions like by andlarge and on the whole fall into this category. Idiomaticexpressions of this kind contrast with idioms withpragmatic point. (See also Construction Grammar(1).)

image metaphor A kind of resemblance-based metaphor.An image metaphor is based on perceived physicalresemblance. Metaphors of this kind have been studiedin detail by George Lakoff and Mark Turner and areextremely common in literary language. For instance,in the following utterance: The supermodel is just a


twig, a perceived resemblance is being establishedbetween the supermodel and the twig. The profes-sional success of a supermodel dictates that she be talland thin and thus may appear quite bony. The imagemetaphor draws our attention to the perceived physi-cal resemblance between a twig and the supermodel.

image schema A relatively abstract conceptual representa-tion that arises directly from our everyday interactionwith and observation of the world around us. Imageschemas derive from sensory and perceptual experi-ence. Accordingly, they derive from embodied experi-ence. For example, gravity ensures that unsupportedobjects fall to the ground; given the asymmetry of thehuman vertical axis, we have to stoop to pick up fallenobjects, look in one direction (downwards) for fallenobjects, and in another (upwards) for rising objects. Inother words, our physiology ensures that our verticalaxis, which interacts with gravity, gives rise to meaningas a result of how we interact with our environment.According to Mark Johnson, the key proponent of thenotion of the image schema, this aspect of our experi-ence gives rise to the up-down image schema. In addi-tion, and as shown by the developmental psychologistJean Mandler, image schemas are emergent. That isbecause image schemas are functions of our bodies andof our interaction in the world, image schemas arise inconjunction with our physical and psychological devel-opment during early childhood via a process termedperceptual meaning analysis.

The term ‘image’ in ‘image schema’ is equivalent tothe use of this term in psychology, where ‘imagistic’experience relates to and derives from our experienceof the external world. Another term for this type ofexperience is sensory experience. The term ‘schema’ in


‘image schema’ means that image schemas are not richor detailed concepts, but rather are abstract conceptsconsisting of patterns emerging from repeated instancesof embodied experience. Image schemas provide thebasis for more richly detailed lexical concepts. Forexample, the container image schema consists of thestructural elements interior, boundary and exterior:these are the minimum requirements for a container.Part of the meaning of the lexical concepts associatedwith the following forms: full, empty, in, out, etc., hasto do with the container schema.

It has also been claimed by George Lakoff and MarkJohnson in their work on metaphor that imageschemas provide the basis for abstract thought byvirtue of serving as the source domain in metaphoricmappings. The importance of image schemas is thatthey are held to provide the concrete basis for thesemetaphoric mappings. Consider the image schemaphysical object. This image schema is based on oureveryday interaction with concrete objects like desks,chairs, tables, cars and so on. The image schema is aschematic representation emerging from embodiedexperience, which generalises over what is common toobjects: for example, that they have physical attributessuch as colour, weight, shape and so forth. This imageschema can be ‘mapped onto’ an abstract entity like‘inflation’, which lacks these physical properties. Theconsequence of this metaphoric mapping is that wenow understand an abstract entity like ‘inflation’ interms of a physical object. This is illustrated by exam-ples such as the following: Inflation is giving the gov-ernment a headache; Inflation makes me sick. A partiallist of those image schemas which have been identifiedso far is given in Table 9. (See also image schema trans-formation.)


image schema transformation Because an image schemaarises from embodied experience, which is ongoing,image schemas can undergo transformations from oneimage schema into another. For instance, the source-path-goal image schema in fact represents such atransformation, which reflects the typical trajectory oflocomotion undertaken by an animate entity as showndiagrammatically in Figure 17.

In his work on the English preposition over, GeorgeLakoff argues that new senses of over arise due toimage schema transformations. For instance, whileover has, according to Lakoff, an ‘above-across’ sense(or lexical concept) associated with it, as evidenced byexamples such as the following: John walked over the


Table 9. A listing of image schemas

space up-down, front-back, left-right,near-far, centre-periphery,contact, straight, verticality

containment container, in-out, surface, full-empty, content

locomotion momentum, source-path-goal

balance axis balance, twin-pan balance,point balance, equilibrium

force compulsion, blockage,counterforce, diversion, removalof restraint, enablement,attraction, resistance

unity/ merging, collection, splitting,iteration,

multiplicity part-whole, count-mass, link(age)identity matching, superimposition

existence removal, bounded space, cycle,object, process

hill, in an example of the following kind: John livesover the hill, the focus has switched to the goal, the endpoint of a motion trajectory. This switch in focus ispossible due to image-schema transformation, result-ing in a distinct ‘end-point focus’ sense.

implicit closed class forms Closed class forms that haveno phonetic realisation but represent speaker knowl-edge of grammatical categories such as noun and verb,their sub-categories (for example, count noun andmass noun) and grammatical functions (also known as‘grammatical relations’) such as subject and object.Implicit closed class forms contrast with overt closedclass forms.

inheritance (1) The phenomenon whereby a more specific-level metaphor inherits structure from a more generic-level metaphor. For instance, a metaphor such as lifeis a journey inherits structure from the individualmetaphors that make up the Event Structure Metaphor.This is illustrated by the examples below:

1. states are locationsHe’s at a crossroads in his life

2. change is motionHe went from his forties to his fifties without a hintof a mid-life crisis

3. causes are forcesHe got a head start in life


Figure 17. source-path-goal image schema

SOURCE PATH GOAL

4. purposes are destinationsI can’t ever seem to get to where I want to be in life

5. means are pathsHe followed an unconventional course during hislife

6. difficulties are impediments to motionThroughout his working life problematic profes-sional relationships had somehow always got in hisway

7. purposeful activities are journeysHis life had been a rather strange journey

The target domain for this metaphor is life, while thesource domain is journey. The events that comprisethis metaphor are life events, while the purposes arelife goals. However, because this metaphor is struc-tured by the Event Structure Metaphor, life is ajourney turns out to be a compound metaphor thatrepresents a composite mapping drawing from a rangeof related and mutually coherent metaphors: each ofthe examples in (1–7) inherits structure from a specificmetaphor within the Event Structure Metaphor. (Seealso Conceptual Metaphor Theory.)

inheritance (2) The idea that constructions in the contruc-ticon follow the Principle of Maximised Motivation byinheriting structure (form and/or meaning) from oneanother. This is modelled in Construction Grammar (2)by positing a range of inheritance links between con-structions. (See also construction (1).)

inheritance links In Construction Grammar (2), the linksbetween constructions in the constructicon, allowingone construction to ‘inherit’ structure from another.The types of inheritance links proposed are: polysemy


links, subpart links, instance links and metaphoricalextension links. Inheritance links serve to instantiatethe Principle of Maximised Motivation. (See also con-struction (1), inheritance.)

inner-space relation. In an integration network, an inner-space relation is a vital relation that has undergonecompression giving rise to emergent structure inthe blended space. Typically, an inner-space relationresults from compression of an outer-space relation, asillustrated by Figure 18.

To illustrate compression of an outer-space relationinto an inner-space relation consider the Clinton asFrench President integration network, as promptedfor by the following utterance: In France, Clintonwouldn’t have been harmed by his affair withMonica Lewinsky, and as discussed in detail in the


Figure 18. Compression of an outer-space relation

Input 2

Blend

Input 1

entry for conceptual integration. In this network, wehave Bill Clinton, the former American President,in one input space, and the role of French Presidentin the other. One function of the network is to inte-grate the value Bill Clinton with the role FrenchPresident. The outer-space vital relation role-valueresults in an inner-space relation of uniqueness, inwhich Bill Clinton is the French President. (See alsoBlending Theory.)

innovation The process in which an utterance provides ameaning or utilises a form that breaks with the con-ventions of the language. This is achieved by virtue ofaltered replication. (See also normal replication, repli-cator, Utterance Selection Theory.)

input spaces An integration network possesses two ormore input spaces from which structure is projected tothe blended space. Each input space is a mental spacestructured with respect to the principles developed inMental Spaces Theory. (See also Blending Theory,generic space.)

instance A more specific variant of a given schema.Instances of schemas serve to sanction particularinstantiations. The relationship between a schema andthe more specific schemas which make up its instancesare provided in Figure 19.

In Figure 19 the more abstract schema [P [NP]]has a number of more specific schemas related toit: [to me], [on the floor] and [in the garage].These instances, like the more general schema, areentrenched and thus constitute part of the languageuser’s mental grammar. These are stored together withthe more abstract schema as a structured network of


schemas. The relationship between a schema and itsinstances is known as schema-instance organisation.(See also Cognitive Grammar, usage-based model.)

instance links One of a number of inheritance linksbetween constructions posited in ConstructionGrammar (2). Involves a type of inheritance (2) inwhich one construction is a special case of a relatedconstruction. This type of link accounts for the exis-tence of substantive idioms in which a particularlexical item or items is/are required for the idiomaticreading to be available. For instance, the followingutterance is related to the resultative construction byan instance link, where drive is required in order toobtain the reading of annoy/make someone mad:James drove Jenny round the bend. (See also construc-tion (1), idiomatic expression.)

instantiation Specific instances of language use, in whicha usage pattern instantiates its corresponding schema.Instantiations, therefore, are specific instances of use,arising from a schematic representation. The view thatmental schemas license or sanction particular instancesof use is due to the usage-based thesis widely adoptedin cognitive linguistics. (See also Cognitive Grammar,usage-based model.)


Figure 19. Schema-instance relations

[P [NP]]

[to me] [on the floor] [in the garage]

integration One of the constituent processes of fusion (2)in LCCM Theory. Integration involves the construc-tion of larger lexical entities which proceeds by com-bining linguistic knowledge units: lexical concepts.These larger lexical units, which are termed ‘lexicalconceptual units’, are then subject to interpretation.(See also lexical concept.)

integration network A structure employed in Blendingtheory in order to model the way in which a blendedspace is achieved. An integration network consists ofmental spaces of three kinds: a generic space, at leasttwo input spaces and a blended space. The purpose ofthe integration network is to facilitate conceptual inte-gration of existing conceptual structure from differentmental spaces and background frames in order toproduce emergent structure. The basic integrationnetwork consists of four mental spaces, as illustratedin Figure 20.

The generic space motivates a matching operation(represented by the bold lines) in which counterpartsare identified in the two input spaces. Selective projec-tion then serves to project structure from the two inputspaces to the blended space.

Four kinds of integration network have been identi-fied based on the relative contribution of the inputspaces and generic space with respect to the emergentstructure of the blended space. These constitute thesimplex network, the single scope network, the mirrornetwork and the double scope network. (See also com-pression, constitutive processes, goals of blending,governing principles, vital relations.)

intention-reading ability According to Michael Tomasello,one of two abilities essential to the uniquely human


ability to acquire language. While the pattern-findingability allows pre-linguistic infants to begin to identifyone linguistic unit from another, the use of these unitsrequires intention-reading skills, which transform lin-guistic stimuli from statistical patterns of sound intofully fledged linguistic symbols. In other words, thisstage involves ‘connecting’ the meaning to the form,which gives rise to the form-meaning pairing that makeup our knowledge of language. Only then can theselinguistic sounds be used for communication. Thisprocess takes place when, at around a year old, infantsbegin to understand that the people around them are


Figure 20. An integration network

Input 2Input 1

Generic space

Blended space

•

• •

•• •

••

•

•

•

•

•

•••

•

‘intentional agents’: their actions are deliberate and theactions and states of others can be influenced. Theemergence of this understanding allows infants to‘read’ the intentions of others. The human intention-reading ability, as it manifests itself in first languageacquisition, consists of three specific but interrelatedphenomena: joint attention frames, the understandingof communicative intentions and role reversal imita-tion. (See also emergentism, socio-cognitive mecha-nisms in language acquisition.)

interpretation The second of the two constituent processesof fusion (2) in LCCM Theory. Interpretation involvesactivation of part of the cognitive model profile towhich each selected lexical concept in any utteranceaffords access. Each lexical concept is interpreted in away that is in keeping with the larger lexical unit whichresults from integration. That is, those parts of the cog-nitive model profiles (semantic potential) associatedwith each lexical concept in the larger unit is inter-preted in a way that is in keeping with the larger unit.Put another way, integration provides (linguistic)instructions which serve to determine how the variouslexical concepts are collectively interpreted and thusthe access route that each individual lexical conceptaffords through its cognitive model profile. The resultis that any given word will provide a unique activationof part of its meaning potential on every occasionof use. This follows as every utterance and thus theresulting conception is unique. For instance, the inter-pretation of France in each of the examples below isslightly distinct due to the other lexical concepts it iscombined with in each utterance. In the first, Franceis interpreted as relating to a geographical landmass,while in the second it is interpreted as relating to


citizens of France who voted in a particular way in aparticular referendum:

1. France is a country of contrasting landscapes2. France rejected the EU constitution

Introspective experience see subjective experience

Invariance Hypothesis see Invariance Principle

Invariance Principle (also Invariance Hypothesis) Theprinciple which captures the constraints that governcross-domain mappings in Conceptual MetaphorTheory. There are two sorts of constraints that theInvariance Principle captures. Firstly, it stipulateswhich sorts of source domains can serve particulartarget domains for a particular conceptual metaphor.Secondly, it stipulates the constraints on metaphoricalentailments that can apply to particular targetdomains. The Invariance Principle does this by stipu-lating that in a metaphoric cross-domain mapping, thecognitive topology (the conceptual structure) associ-ated with the source domain is preserved, or remainsinvariant, in the mapping operation. However, there isa further stipulation that what is mapped from thesource domain must remain consistent with the cogni-tive topology of the target domain.

To illustrate how the Invariance Principle works,consider the concept of death. This can be metaphor-ically personified in a number of ways (which meansthat a concept has human-like properties attributed toit such as intentionality and volition). However, thehuman-like qualities that can be associated with deathare restricted: death can ‘devour’, ‘destroy’ or ‘reap’,but death is never metaphorically structured in terms


of, for instance, knitting, filling a bath with water orsitting in a rocking chair. What the Invariance Principledoes is guarantee that the structure of the sourcedomain must be preserved by the metaphoric mappingsin a way consistent with the target domain. This con-strains potentially incompatible mappings. As deathinvolves an event of (often sudden) non-existence, onlysource domains that have an event structure compati-ble with this can be successfully mapped onto thedomain of death. As events such as filling a bath, orsitting in a rocking chair have the ‘wrong’ sort of eventstructure, the Invariance Principle predicts that theycannot be employed as source domains for metaphori-cally conceptualising the domain of death.

Nevertheless, not all cross-domain mappings can bepredicted by the Invariance Principle. A further con-straint is required in order to account for these excep-tions. This is known as the target domain overrideconstraint.

Invited Inferencing Theory A theory of semantic changeproposed by Elizabeth Closs Traugott in order toaddress regularities in semantic change resulting ingrammaticalisation. This theory is called the InvitedInferencing Theory of Semantic Change because itsmain claim is that the form-meaning reanalysis thatcharacterises grammaticalisation arises as a result ofsituated language use. In other words, this approachassumes that semantic change is usage-based in nature.Traugott argues that pragmatic meaning or inferencesthat arise in specific contexts come to be reanalysed aspart of the conventional meaning associated with agiven construction (1). Inferences of this kind areinvited, in the sense that they are suggested by thecontext. (See also pragmatic strengthening.)


joint attention frame The common ground that facilitatesunderstanding of a communicative intention, estab-lished as a consequence of a particular goal-directedactivity. When an infant and an adult are both lookingat and playing with a toy, for example, the attentionframe consists of the infant, the adult and the toy. Whileother elements that participate in the scene are still per-ceived (such as the child’s clothes or other objects in thevicinity), it is this ‘triadic relationship’ between child,adult and toy that is the joint focus of attention. Thejoint attention frame is one of the elements central to thepre-linguistic infant’s developing intention-readingability and is an important idea in Michael Tomasello’saccount of first language acquisition. (See also pattern-finding ability, role reversal imitation, socio-cognitivemechanisms in language acquisition.)

landmark (also LM) The secondary participant in aprofiled relationship. (See also secondary landmark,trajector-landmark organisation.)

language user A member of a particular linguisticcommunity who, in speaking (and, indeed, in signingor writing), attempts to achieve a particular inter-actional goal or set of goals using particular linguis-tic and non-linguistic strategies. Interactional goalsinclude attempts to elicit information or action on thepart of the hearer, to provide information, to establishinterpersonal rapport (for instance, when ‘passing thetime of day’), and so on. The linguistic strategiesemployed to achieve these goals might include the useof speech acts (requesting, informing, promising,

L

J


thanking and so on), choices over words and gram-matical constructions, intonation structures, choicesover conforming or not conforming to discourse con-ventions like turn-taking and so on. Non-linguisticstrategies include facial expressions, gesture, orienta-tion of the speaker, proximity of interlocutors interms of interpersonal space and so on. (See alsoconventions, usage-based thesis, utterance, UtteranceSelection Theory.)

LCCM Theory A theory of lexical representation andsemantic composition developed by Vyvyan Evansthat adheres to the guiding principles of cognitivesemantics and the guiding principles of cognitiveapproaches to grammar. The theory takes its namefrom the two central constructs upon which thetheory is built: the notion of the lexical concept andthe cognitive model. The theory is, in part, a devel-opment of and extension of the theory of PrincipledPolysemy.

The central insight of LCCM Theory is that there isa basic distinction between lexical concepts andmeaning. While lexical concepts constitute the seman-tic units conventionally associated with linguisticforms and form an integral part of a language user’sindividual mental grammar, meaning is a property ofsituated usage-events (an utterance) rather than indi-vidual words or linguistic units. Thus meaning istreated not as a function of language per se, but arisesfrom language use. Thus this approach represents ausage-based model of language. LCCM Theory devel-ops an account of the nature of lexical concepts andthe encyclopaedic knowledge that lexical conceptsprovide access to, and of the mechanisms of lexicalconcept integration: lexical concept selection and


fusion (2), which facilitate how lexical concepts areintegrated in order to serve as prompts for processes ofconceptualisation. A diagrammatic representation ofthe architecture for LCCM Theory is presented inFigure 21.

let alone construction A formal idiom studied by CharlesFillmore, Paul Kay and Catherine O’Connor insupport of their theory of Construction Grammar (1).The let alone construction can be described in terms ofits syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties, someof which are regular and some of which are idiosyn-cratic. The let alone construction displays regular syn-tactic properties and is characterised by the presenceof the coordinating conjunction let alone, which


Figure 21. An overview of the architecture of LCCM Theory

LCCM Theory

lexicalrepresentation

lexical conceptintegration

lexicalconcepts

cognitivemodels

lexicalconceptselection

fusion

integration interpretation

coordinates two prosodically prominent (stressed)expressions. This construction is illustrated by the sen-tence in (1) below. In this example, the expressionsbasic arithmetic and advanced algebra (labelled as Aand B respectively) are prosodically prominent, andare coordinated by let alone.

1. John doesn’t understand basic arithmetic let aloneadvanced algebra

BA

In semantic terms, the construction has the idiosyn-cratic property that the coordinated expressions areinterpreted as contrasted points on a scale, wherethe second conjunct (advanced algebra) has greateremphatic force than the first (basic arithmetic). In thecontext of asking about John’s grasp of advancedalgebra, as a result of the let alone construction, theutterance in (1) conveys the information that becauseJohn doesn’t understand basic arithmetic, he is evenless likely to comprehend advanced algebra. This restsupon the assumption that understanding basic arith-metic is a prerequisite for understanding advancedalgebra.

The let alone construction also has pragmatic point.Not only does the construction reject a particularproposition (for example, that John understandsadvanced algebra), but it does so by providing addi-tional relevant information. The relevant informationrelates to the first conjunct (A), and establishes animplicational scale between the expressions conjoinedby let alone. If John doesn’t understand (A) this impliesthat he doesn’t understand (B). The pragmatic impactof this construction is that by first rejecting a weakerproposition, the proposition that our attentionis focused upon (e.g. whether John understands


advanced algebra) is more forcefully negated than itwould otherwise have been.

level C In Mental Spaces Theory, the level at whichmeaning-construction, or conceptualisation, occurs.Level C is a level of conceptual processing ‘above’ thelevel of semantic structure as encoded by language.Thus meaning-construction is fundamentally concep-tual and hence non-linguistic in nature.

level of attention One of the kinds of pattern whichserve to govern the distribution of attention in theattentional system. The ‘level of attention’ patterninvolves the level of detail at which attention is beingfocused with respect to a particular participant, par-ticipants or event. For instance, in the first examplebelow the focus of attention is upon the group offriends as a whole. The second example focuses onthe internal structure or ‘componentiality’ of thegroup. Both examples thus illustrate a different levelof attention.

1. the group of friends2. the friends in the group

(See also conceptual structuring system, ConceptualStructuring System Approach.)

lexical concept A unit of semantic structure convention-ally associated with a linguistic form central to LCCMTheory. Together, a lexical concept and a form makeup a linguistic unit: a conventional form-meaningpairing. Lexical concepts constitute linguisticallyencoded concepts – that is conceptual knowledgeencoded in a form that can be externalised via lan-guage. Lexical concepts are conventionally associated


with linguistic forms of all kinds including words,bound morphemes, idiomatic expressions and gram-matical constructions. Accordingly, lexical concepts,by definition, concern purely linguistic knowledge,although a given lexical concept provides access to acognitive model profile and thus serves as an accesssite to encyclopaedic knowledge which is deployedin the service of building a conception. There are anumber of properties associated with lexical concepts,perhaps the most important of which is that eachlexical concept has a unique lexical profile. Examplesof four distinct lexical concepts encoded by theform fly are illustrated by the examples below. Lexicalconcepts are glossed by small capitals in squarebrackets.

1. The plane/bird is flying [self-propelled(in the sky) aerodynamic motion]

2. The pilot is flying the [operation of entity plane (in the sky) capable of aerody

namic motion]3. The child is flying the [control of light

kite (in the breeze) weight entity]4. The flag is flying (in the [suspension of light

breeze) weight object]

(See also cognitive model.)

lexical concept integration In LCCM Theory, the processwhereby lexical concepts are integrated in the serviceof meaning-construction. Lexical concept integrationinvolves two component processes: lexical conceptselection and fusion (2). (See also lexical concept.)

lexical concept selection One of the two componentprocesses of lexical concept integration. Lexical concept


selection involves selecting the most appropriate lexicalconcept associated with each form in an utterance,guided by linguistic and extra-linguistic context. Forinstance, in the following example: She approached thebar, the extra-linguistic context determines whether‘public house bar’ or ‘court of law bar’ are selected. (Seealso fusion (2).)

lexical profile The defining property of any given lexicalconcept, as each lexical concept has a unique lexicalprofile. A lexical profile relates to the range of seman-tic arguments and grammatical constructions withwhich a given lexical concept conventionally co-occursand which forms part of the mental knowledge associ-ated with a given lexical concept. The lexical profilethus serves as a principled means of distinguishinglexical concepts conventionally associated with thesame form. Two sorts of information form a lexicalconcept’s lexical profile. The first relates to semanticselectional tendencies: the semantic arguments withwhich a given lexical concept can collocate. The secondrelates to formal or grammatical selectional tendencies:the formal patterns in which a given lexical conceptoccurs.

By way of illustration consider the following exam-ples of fly. Lexical concepts are glossed by small capi-tals in square brackets.

1. The plane/bird is flying [self-propelled (in the sky) aerodynamic

motion]2. The pilot is flying the plane [operation of

(in the sky) entity capable of aerodynamic motion]


3. The child is flying the kite [control of (in the breeze) lightweight

entity]4. The flag is flying [suspension of

(in the breeze) lightweight object]

Unlike nouns, for which a salient grammatical featureis how they are determined, a salient grammaticalfeature for verbs is transitivity. In terms of formaldependencies then, the hallmark of the lexical conceptswhich license the uses of fly in (1) and (4) is the lack ofa direct object (an intransitive verb). This contrastswith the lexical concepts which sanction the examplesin (2) and (3) which both require a direct object (a tran-sitive verb). This distinction in transitivity fails to dis-tinguish (1) from (4) and (2) from (3). For this we mustrely on semantic tendencies. The hallmark of each ofthese lexical concepts is that they require distinctsemantic arguments.

For instance, the [self-propelled aerodynamicmotion] lexical concept which is held to sanctionthe use of fly in (1) only applies to entities thatare capable of self-propelled aerodynamic motion.Entities that are not self-propelled, such as tennisballs, cannot be used in this sense (*the tennis ball isflying in the sky).

The lexical concept which underlies the use of fly in(2): [operation of entity capable of aerodynamicmotion], is restricted to the operation by an entitywhich can be construed as an agent, and moreover toentities that can undergo self-propelled aerodynamicmotion. Further, the entity must be able to accommo-date the agent and thereby serve as a means of trans-port. This explains why planes and hot air balloons are


compatible with this sense, but entities unable toaccommodate an agent are not.

In the case of [control of lightweight entity]as evidenced by the use of fly in (3), this lexical conceptappears to be restricted to entities that are capable ofbecoming airborne by turbulence and can be con-trolled by an agent on the ground. This lexical conceptappears to be specialised for objects like kites andmodel/remote controlled aeroplanes.

The final lexical concept, glossed as [suspension oflightweight object], selects for entities that can besupported by virtue of air turbulence but remain ‘con-nected to’ the ground. This lexical concept applies toflags as well as hair and scarves, which can ‘fly’ in thewind.

lexicon-grammar continuum The idea that while thereis a qualitative distinction between linguistic unitsencoded by open class forms and closed class formsrespectively, there is not a principled distinctionbetween the two. In other words, in cognitive linguis-tics it is assumed that ‘lexical’ and ‘grammatical’ unitsare both inherently meaningful, a consequence of thesymbolic thesis. From this perspective, there is no prin-cipled distinction between a mental lexicon and asyntax component. Rather, lexical items and gram-matical elements are conceived as forming a con-tinuum. (See also content meaning, linguistic unit,schematic meaning.)

lingueme An element of language that is realised in anutterance and that can therefore count as a replicator.A lingueme includes sound segments, words, mor-phemes and grammatical constructions. Crucially, justas each utterance is a unique usage event, so each


lingueme is also unique. (See also Utterance SelectionTheory.)

linguistic relativity (also Principle of Linguistic Relativity,Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) The view that the languageone speaks affects or determines how you see theworld, most famously expounded in the writings ofBenjamin Lee Whorf in the 1930s and 1940s, but alsoinfluenced by the work of Whorf’s teacher, EdwardSapir. The so-called ‘strong’ version of the principle oflinguistic relativity holds that non-linguistic thought isconstrained by the categories made available by thelanguage one speaks. The ‘weak version’ suggests thatthe language one speaks may influence non-linguisticthought. In recent years evidence has begun to amasssupporting the ‘weak’ version. Cognitive linguistics iscompatible with a ‘weak’ version of the linguistic rela-tivity principle known as ‘neo-Whorfianism’ mostfamously expounded by John Lucy.

linguistic unit (also symbolic unit) A general term for thefundamental unit of language. This term is sometimesemployed in cognitive linguistics in place of theory-specific terms such as symbolic assembly and con-struction (1). Cognitive linguists hold that a linguisticunit consists of a conventional pairing of a semanticunit and a form unit, pairing meaning with form.Linguistic units include so-called inflectional mor-phemes such as the plural marker ‘-s’ as in toys, mean-ingful parts of words such as ‘-er’ in teacher, wordssuch as cat, complex words such as cats made up of‘cat’ and ‘-s’, idioms such as He kicked the bucket, andsentence level grammatical constructions such as theditransitive construction, with the schematic meaningx caused y to receive z, and the form subject verb


object1 object2 as exemplified by the sentence Johngave Mary a bouquet of flowers.

location One of the four schematic categories in the per-spectival system. This category relates to the locationthat a perspective point occupies relative to a givenutterance. The linguistic system of deixis, for example,works by signalling perspective relative to thespeaker’s location, and deictic expressions are theninterpreted with respect to that point of reference. Forinstance, in the following examples the perspectivepoint from which the scene is described is different. In(1), the perspective point is located inside the room,while in (2) the perspective point is located outside theroom.

1. The door slowly opened and two men walked in2. Two men slowly opened the door and walked in

This distinction in perspective point is achieved byclosed class forms. In (1), the subject of the sentence isthe door, which is the theme: a passive entity whoselocation or state is described. In this example, open isan intransitive verb: it requires no object. In example(2), the subject of the sentence is two men, which is theagent: the entity that intentionally performs theaction of opening the door. In this example, open istransitive (it requires an object: the door). What comesfirst in the sentence (the subject) corresponds to whatis viewed first by the human experiencer, and this pro-vides us with clues for reconstructing the perspectivepoint. In (1), as the initiator(s) of the action are notmentioned, we deduce that the initiators of the actionare not visible. From this we conclude that the per-spective point must be inside the room. In (2) the ini-tiators of the event are mentioned first, so we deduce


that the perspective point is exterior to the room. (Seealso conceptual system, direction, distance, mode.)

Many Space Model see Blending Theory

mapping One of the factors which governs the attentionalsystem in the conceptual structuring system. Mappinggoverns the way in which parts of an attention patternare mapped onto parts of the scene described by a lin-guistic utterance. (See also Conceptual StructuringSystem Approach.)

mappings Correspondences between entities inhering inregions of the conceptual system. Some mappings arerelatively stable and persist in long-term memory whileothers are temporary associations set up due todynamic processes of meaning-construction. Mappingswhich hold in long-term memory are most commonlyassociated with Conceptual Metaphor Theory and areknown as cross-domain mappings. Mappings whichare more temporary in nature and serve to associatetwo regions of conceptual space for the purposes ofsituated understanding are most commonly associatedwith processes of conceptual projection dealt with inMental Spaces Theory.

matching In Blending Theory, the operation wherebycounterparts in input spaces are identified by virtue ofstructure in a generic space. (See also blended space,conceptual integration, integration network.)

material anchor A physical artefact which both representsand serves as a physical reminder/symbol of a particular

M


integration network. A material anchor can also beemployed in order to prompt for the (re-)constructionof a given integration network. Rituals, for instance,often employ material anchors. In the case of HolyCommunion, a ritual in various Christian denomina-tions, the bread and the wine that are consumed by wor-shippers are material anchors which both embody andfacilitate the conceptual integration (the union betweenthe human and the divine). Similarly, the wedding ringin the western marriage ritual is a material anchor. Thering both embodies the conceptual integration, repre-senting an unbroken link, and also has a performativefunction as part of a ritual: the act of placing the ring(which embodies an unbroken link) on the betrothed’sfinger serves, in part, to join two individuals in matri-mony. (See also Blending Theory.)

meaning-construction is conceptualisation The fourth ofthe guiding principles of cognitive semantics. Assertsthat language itself does not encode meaning. Instead,words (and other linguistic units) are treated as‘prompts’ for the construction of meaning. Accor-dingly, meaning is constructed at the conceptual level(or level C). Meaning-construction is equated withconceptualisation, a process whereby linguistic unitsserve as prompts for an array of conceptual operationsand the recruitment of background knowledge. Onthis view, meaning is a process rather than a discrete‘thing’ that can be ‘packaged’ by language. (See alsocognitive semantics.)

meaning potential A term coined by Jens Allwood.Relates to the notion that word-meaning is a functionof encyclopaedic knowledge plus knowledge of theway the word has been used in the past. On this view,


words do not have fixed meanings but only a potentialfor activation based on interpretation in context.

meaning representation is encyclopaedic The third of theguiding principles of cognitive semantics. Holds thatsemantic structure is encyclopaedic in nature. Thismeans that a lexical concept does not represent aneatly packaged bundle of meaning (the so-called ‘dic-tionary view’). Rather, lexical concepts serve as accesssites to vast repositories of knowledge relating to a par-ticular concept, conceptual domain (1) or cognitivemodel. (See also cognitive semantics, encyclopaedicsemantics, LCCM Theory.)

megablend (also multiple blend) While the ‘basic’ inte-gration network consists of four mental spaces: ageneric space, two input spaces and a blended space, inreality, it is common, and indeed the norm, for blendedspaces to function as inputs for further conceptualblending and reblending. The result of such recursiveconceptual integration involving numerous inputspaces is a megablend. An example of a megablend isthe grim reaper blend illustrated in Figure 22.

This is a highly conventional cultural blend in whichdeath is personified as the grim reaper. This blendderives from an integration network consisting of threeinputs, one of which is itself a blend consisting of twoprior inputs. The Grim Reaper, as depicted in iconog-raphy since mediaeval times, is represented as ahooded skeleton holding a scythe.

There are three inputs to the grim reaper blend.These relate to three agents: (1) a reaper, who uses ascythe to cut down plants; (2) a killer, who murdersa victim; and (3) death, which brings about the deathof an individual. Observe that the third agent is


non-human: death is an abstract agent. In otherwords, death-as-agent is itself a metaphoric blend,in which death and agency (human animacy andvolition) have been blended, giving rise to the person-ification of death. In the grim reaper blend, theagent is death, and this agent causes death bykilling. The manner of killing is reaping (the use ofthe scythe). The reaper is grim because death is theoutcome of his reaping. The physical appearance ofthe Grim Reaper metonymically represents each of thethree main inputs to the blend. The skeleton stands fordeath, which is the outcome; the hood that hidesthe reaper’s face represents the concealment that oftencharacterises killers; and the scythe stands for the


Figure 22. The grim reaper blend

•MANNER• SPECIFIC

EVENT OFDYING

•INDIVIDUAL

•AGENCY•CAUSE•MEANS•TYPE OF EVENT

HUMAN DEATH AGENCY

• DEATH-AS-AGENT

•CAUSE•EVENT OF DYING•SPECIFIC MEANS

OF DEATH•PERSON WHO

DIES

• KILLER• CAUSE• DYING• MURDER• VICTIM

• REAPER• CAUSE• BEING CUT

DOWN• REAPS• CROPS

REAPERKILLER

DEATH

•DEATH THE GRIMREAPER

•REAPING/KILLING/CAUSINGDEATH PLANT/VICTIM/PERSONWHO DIES

Blend

•

manner of killing, deriving from the reaper input.Finally, the Grim Reaper emerges from the blendrather than from any of the input spaces. (See alsoBlending Theory.)

mental space Mental spaces are regions of conceptualspace that contain specific kinds of information. Theyare constructed on the basis of generalised linguistic,pragmatic and cultural strategies for recruiting infor-mation. The hallmark of a mental space, as opposed toother cognitive entities such as a conceptual metaphor,a semantic frame, an idealised cognitive model or adomain (1), is that mental spaces are constructed ‘on-line’, in the moment of speaking or thinking, and canbe structured by other cognitive entities includingsemantic frames, idealised cognitive models or domainsby a process known as schema induction. Thus amental space results in a unique and temporary ‘packet’of conceptual structure, constructed for purposes spe-cific to the ongoing discourse. The principles of mentalspace formation and the relations or mappings estab-lished between mental spaces have the potential to yieldunlimited meanings. Mental spaces are set up by space-builders, and can contain one or more of the followingsorts of information type: an element, a property and arelation. Mental space construction begins with the for-mation of a base space relative to which other mentalspaces are built. A series of connected mental spaces arereferred to as a mental spaces lattice. (See also AccessPrinciple, base space, event space, focus space, MentalSpaces Theory, viewpoint space.)

mental spaces lattice Once a mental space has been con-structed, it is linked to the other mental spaces estab-lished during discourse. As discourse proceeds, mental


spaces proliferate giving rise to a mental spaces lattice.This is illustrated in Figure 23.

The circles represent the mental spaces and thedotted lines indicate links between spaces. The basespace is the first space to be formed in the lattice. (Seealso Mental Spaces Theory.)

Mental Spaces Theory A theory of dynamic meaning-construction developed in particular by GillesFauconnier and extended in the work of SeanaCoulson, Barbara Dancygier, Eve Sweetser and others.Mental Spaces Theory also forms the basis for BlendingTheory. The central insight of Mental Spaces Theory isthat when we think and speak, we set up mental spaces.A mental space serves to recruit temporary structure


Figure 23. A mental spaces lattice

Base

from the local discourse context as well as recruitingstructure from long-term memory via a process knownas schema induction. As talk unfolds and thought pro-ceeds, mental spaces proliferate, with new mentalspaces being formed relative to others. This gives riseto a mental spaces lattice. Language provides conven-tional prompts for the formation of a given mentalspace, but mental space construction and the formationof a mental spaces lattice is subject to non-linguisticcognitive principles, especially the Access Principle andthe Optimisation Principle.

Mental Spaces Theory arose as an attempt to accountfor long-standing problems in philosophy of language.In particular, Mental Spaces Theory sought to accountfor various problems of linguistic reference. By propos-ing that discourse is partitioned into distinct mentalspaces which contain counterparts and connectorsholding between them, Mental Spaces Theory providedan elegant solution to issues which had previouslyappeared intractable. (See also backstage cognition.)

metaphor (also conceptual metaphor) A form of concep-tual projection involving mappings or correspon-dences holding between distinct conceptual domains.Conceptual metaphors often consist of a series of con-ventional mappings which relate aspects of two dis-tinct conceptual domains. The purpose of such a set ofmappings is to provide structure from one conceptualdomain, the source domain, by projecting the structureonto the target domain. This allows inferences whichhold in the source to be applied to the target. For thisreason, conceptual metaphors are claimed to be a basicand indispensable instrument of thought.

For instance, the conceptual metaphor love is ajourney serves to structure the target domain love in


terms of the source domain journey which allows us tothink and talk about love in terms of journeys. Ametaphor of this kind is made up of a number of con-ventional mappings stored in long-term memory. Hence,the travellers from the domain of journey are conven-tionally mapped onto that of lovers in the domain oflove, the notion of vehicle is mapped onto that of thelove relationship and so on, as illustrated below:

source: journey → target: lovethe travellers → the loversthe vehicle → the love relationshipthe journey → events in the relationshipthe distance covered → the progress madethe obstacles

encountered → the difficulties experienceddecisions about which

way to go → choices about what to dodestination of the

journey → goals of the relationship

This conceptual metaphor motivates a wide range oflinguistic utterances of which the following are illus-trative: Look how far we’ve come; Our relationship isat a crossroads; We’ll just have to go our separateways; Their marriage has been a long bumpy road; andso forth. Sentences of this kind, while ostensibly refer-ring to the language of travel, for instance a bumpyroad, represent a conventional means of describingaspects of a love relationship, for example the difficul-ties experienced.

Although there are a number of different motivationsfor, and kinds of, metaphors, Conceptual MetaphorTheory emphasises the experiential basis of many ofthe metaphors described. In other words, conceptualmetaphors are often grounded in the nature of human


interaction with the socio-physical world of embodiedexperience. (See also compound metaphor, correlation-based metaphor, discourse metaphor, generic-levelmetaphor, image metaphor, metaphor system, meta-phoric entailment, primary metaphor, resemblance-based metaphor, specific-level metaphor).

metaphor from metonymy One way in which metaphorand metonymy can interact and thus one kind of themore general phenomenon known as metaphtonymy.In this form of interaction, a metaphor is grounded ina metonymic relationship. For example, the expressionclose-lipped can mean ‘silent’, which follows frommetonymy: when one has one’s lips closed, one is(usually) silent, therefore to describe someone as close-lipped can stand metonymically for silence. However,close-lipped can also mean ‘speaking but giving littleaway’. This interpretation is metaphoric, because weunderstand the absence of meaningful information interms of silence. The metaphoric interpretation has ametonymic basis, in that it is only because beingclosed-lipped can stand for silence that the metaphoricreading is possible: thus metaphor from metonymy.(See also metonymy within metaphor.)

metaphor system The idea, developed in the work ofGeorge Lakoff and Mark Johnson, that metaphoricallanguage appears to relate to an underlying ‘system ofthought’. In particular, the conceptual system is held inConceptual Metaphor Theory to be structured by asystem of metaphors which work together in order tocomplement one another and which inherit structurefrom each other. A good example of this phenomenonis the Event Structure Metaphor. (See also inheritance(1), metaphor.)


metaphoric blend A metaphor analysed from the per-spective of Blending Theory. From this perspec-tive metaphors involve ‘frame-projection asymmetry’:while both input spaces contain a distinct frame, it isonly the frame from one of these inputs (the sourcedomain in Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the framinginput in Blending Theory) that is projected to theblended space. Although a single scope network is theprototype for a metaphoric blend, other kinds of inte-gration network can exhibit frame-projection asym-metry to varying degrees and thus can be considered tobe metaphoric blends. Such an example is the diggingyour own grave blend, which is discussed in the entryfor double-scope network.

metaphoric entailment In addition to the cross-domainmappings that conceptual metaphors bring with them,they can also provide additional, sometimes quitedetailed knowledge. This is because aspects of thesource domain that are not explicitly stated in the map-pings can be inferred and mapped onto the sourcedomain by specific linguistic utterances. In this way,metaphoric mappings can carry rich inferences knownas metaphoric entailments. Consider the followingexamples which relate to the conceptual metaphor anargument is a journey:

1. We will proceed in a step-by-step fashion2. We have covered a lot of ground

In this metaphor, participants in the argument corre-spond to travellers, the argument itself corre-sponds to a journey and the progress of theargument corresponds to the route taken. However,in the source domain journey, travellers can get lost,they can stray from the path, they can fail to reach their


destination and so on. The association between sourceand target gives rise to the entailment (the obligatoryinference) that these events can also occur in the targetdomain argument. This is illustrated by the examplesbelow which illustrate that structure that holds in thesource domain can be inferred as holding in the targetdomain.

3. I got lost in the argument4. We digressed from the main point5. He failed to reach the conclusion6. I couldn’t follow the argument

(See also Conceptual Metaphor Theory.)

metaphorical extension links One of a number ofinheritance links between constructions posited inConstruction Grammar (2). Involves a type of of inher-itance (2) in which some constructions are metaphori-cal extensions of other constructions. For instance, inthe following utterance: John gave Mary a kiss, theindependently motivated conceptual metaphor: acausal event is physical transfer motivates theextension of the ditransitive construction. That is,ditransitive syntax, which encodes successful physicaltransfer, is being employed to encode metaphoricaltransfer of a non-physical entity: a kiss. Thus this rep-resents a metaphorical instance of the ditransitiveconstruction and thus is linked to the ditransitive con-struction by a metaphorical extension link. (See alsoconstruction (1).)

metaphtonymy The phenomenon, studied by LouisGoossens, in which metaphor and metonymy interact.While Goossens identified a number of logically possi-ble ways in which metaphor and metonymy could


potentially interact, he found that only two of theselogically possible interactions were commonly attested.These are known as metaphor from metonymy andmetonymy within metaphor.

metonymic ICM An ICM that comes to stand for theentire category of which it is a member. This can workin two ways. Firstly, an ICM can be a sub-category ofa cluster model and come to stand for the entire clustermodel. For instance, the cluster model for mothermay include at least the following ICMs: the birthmodel,the genetic model, the nurturance model,the marital model and the genealogical model.One of these can, via metonymy, come to stand for theentire cluster of ICMs.

Secondly, an individual member of a category cancome to stand for the category as a whole giving rise toa metonymic ICM. Metonymic ICMs of this kindinclude the following: social stereotypes, typical exam-ples, ideals, paragons, generators and salient examples.

An important consequence of a metonymic ICM isthat by standing for the whole category, it serves as a‘cognitive reference point’, setting up norms andexpectations against which other members of the cat-egory are evaluated and assessed. It follows thatmetonymic ICMs give rise to typicality effects, as othermembers of the category are judged as atypical relativeto the metonymic model.

Metonymy (also conceptual metonymy) A conceptualoperation in which one entity, the vehicle, can beemployed in order to identify another entity, the target(1), with which it is associated. As with conceptualmetaphor, conceptual metonymy licenses linguisticexpressions. Consider the following utterance, in which


one waitress is addressing another in a restaurant anddescribes a customer in the following way: Be careful,the ham sandwich has wandering hands. This use of theexpression ham sandwich represents an instance ofmetonymy: two entities are associated so that one entity(the item the customer ordered) stands for the other (thecustomer). As this example demonstrates, linguisticmetonymy is referential in nature: it relates to the use ofexpressions to ‘pinpoint’ entities in order to talk aboutthem. This shows that metonymy functions differentlyfrom metaphor. For this utterance to be metaphoricalwe would need to understand ham sandwich not as anexpression referring to the customer who ordered it butin terms of a food item with human qualities. On thisinterpretation, we would be attributing human qualitiesto a ham sandwich, motivated by the metaphor aninanimate entity is an agent. As these two quite dis-tinct interpretations show, while metonymy is the con-ceptual relation ‘X stands for Y’, metaphor is theconceptual relation ‘X understood in terms of Y’.

A further key distinction between metonymy andmetaphor is that while metaphor involves cross-domainmappings, metonymy involves a mapping within asingle domain (2) or domain matrix. This idea hasbeen developed in particular in the work of ZoltánKövecses and Günter Radden. Recent work in cognitivesemantics, particularly that associated with AntonioBarcelona, has argued that metonymy may be morebasic than metaphor and may motivate metaphor. Someconventional conceptual metonymies, with examples,are provided below.

The vehicle is italicised in each case.

producer for productI’ve just bought a new Citröen


Pass me the Shakespeare on the top shelfShe likes eating Burger King

place for eventIraq nearly cost Tony Blair the premiershipAmerican public opinion fears another VietnamLet’s hope that Beijing will be as successful an Olympics

as Athens

place for institutionDowning Street refused commentParis and Washington are having a spatEurope has upped the stakes in the trade war with the

United States

part for wholeMy wheels are parked out the backLend me a handShe’s not just a pretty face

whole for partEngland beat Australia in the 2003 Rugby World Cup

finalThe European Union has just passed new human rights

legislationMy car has developed a mechanical fault

effect for causeHe has a long faceHe has a spring in his step todayHer face is beaming

(See also Domain Highlighting Model, metaphtonymy.)

metonymy within metaphor One way in which metaphorand metonymy can interact, and thus one kind of themore general phenomenon known as metaphtonymy.To illustrate, consider the following example: She


caught the Prime Minister’s ear and persuaded him toaccept her plan. This example is licensed by themetaphor attention is a moving physical entity,according to which attention is understood as amoving entity that has to be ‘caught’ (the minister’sear). However, within this metaphor there is also themetonymy ear for attention, in which ear is thebody part that functions as the vehicle for the conceptof attention in the metaphor. In this example, theinstance of metonymy is ‘inside’ the metaphor. (Seealso metaphor from metonymy.)

micro-sense see sub-sense

mimesis (also bodily mimesis) According to evolutionarypsychologist Merlin Donald, a form of cognitive rep-resentation that was crucial to the development of thecognitively modern mind, and advanced symbolic abil-ities such as ritual, narrative, language and so on.Mimesis involves, among other things, the ability touse a body part and the motion associated with thebody part in order to represent some action, object orevent and, crucially, for this representation to beintended by the subject to stand for the action, objector event in question. Thus mimesis forms the basis forbody-based representation and communication. Thenotion of mimesis has come to be influential in cogni-tive linguistics in terms of the development of thenotion of the mimetic schema.

mimetic schema A form of body-based representationproposed by Jordan Zlatev which builds on the notionof mimesis and which is hypothesised to ground lin-guistic meaning. The mimetic schema is also claimedto be superior to the related construct of image


schema. Mimetic schemas have a number of propertiesassociated with them, some of which include: the viewthat they are based on bodily action and are thus body-based, that they are representational in that they standfor a particular object, action or event, that they areaccessible to consciousness, that they are specific, eachone constituting a generalisation over a particularbodily act, and finally that they can be pre-reflectivelyshared, in the sense that they can be imitated and thus‘shared’ via cultural exposure.

mirror network A type of integration network in which allthe mental spaces in the network share a commonframe, including the blended space. An example of amirror network is the boat race blend discussed byGilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner. In this blend, the1993 sea journey by the modern catamaran GreatAmerican II is conceptualised as a race against the‘ghost’ of the clipper Northern Light which establisheda record for the run from San Francisco to Boston in1853, 140 years earlier. Each mental space in this inte-gration network contains the frame in which a boatfollows a course. Accordingly, as each mental spacereflects the frame contained by the others, for thisreason it is given the appellation ‘mirror’. For adiagram of the boat race blend see the entry for outer-space relation. (See also Blending Theory, double scopenetwork, simplex network, single scope network.)

mode One of the four schematic categories in the per-spectival system. This category relates to whether aperspective point is in motion or not. This interactswith distance, where ‘distal’ tends to correlate with‘stationary’ and ‘proximal’ with ‘moving’. If the per-spective point is stationary, it is in ‘synoptic mode’. If


the perspective point is moving, it is in ‘sequentialmode’. This is illustrated by the following examples:

1. Max had seen some houses [synoptic]through the car window

2. Max kept seeing houses through [sequential]the car window

The example in (1) invokes the perspective of a fixedvantage point. In contrast, (2) invokes a motion per-spective, as a result of which the houses are seen oneor some at a time. (See also conceptual system, direc-tion, location.)

modular approach An approach informed by the modulartheory of mind. This theory, associated in particularwith formal linguistics, is also explored in other areasof cognitive science such as philosophy and cognitivepsychology. It holds that the human mind is organisedinto distinct ‘encapsulated’ modules of knowledge, oneof which is language, and that these modules serve to‘digest’ raw sensory input in such a way that it can thenbe processed by the central cognitive system (involvingdeduction, reasoning, memory and so on). Cognitivelinguists specifically reject the claim that there is a dis-tinct language module.

The claim that language is an encapsulated moduleamounts to the assertion that linguistic structure andorganisation are markedly distinct from other aspectsof cognition. From the perspective of formal linguis-tics, this theory entails that language can be studiedindependently of other aspects of cognitive function.Moreover, formal linguists also treat language itself asmodular. Thus the various ‘knowledge systems’ thatmake up linguistic knowledge, including phonology,semantics and syntax, are encapsulated sub-modules


of the language module. Accordingly, they too can bestudied independently of one another as they are heldto be structured in wholly distinct ways. Cognitive lin-guists also reject the claim that language consists ofwholly distinct sub-modules.

monosemy Associated with work in lexical semanticsfrom the perspective of formal linguistics. Whileformal lexical semanticists have long recognised theexistence of polysemy, it has generally been viewed asa surface phenomenon, in the sense that lexical entriesare underspecified (abstract and lacking in detail), andare ‘filled in’ either by context as argued by CharlesRuhl, or by the application of certain kinds of lexicalgenerative devices as proposed by James Pustejovsky.According to this view, polysemy is epiphenomenal,emerging from a monosemous lexical entry. Accordingto this monosemy perspective, at the conceptual levela linguistic unit such as a word has a single relativelyabstract meaning from which other senses (such as therange of meanings associated with over) are derived.Work in cognitive lexical semantics has typicallyargued against a monosemy perspective, preferring toview surface polysemy as reflecting conceptual reality.

motivation Relates to relationships between construc-tions in Construction Grammar (2). Specifically, moti-vation concerns the degree to which the properties ofa given construction (1) are predictable with respect toanother construction. This notion is formalised as thePrinciple of Maximised Motivation. (See also inheri-tance (2).)

moving ego model An ego-based cognitive model fortime. In this cognitive model, time is a landscape over


which the ego moves, and is understood by virtue ofthe motion of the ego across this landscape, towardsspecific temporal moments and events that are con-ceptualised as locations. As with the moving timemodel, the central inference which arises has to dowith the location of temporal events relative to the sub-jective experience of now. However, in addition, timeis conceptualised in terms of units or amounts, byvirtue of it being conceptualised in terms of a spatiallandscape that can be divided.

This model is illustrated in Figure 24. In the diagramthe small circles on the landscape represent future‘times’ towards which the ego moves, while ‘times’that the ego has already moved beyond now lie in thepast. The ego’s motion is represented by the directionof the arrow.

Evidence for linguistic encoding of the moving egomodel comes from examples such as the following:

1. We’re moving towards Christmas2. We’re approaching my favourite part of the piece3. She’s passed the deadline4. We’ll have an answer within two weeks5. The meetings were spread out over a month

(See also Aymara, temporal sequence model, time-based cognitive model for time.)


Figure 24. The moving ego model

PAST PRESENT FUTURE

Ego

moving time model An ego-based cognitive model fortime. In this cognitive model, there is an ego (the sub-jective experiencer), who may either be implicit orlinguistically coded by expressions such as I. Theego’s location represents the experience of ‘now’.In this model, and unlike the moving ego model, theego is static. Temporal moments and events are con-ceptualised as objects in motion. These objects movetowards the ego from the future and then beyondthe ego into the past. It is by virtue of this motionthat the passage of time is understood. As with themoving ego model, the central inference to derivefrom this cognitive model has to do with the ‘loca-tion’ of temporal events as being past or futurein nature with respect to the ego. This contrastswith the temporal sequence model which is con-cerned not with past/future but rather an earlier/ laterrelation.

This model is set out diagrammatically in Figure 25.The small dark circles represent ‘times’, and the arrowconnecting the ‘times’ indicates motion of the ‘times’towards and past the ego.

Linguistic evidence for this cognitive model comesfrom examples such as the following:

1. Christmas is getting closer2. My favourite part of the piece is coming up


Figure 25. The moving time model

PAST PRESENT FUTURE

Ego

3. The deadline has passed

(See also Aymara, time-based cognitive model fortime.)

multiple blend see megablend

multiplex trajector A trajector that involves multiple enti-ties as in the following example: the sand all over thefloor. The sand here represents a multiple trajector asthe example designates all the points in space at whichthe trajectory, the sand, and the landmark, the floor,are related.

network model In Cognitive Grammar, Ronald Langackerproposes a network model in order to account for thestructure of grammatical categories. In this model,members of a category are viewed as nodes in a complexnetwork, analogous to the notion of the radial categoryassociated with George Lakoff in the development ofcognitive lexical semantics. In the network model, thelinks between nodes in a network arise from a numberof different kinds of categorising relationships that holdbetween the symbolic assemblies stored in the gram-matical inventory. One categorising relationship isextension from a prototype, represented as [A] → [B],where A is the prototype and B shares some but not allattributes of A and is thus categorised as an instanceof that category. A second type of categorising relation-ship is schema-instance organisation, represented as[A] → [B]. The schema structures those symbolic assem-blies related to it as a category within the network,and novel expressions can be compared against such

N


categories. The network grows ‘upwards’ via schemati-sation ‘outwards’ via extension and ‘downwards’ asmore detailed instances are added. Figure 26 illustratesthe network model.

Neural Theory of Language A project involving linguistsand cognitive scientists attempting to use computa-tional techniques in order to model the way in whichthe brain gives rise to linguistic organisation and pro-cessing. This project adopts the view of languagedeveloped in cognitive linguistics and is associatedwith Jerome Feldman, George Lakoff and theirvarious collaborators.

nominal predication In Cognitive Grammar, a nominalpredication relates to the schematic meaning encodedby nouns and noun phrases (nominals). The term‘predication’ relates to meaning and refers to thesemantic pole of a symbolic assembly. Nominal predi-cations are conceptually autonomous. (See also rela-tional predication.)

normal replication The linguemes in any given utteranceare usually associated with a conventional meaning.


Figure 26. The network model

SCHEMA

PROTOTYPE EXTENSION

Normal replication occurs when linguemes are used inaccordance with the conventions of the language. (Seealso altered replication, lingueme, replicator, UtteranceSelection Theory.)

objective construal A form of construal in which there isexplicit dependence on the ground and thus the contextof the utterance, including participants, time of thespeech event and so on. The greater the attention uponthe ground, the greater the objectivity of construal.Speaker and hearer are usually subjectively construedor ‘off-stage’, and only become objectively construed or‘on-stage’ when linguistically profiled by expressionssuch as I or you. For example, if Max utters the firstperson pronoun I, he places himself in the foregroundas an object of perception. In this way, the speaker isobjectified, giving rise to objective construal. (See alsosubjective construal.)

Objectivist Semantics The general label applied bycognitive linguists (particularly Gilles Fauconnier,George Lakoff and Ronald Langacker in theirwritings) to formal approaches to semantics whichassume that language refers to a mind-independent‘objective’ reality. In contrast, Fauconnier, Lakoff,Langacker and others assume that when languagerefers to external reality it always does so indirectly,by virtue of referring to concepts which inhere inthe conceptual system. On this view, the concep-tual system constitutes our knowledge-base concern-ing the world ‘out there’ and thus our projectedreality. In essence, cognitive linguists take what issometimes termed a ‘representational’ rather than a

O


‘denotational’ view of linguistic reference. (See alsocognitive linguistics.)

open class forms A set of linguistic forms to which it is typ-ically easier for a language to add new members. InEnglish these are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.In terms of the meaning contributed by the closed classelements they provide content meaning. They con-tribute to the interpretation of an utterance by utilisingthe schematic meaning provided by closed class formsin order to provide rich content. (See also conceptualcontent system.)

optimality principles see governing principles

Optimisation Principle In Mental Spaces Theory, the prin-ciple that allows counterparts of an element, togetherwith properties and relations, to spread through themental spaces lattice. The Optimisation Principle guar-antees that structure propagates downwards throughthe mental spaces lattice, unless the information beingpropagated is explicitly contradicted by some newinformation that emerges as the discourse proceeds.This principle enables mental space configurations tobuild complex structures with a minimum of explicitinstructions. (See also Access Principle, backstage cog-nition, mental space.)

overt closed class forms These are closed class formsthat have conventional phonetic realisation. Overtclosed class forms can be bound morphemes (forexample, inflectional morphemes such as the -splural marker as in dogs) or free morphemes (forexample, English determiners such as the or a, orprepositions such as in or over). Closed class forms


which are overt contrast with implicit closed classforms.

outer-space relation In an integration network, an outer-space relation is a vital relation that holds betweencounterparts across input spaces. This contrasts withthe notion of an inner-space relation.

To illustrate, consider the boat race blend, discussedby Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner, and promptedfor by the following utterance: As we went to press,Rich Wilson and Bill Biewenga were barely maintain-ing a 4.5 day lead over the ghost of the clipperNorthern Light. This example relates to a 1993 newsstory in which a modern catamaran Great AmericanII, sailed by Wilson and Biewenga, set out on a routefrom San Francisco to Boston. A record for this routehad been set in 1853 by the clipper Northern Light,which had made the journey in 76 days and 8 hours.This record still held in 1993. The utterance aboveprompts for an integration network in which there aretwo input spaces: one relating to the journey of themodern catamaran in 1993 and the other relating tothe original journey undertaken by the Northern Lightin 1853. The generic space contains schematic infor-mation relating to boats and journeys, which moti-vates matching and thus cross-space connectorsbetween counterparts in the two input spaces. In theblended space, we have two boats: Great American IIand Northern Light. Moreover, in the blend the twoboats are engaged in a race by virtue of schema induc-tion which recruits a race frame. In this boat raceblend, the modern catamaran is conceptualised asbarely maintaining a lead over the Northern Light.The integration network just described is illustrated inFigure 27.


The outer-space vital relations are designated by thelines relating counterparts in the input spaces. Thevital relation that connects the catamaran/clipper andWilson and Biewenga/crew is that of identity. Theouter-space vital relation connecting the two dates1853 and 1993 is that of time. The outer-space rela-tion connecting the specific locations on the course ofthe two boats at any given point during their respec-tive journeys is that of space. (See also BlendingTheory.)

over One of the most well-studied words of recent times.In a pioneering 1981 Master’s thesis Claudia Brugman


Figure 27. The boat race blend

CATAMARAN1993

WILSON &BIEWENGA

LOCATION ONCOURSE

CLIPPER1853

CREWLOCATION ON

COURSE

Input 2Input 1

BOATDATECREW

COURSE

Generic space

CATAMARAN/CLIPPER 1993

Blend

Additional structure derived from the blend: Great American II is maintaining a slim lead in a race against Northern Light.

RACE frameTwo or more participantscompeting over same course andat same time. First placedcompetitor is the winner.

RELATIVE LOCATIONON COURSE

WILSON&BIEWENGA

carried out a detailed study of over showing the moti-vated nature of word-meaning, arguing that over couldbe analysed as a single category of related or polyse-mous senses. George Lakoff made Brugman’s researchfamous with his 1987 case study. In particular, Lakoffargued that over could be treated as a radial category,organised with respect to a prototype, modelled interms of a semantic network and exhibiting the phe-nomenon known as chaining. Lakoff argued that thedistinct senses that populated the semantic network forover could be modelled in terms of image schemas, andthat chaining was facilitated by extensions due to con-ceptual metaphor and image schema transformations.For instance, Lakoff argued that the central imageschema for over could be set out diagrammatically asin Figure 28.

Moreover, he argued that this central image schemarelates to utterances of the following kind: The planeflew over, where TR stands for trajector, LM for land-mark and the arrow signals the direction of the trajec-tor, here the plane.


Figure 28. Central image schema for over

TR

LM

One consequence of Lakoff’s perspective was that headopted a highly granular approach to polysemyknown as the full-specification model. Work on overby Brugman and Lakoff has inspired the research par-adigm known as cognitive lexical semantics. Morerecently, other scholars who have worked on overinclude Andrea Tyler and Vyvyan Evans who inresponse to problems with Lakoff’s account developedthe approach known as Principled Polysemy.

paragons A kind of metonymic ICM. Individual categorymembers that represent ideals are paragons. Forinstance, a car manufactured by Rolls-Royce repre-sents a paragon in terms of luxury cars, NelsonMandela represents a paragon in terms of politicalleaders, Winston Churchill in terms of war leaders,and so on. Because paragons stand for an entire cate-gory, they set up norms and expectations against whichother members of the category may be evaluated. Forinstance, the comment, ‘He’s no Nelson Mandela’about a particular political leader may represent a neg-ative assessment as to the leader’s altruism and soforth. In this way, paragons give rise to typicalityeffects. (See also generators, ideals, salient examples,social stereotypes, typical examples.)

parameters of focal adjustment There are three parame-ters along which a focal adjustment can vary. The threeparameters are: (1) selection; (2) perspective; and (3)abstraction (2). Together, these parameters provide dif-ferent ways of focusing attention upon, and thus pro-viding a unique construal of, a scene. This is set outdiagrammatically in Figure 29.

P


participant roles In Construction Grammar (2), the ‘slots’encoded by a particular verb which determine whatparticipant types can be combined with the verb. Thisfollows from the assumption that the semantics of anyverb are relativised to a semantic frame. The semanticframe is, in turn, held to determine the participantsthat can be associated with the verb. For example, theverb buy might be associated with the participant rolesbuyer, seller and goods, while the verb sing mightbe associated with the participant roles singer andsong. (See also argument roles, fusion (1).)

pattern One of the factors which governs the attentionalsystem in the conceptual structuring system. Relates tothe way in which patterns of attention are organised.There are three kinds of pattern: focus of attention,window of attention and level of attention. (See alsoConceptual Structuring System Approach, mapping,strength.)


Figure 29. The relationship between focal adjustments andconstrual

Focal adjustments:can vary in terms of …

selection perspective abstraction

… giving rise toconstruals

pattern completion see completion

pattern of distribution One of the schematic categories inthe configurational system. Pattern of distributionrelates to how matter is distributed through space, orhow action is distributed through time. This categoryis illustrated in Table 10 by action through time asencoded by verbs.

These patterns can be explained as follows. Whiledying represents a change of state from which its par-ticipant cannot emerge, falling represents a change ofstate from which its participant can emerge (if you fallyou can get up again). If a light flashes, it goes fromdark to light and back to dark again, which representsa cyclical change of state. Repeating the cycle is not anintrinsic part of flashing (because a light can flash onlyonce), while it is an intrinsic part of breathing. In con-trast to all of these, which involve some internalchange, sleep represents a steady or unchanging state.(See also axiality, boundedness, Conceptual StructuringSystem Approach, degree of extension, dividedness,plexity, schematic systems.)

pattern-finding ability One of two general cognitive skillsthat enables humans to acquire language. This abil-ity allows humans to recognise patterns and perform


Table 10. Pattern of distribution

Pattern of distribution Example

One-way non-resettable (to) dieOne-way resettable (to) fallFull-cycle (to) flashMultiplex (to) breatheSteady-state (to) sleep

‘statistical’ analysis over sequences of perceptualinput, including the auditory stream that constitutesspoken language. Pre-linguistic infants – childrenunder a year old – employ this ability in order toabstract across utterances and find repeated patternsthat allow them to construct linguistic units. It is thispattern-finding ability that underlies the abstractionprocess assumed in Cognitive Grammar.

Infant pattern-finding skills are not limited to lan-guage. Researchers have also found that infantsdemonstrate the same skills when the experiment isrepeated with non-linguistic tone sequences and withvisual, as opposed to auditory, sequences. Moreover,this pattern-finding ability appears not to be limited tohumans but is also apparent in other primates. Forinstance, Tamarin monkeys demonstrate the samepattern-recognition abilities when exposed to the samekinds of auditory and visual sequencing experimentsdescribed above for human infants. According toMichael Tomasello, the ability to acquire high-levelsymbolic behaviour such as language is a function,therefore, of a further ability that humans but otherprimates do not possess. This constitutes an intention-reading ability. (See also emergentism, linguistic unit,socio-cognitive mechanisms in language acquisition,utterance).

perception Involves human sensory (or sense-perceptory)systems and the brain in order to form representationsknown as percepts. Perception consists of three stages:(1) sensation; (2) perceptual organisation; and (3)identification and recognition.

Sensation concerns the way in which external energy,such as light, heat or (sound) vibrations, are convertedinto the neural codes which the brain recognises.


Perceptual organisation concerns the way in which thissensory information is organised and formed into aperceptual object, a percept. Identification and recog-nition relates to the stage in the process whereby pastexperiences and conceptual knowledge is brought tobear in order to interpret the percept. For instance, aspherical object might be identified and recognised as afootball or a coin or a wheel or some other object. Thatis, this stage involves meaning, which is to say under-standing the nature, function and significance of thepercept. As such, a previously formed concept isemployed in order to identify and categorise thepercept. (See also sensory experience.)

perceptual meaning analysis The mechanism wherebyperceptual stimuli are redescribed from perceptualarrays into rudimentary representations which sup-port more complex concepts. The term was coined bydevelopmental psychologist Jean Mandler, who arguesthat perceptual meaning analysis represents the meanswhereby in early infancy children develop the funda-mental plank of the conceptual system known asthe image schema. Perceptual meaning analysis takesplace when perceptual arrays of particular kinds areobserved to co-occur with particular functional conse-quences. For instance, a functional consequence ofspatial arrays involving three-dimensional volumetricentities is that they provide a support/containmentfunction. This information, which is distinct in kindfrom the purely sensory information with which it isassociated, comes to form the rudimentary conceptcontainer.

perspectival system One of the four schematic systemswhich form part of the conceptual structuring system.


The perspectival system establishes a viewpoint fromwhich participants and scenes are viewed and involvesfour schematic categories. These are location, distance,mode and direction. These can be encoded by closedclass forms. (See also attentional system, ConceptualStructuring System Approach, configurational system,force-dynamics system, schematic categories.)

perspective One of the three parameters of focal adjust-ment. Relates to the way in which a scene is viewed,including the relative prominence of its participants.The case of an active and passive pair of sentencesillustrates this point:

1. Max ate all the tomato soup [active]2. All the tomato soup was eaten by Max [passive]

In example (1) the focal participant, the trajector, isMax who is the agent of the action, and the secondaryparticipant, the landmark, is the soup which is thepatient. In (2) the situation is reversed, and thepatient is now the focal participant, the trajector. In apassive sentence, the agent is the secondary partici-pant, the landmark. The distinction between these twosentences relates to a shift in perspective which iseffected by changing the relative prominence attachedto the participants in the profiled relationship. (See alsoabstraction (2), construal, focal adjustment, selection.)

plexity One of the schematic categories in the configura-tional system. Plexity relates to whether a quantity oftime or space consists of one (uniplex) or more than one(multiplex) equivalent elements. When related to space(or matter), this is the basis of the grammatical categorynumber. For instance, the singular count noun slipperrepresents uniplex structure, while the plural count


noun slippers represents multiplex structure. Massnouns like champagne also have multiplex structure.When related to the domain of time (or action), plexityforms part of the basis for the distinction in lexicalaspect between semelfactive (one instance) versus itera-tive (repeated instances). This is illustrated below:

1. Max coughed [semelfactive]2. Max coughed for ten minutes [iterative]

The verb cough encodes a punctual event, and thusencodes semelfactive aspect which has uniplex struc-ture. When a punctual event is drawn out over a periodof time, as in the second example, it becomes iterative.Iterative lexical aspect has multiplex structure. (Seealso axiality, boundedness, Conceptual StructuringSystem Approach, degree of extension, dividedness,pattern of distribution, schematic systems.)

polysemy The phenomenon whereby a linguistic unitexhibits multiple distinct yet related meanings.Traditionally, this term is restricted to the study ofword-meaning (lexical semantics), where it is used todescribe words like body which has a range of distinct,meanings that are nevertheless related (for example,the human body, a corpse, the trunk of the humanbody, the main or central part of something).

Cognitive linguists claim that polysemy is notrestricted to word-meaning but is a fundamentalfeature of human language. According to this view, the‘distinct’ areas of language all exhibit polysemy.Cognitive linguists therefore view polysemy as a key togeneralisation across a range of ‘distinct’ phenomenaand argue that polysemy reveals important fundamen-tal commonalities between lexical, morphological andsyntactic organisation.


Polysemy has been explored in greatest detail in thebranch of cognitive linguistics known as cognitivelexical semantics. Scholars working in this area assumethat polysemy is a conceptual rather than a purely lin-guistic phenomenon. That is, linguistic polysemy pat-terns reflect, and therefore reveal, systematic differencesand patterns in the way linguistic units are organisedand structured in the mind. For this reason, the studyof polysemy has been of particular interest to cogni-tive lexical semanticists and has resulted in a vast liter-ature of detailed studies on linguistic units of varioussorts including the most famous set of studies of all onthe English preposition over. (See also homonymy,monosemy.)

polysemy fallacy A fallacy in reasoning committed bysome scholars who take a cognitive lexical semanticsapproach, particularly as evident in the full-specificationmodel of polysemy. Dominiek Sandra, who coined thephrase, argues that to view all context-bound usages ofa particular lexical item as instances of polysemy is tocommit what he calls the polysemy fallacy. The fallacycan be paraphrased as follows: because a lexical itemexhibits distinct semantic contributions in context, eachdistinct semantic contribution is due to a distinct under-lying sense or lexical concept. According to Sandra thisreasoning is fallacious as it does not follow that all oreven many distinct instances associated with a lexicalitem provide evidence for distinct senses stored insemantic memory. The polysemy fallacy then serves tounderplay the role of context in providing a linguisticunit with a semantic value.

polysemy links One of a number of inheritance linksbetween constructions posited in Construction


Grammar (2). Involves a type of inheritance (2) inwhich a construction with a similar syntactic organi-sation to another exhibits a distinct but relatedmeaning. For example, the ditransitive construction isassociated with a range of senses that all share thesemantics of transfer, but which also differ in sys-tematic ways. The examples below illustrate some ofthe distinct polysemous senses associated with thisconstruction:

1. X causes Y to receive ZMax gave Bella a biscuit

2. Conditions of satisfaction imply X causes Yto receive ZMax promised Bella a biscuit

3. X enables Y to receive ZMax allowed Bella a biscuit

4. X causes Y not to receive ZMax refused Bella a biscuit

5. X intends to cause Y to receive ZMax made Bella some biscuits

6. X acts to cause Y to receive Z at some futurepoint in timeMax commissioned Bella some fairy-shaped bis-cuits

(See also construction (1), constructional polysemy.)

pragmatic strengthening A notion developed by ElizabethCloss Traugott in work on semantic change andapplied and developed in the theory of PrincipledPolysemy in attempting to account for how chainingtakes place in a semantic network. Takes a usage-basedperspective on chaining: context-dependent inferencesassociated with a given word are reanalysed as distinctmeanings. Through a process of strengthening, these


‘new’ meanings come to be stored as distinct senses orlexical concepts in semantic memory. This process isthus referred to as pragmatic strengthening. Forinstance, Vyvyan Evans and Andrea Tyler in theirwork on English prepositions argue that pragmaticstrengthening gives rise to the development of newprepositional meanings. In an utterance such as: Thetablecloth is over the table, a context-dependent infer-ence is that a consequence of the tablecloth being ‘over’(i.e. ‘above’), the table it also covers the table. Theinference of ‘covering’ has, via reanalysis and strength-ening, come to be stored in long-term memory as a dis-tinct ‘covering’ meaning conventionally indexed by theform over. Evans and Tyler argue that it is for thisreason that over can be used to mean ‘covering’ evenwhere over does not have an ‘above’ reading, as inexamples such as: The clouds are over the sun.

primary metaphor The foundational level of metaphoricrepresentation and the central construct in PrimaryMetaphor Theory. A primary metaphor, in contrast toa conceptual metaphor, relates distinct concepts ratherthan sets of concepts. However, like conceptualmetaphor, a primary metaphor relates two distinctconcepts that occur in distinct domains. Thus aprimary metaphor involves a single cross-domainmapping.

Primary metaphors are motivated by three necessaryand jointly sufficient conditions. Firstly, the associa-tion between a target concept and a source concept ina primary metaphor is directly motivated by a tightand recurring correlation in experience. That is, thetarget and source in a primary metaphor co-vary inexperience. Thus a primary metaphor can be charac-terised as a correlation-based metaphor.


Secondly, primary metaphors are formed by anunconscious and thus pre-conceptual associationbetween two elements (primary target and source con-cepts) which have different kinds of content. While agiven primary target concept relates to an aspect ofsensory experience and has what is referred to as‘image content’, a primary source concept constitutesa subjective response or evaluation of the aspect ofsensory experience with respect to which it co-varies.Thus primary source concepts have what is referred toas ‘response content’. Put another way, the second con-dition for a primary metaphor concerns the conven-tional pairing of response and image content.

The third condition constitutes the requirement thatthe primary source and target concepts share super-schematic structure. This is known as the SuperschemaRule.

Primary metaphors can give rise to a more complexcompound metaphor through a process known as uni-fication. Due to the highly schematic nature of primarymetaphors they are akin to the notion of generic-levelmetaphor in Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Examplesof primary metaphors are given below:

1. similarity is nearnessThat colour is quite close to the one on our diningroom wall

2. importance is sizeWe’ve got a big week coming up at work

3. quantity is vertical elevationThe price of shares has gone up

4. causes are forcesVanity drove me to have the operation

5. change is motionThings have shifted a little since you were last here


6. desire is hungerWe’re hungry for a victory

Primary Metaphor Theory A recent approach to concep-tual metaphor associated with Joseph Grady whichattempts to resolve some outstanding problems withthe account provided by Conceptual MetaphorTheory. The fundamental claim is that there are twodistinct kinds of metaphor: primary metaphor andcompound metaphor. While primary metaphors arefoundational, compound metaphors are constructedfrom the unification of primary metaphors through theprocess of conceptual integration. Grady’s centralclaim, which marks his approach as distinct fromearlier work in Conceptual Metaphor Theory, is thatprimary metaphors conventionally associate conceptsthat are equally ‘basic’, in the sense that they are bothdirectly experienced and perceived. This means thatGrady rejects the view that the distinction between thetarget and source of a metaphoric cross-domainmapping relates to abstract versus concrete concepts.Instead, Primary Metaphor Theory holds that the dis-tinction between target and source relates to ‘degree ofsubjectivity’ rather than how clearly delineated or howabstract a concept is. This view means that theInvariance Principle is redundant, because the founda-tional primary metaphors, upon which more complexmetaphor systems are based, are not viewed as pro-viding an ‘abstract’ target with ‘missing’ structure.

primary reference object see reference object.

primary source concept In a primary metaphor, theconcept which serves to structure a primary targetconcept. Primary source concepts are relatively simple


aspects of sensory experience, such as motion, verti-cal elevation, proximity, hunger, warmth, etc.They are held to constitute redescriptions of specificaspects of sensory experience and are correlated withsubjective evaluations and responses (primary targetconcepts). Accordingly they are held to be comprisedof what is referred to as ‘image content’, which relatesto the idea that primary source concepts derive fromsense-perception of the external world. (See alsoPrimary Metaphor Theory.)

primary target concept In a primary metaphor, the con-cept which is structured by virtue of a cognitive linkwith a primary source concept. Primary target con-cepts are relatively simple, phenomenologically realaspects of subjective experience, such as time, quan-tity, similarity, desire, intimacy, etc. They are heldto constitute subjective evaluations or responses tosensory experience with respect to which they are cor-related. Accordingly they are held to be comprised ofwhat is referred to as ‘response content’ (or sometimes‘subjective content’). (See also Primary MetaphorTheory.)

primitives Innately prescribed, non-reducible units of lin-guistic organisation assumed by the various theories thatare subsumed under formal linguistics, including formalapproaches to grammar, meaning and phonology.

Principle of Linguistic Relativity see linguistic relativity.

Principle of Maximised Motivation The principle in Con-struction Grammar (2) which accounts for the motiva-tion exhibited by constructions. This principle statesthat if one construction is syntactically similar to


another then it is motivated to the degree that it issemantically similar to the other construction. (See alsoconstruction (1), relations between constructions.)

Principled Polysemy A model of lexical representationdeveloped within cognitive lexical semantics. PrincipledPolysemy was developed by Vyvyan Evans and AndreaTyler in response to perceived shortcomings with thefull-specification model of polysemy. In particular, acentral concern of Principled Polysemy is to provide amethodologically motivated and principled way of con-ducting lexical semantic analysis, thereby avoiding thepolysemy fallacy. Principled Polysemy seeks to developclear decision principles that make semantic networkanalyses objective and verifiable. These decision princi-ples aim to achieve two goals: (1) they should serve todetermine what counts as a distinct sense and thus dis-tinguish between senses stored in semantic memory andcontext-dependent meanings constructed ‘on-line’; (2)they should establish the prototypical or central senseassociated with a particular radial category. ThePrincipled Polysemy model has been successfullyapplied to a range of lexical classes including preposi-tions, nouns and verbs, and several languages in add-ition to English including Russian and Greek. (See alsocontrast set, pragmatic strengthening, proto-scene.)

process see temporal relations

processing time A term coined by Ronald Langacker torefer to the cognitive representation of time, wheretime is a medium of conceptualisation. In this senseprocessing time is ‘real time’, in the sense that any cog-nitive process requires processing time. Processingtime contrasts with conceived time.


profile The entity or relation designated by a word. Theprofile functions by highlighting a substructure withina larger unit known as the base. Take the examplehypotenuse. This word profiles the longest side in aright-angled triangle, while the base is the entiretriangle, including all three of its sides. Without thebase, the profile would be meaningless: there is nohypotenuse without a right-angled triangle. Hence theword hypotenuse designates a particular substructurewithin a larger conceptual structure. (See also profiledeterminant, profiled relationship, profiling, scope ofpredication.)

profile determinant In Cognitive Grammar, the head of aconstruction (2). The ‘head’ of a phrase is a singleword that determines the categorical status of thephrase (for example, a noun heads a noun phrase).Consider the following example: a girl at the bus stopknitting a scarf. This phrase contains a number ofword-level constituents including three nouns: girl, thecompound noun bus stop and scarf. However, onlyone of these heads the phrase, namely girl. Thus thisnoun serves to determine the profile of the entirephrase, meaning that the entire phrase is a nounphrase. Thus this noun is the profile determinant.

profiled relationship In Cognitive Grammar, a linguisti-cally encoded relationship between two or more par-ticipants in a given scene. For instance, in an utterancesuch as: Max kicked the ball, there is a profiled rela-tionship holding between the participants encoded bythe expressions Max and the ball. In a profiled rela-tionship there is a conceptual asymmetry between afocal participant, the trajector and a secondary partic-ipant, the landmark. This distinction between trajector


and landmark in linguistic expressions is an instance ofthe more general perceptual and attentional phenome-non of figure-ground organisation. In the utteranceabove, Max constitutes the trajector while the ballconstitutes the landmark. (See also trajector-landmarkorganisation.)

profiling In Cognitive Grammar, the conceptual ‘high-lighting’ of some aspect of a domain (1). Specifically,profiling is the process whereby an aspect of some baseis selected. For example, the expression elbow profilesa substructure within the larger structure arm, whichis its base. This idea is illustrated by Figure 30.

projected reality A term coined by Ray Jackendoff.Relates to the human construal of reality which isdetermined by the specifics of human cognitive, neu-rological and perceptual mechanisms and processes.From this perspective, what we experience as reality isnot an objective ‘god’s eye’ view of the world, but theworld as constructed by virtue of our species-specificcognitive apparatus and bodies. In this sense reality


Figure 30. Profiling of elbow

profiledregion

base

‘for us’ is projected. This notion is compatible with thecognitive linguistic view of embodied cognition andstands in opposition to objectivist semantics. (See alsoexperiential realism, variable embodiment.)

projector-based reference frame As with the guide-postreference frame, this reference frame also involves anexternal secondary reference object. In this type of ref-erence frame, the secondary reference object is ananimate entity, whose location serves as a frame of ref-erence in locating the relevant part of the primary ref-erence object enabling the figure to be located. Forinstance, in the following example: The grocery storeis to the right of the office building, the speaker ‘pro-jects’ his or her bodily horizontal asymmetry (left/rightaxis) onto the primary reference object (the officebuilding) in order to locate the figure (the grocerystore). It is because the speaker projects axial proper-ties onto the reference object in this way that this ref-erence frame is referred to as projector-based. (See alsofigure-ground segregation, region, spatial relation,spatial scene.)

propagation The selection and use of a particular utter-ance containing a particular lingueme or set oflinguemes which diffuses a particular altered replica-tion (the innovation) through a linguistic community.In time, this innovation becomes established as a newlinguistic convention or set of conventions. (See alsonormal replication, replicator, Utterance SelectionTheory.)

property In Mental Spaces Theory, a property can beassigned to an element in a given mental space. In thefollowing sentence: In that play, Othello is jealous, the


expression In that play is a space-builder and setsup a mental space. The expression Othello assigns anelement to the mental space, while is jealous assigns theproperty of jealousy to the element.

In Figure 31 the mental space is set out using a circle.This mental space is labelled play to show that themental space represents the ‘world’ inside the play. Thename Othello introduces an element into the mentalspace, which we label a, and the expression jealousassigns a property to the element (jealous). This infor-mation is captured in the ‘dialogue box’ next to themental space. (See also relation, role-value readings.)

proto-scene In the Principled Polysemy model of lexicalrepresentation the central sense for a preposition suchas over is directly grounded in a specific kind of recur-ring spatial scene. This spatial scene, which relates aspatial trajector and a landmark in a particular spatio-geometric configuration, is called the proto-scene.While the proto-scene is a type of image schema, it isdistinct from the central image schema proposedfor over in George Lakoff’s full-specification modelbecause it relates to a distinct and discrete spatialscene. The proto-scene for over is illustrated in Figure32. The small circle represents the trajector (TR) and


Figure 31. Mental space representation for: Othello is jealous

a a: NAME OTHELLO

property: IS JEALOUS

PLAY

the unbroken line the landmark (LM). The fact that theTR is located above the LM indicates that the spatio-geometric relation involves a ‘higher than’ or aboverelation. The dashed line indicates that the TR must bewithin a region proximal to the LM.

prototype A relatively abstract mental representation thatassembles the key attributes or features that best rep-resent instances of a given category. Accordingly, theprototype is viewed as a schematic representation ofthe most salient or central characteristics associatedwith members of the category in question. Accordingto Prototype Theory, the prototype provides structureto and serves to organise a given category, a phenom-enon known as prototype structure. An important con-sequence of this is that categories exhibit typicalityeffects.

prototype structure Relates to the occurrence of repeatedattributes across distinct members, or exemplars, of aparticular category which gives rise to a prototype.Prototype structure thus concerns the degree to whichredundancy in the category members is employed in cat-egorisation, by virtue of providing a salient set of attrib-utes that organise the category. Prototype structure also


Figure 32. Proto-scene for over

gives rise to typicality effects. Prototype structure can beinvestigated using goodness-of-example ratings. (Seealso Prototype Theory.)

Prototype Theory A theory of human categorisation thatwas posited by Eleanor Rosch in order to account forexperimental findings that she and her colleaguesuncovered during the 1970s. Prototype Theory holdsthat there are two basic principles that guide the for-mation of categories in the human mind: (1) the prin-ciple of cognitive economy; and (2) the principle ofperceived world structure. These principles togethergive rise to the human categorisation system.

The first principle, the principle of cognitiveeconomy, states that an organism like a human beingattempts to gain as much information as possibleabout its environment while minimising cognitiveeffort and resources. This cost-benefit balance drivescategory formation. In other words, rather thanstoring separate information about every individualstimulus experienced, humans can group similarstimuli into categories, which maintains economy incognitive representation. The consequence of this isthat humans privilege categories formed at a certainlevel of informational inclusiveness or complexity.This level of categorisation is known as the basic levelof categorisation.

The second principle, the principle of perceivedworld structure, posits that the world around us hascorrelational structure. For instance, it is a fact aboutthe world that wings most frequently co-occur withfeathers and the ability to fly (as in birds) rather thanwith fur or the ability to breathe underwater. This prin-ciple states that humans rely upon correlational struc-ture of this kind in order to form and organise


categories. This correlational structure gives rise to aprototype. Since the 1970s Rosch’s findings and claimshave been called into question. Today, PrototypeTheory is no longer seen as an accurate view of cate-gorisation. Nevertheless, it was historically importantfor the development of cognitive semantics (See alsoprototype structure, typicality effects.)

protracted duration The phenomenologically real experi-ence in which time ‘feels’ as if it is proceeding ‘moreslowly’ than usual. This experience is attested in situa-tions when more of the perceptual stimulus array isattended to, including situations such as novelty,shock, boredom and near-death experiences. It isevident linguistically in expressions such as: Timeseemed to stand still, The time dragged by, and soforth. In cognitive linguistics protracted duration hasbeen studied in detail by Vyvyan Evans. (See also tem-poral compression.)

purport A term coined by Alan Cruse. Relates to the ency-clopaedic knowledge associated with a given word.Includes the past uses to which a word has been put.In this regard purport is similar to the notion ofmeaning potential. (See also semantic potential.)

radial category A category whose members are organisedwith respect to a composite prototype. The membersof the radial category are not generated. Rather, theyare extended by convention and therefore must belearned. The composite prototype determines the pos-sibilities for the extensions, together with the possiblerelations between variants and the central prototype.

R


An important line of research in cognitive lexicalsemantics has been to treat words as radial categoriesorganised with respect to a composite prototype. Themost famous work in this vein has been carried out onthe English preposition over. Radial categories aremodelled in terms of a semantic network.

Radical Construction Grammar (also RCG) A theory ofconstruction grammar developed by William Croft.Radical Construction Grammar (RCG) sets out toexplore the implications of linguistic typology for syn-tactic theory. Linguistic typology is the subdisciplineof linguistics that examines the structural propertiesof language from a cross-linguistic perspective anddescribes patterns of similarity as well as observingpoints of diversity. In RCG, rather than taking gram-matical universals across the world’s languages as astarting point and building a model of language thatassumes a universal grammar (as in formal linguis-tics), grammatical diversity is taken as the startingpoint. RCG attempts to build a model of grammarwhich accounts adequately for patterns of typologicalvariation.

What makes Croft’s constructional approach‘radical’ emerges as a consequence of the typologicalstance he adopts. In RCG, the existence of construc-tions is the only primitive theoretical construct. Allother linguistic elements, including word classes suchas nouns and verbs, word order patterns and gram-matical relations such as subject and object are epiphe-nomenal. In this way, the notion of syntax, as usuallyunderstood, is eradicated from the theory altogether.(See also construction grammars.)

RCG see Radical Construction Grammar


reference frame Represents the means language has at itsdisposal for using a reference object in order to locatea figure. A reference frame serves to locate the figureby virtue of establishing a spatial relation holdingbetween the figure and a reference object. This isachieved by utilising axial properties associated withthe reference object in order to establish the directionand relative proximity of the figure with respect to thereference object. There is a limited set of referenceframes employed by the world’s languages. These canbe divided into (1) reference frames that involve thereference object alone: a ground-based referenceframe; and (2) reference frames that also involve a sec-ondary reference object. There are three referenceframes of this kind: field-based reference frame, guide-post-based reference frame and projector-based refer-ence frame.

reference object (also ground) The less salient element infigure-ground organisation. Developed in cognitivelinguistics in particular by Leonard Talmy in hisConceptual Structuring System Approach. (See alsofigure, Gestalt psychology, landmark.)

reference point A notion developed in recent work inCognitive Grammar. Relates to the ability to utilise theidea of one entity in order to invoke or ‘get at’ anotherwhich is closely related. To illustrate, consider the fol-lowing example: You know that girl who works part-time in the Dean’s office? Well, her room-mate ishaving an affair with a much older married man fromout of town. In this example the ‘girl who works in theDean’s office’ is being employed as a reference point inorder to get at or ‘make contact’ with another entity,in this case her roommate. Key to developing the


Cognitive Grammar account of reference point phe-nomena are the theoretical notions of target (2) anddominion.

region That part of a spatial scene in which the figure maybe found. A region is established by virtue of a spatialrelation being designated as holding between a figureand reference object. (See also reference frame, searchdomain.)

reification An example of a conceptual conversion opera-tion. Relates to the operation that converts our con-ceptualisation of time (or action) into space (ormatter): an act can be converted into an object or anactivity into a mass. When a temporal concept isreified, it is expressed by a nominal expression (a nounphrase). Compare the examples in (1) and (2).

An act reified as an (discrete)object

1. John washed her John gave her a wash

Activity reified as a mass (continuous)2. John helped her John gave her

some help

In example (1), washed is a verb and encodes an act,while a wash is a noun phrase and encodes an act con-ceptualised as an object. In example (2), helped is averb and encodes an activity, while some help is a nounphrase and encodes an activity conceptualised as amass. When an act is construed as an object, it can bedescribed in terms consistent with the properties ofobjects. For example, to call (on the phone) becomeshe gave me a call; to slap becomes he gave her twoslaps.


relation In Mental Spaces Theory, a relation can beassigned as holding between elements in a given mentalspace. In the following sentence: In the picture, a witchis riding a unicorn, the expression In the picture is aspace-builder and sets up a mental space. The expres-sions a witch and a unicorn assign two elements to themental space, while is riding prompts for a ridingframe (or schema) to structure the mental space. Thisis achieved via schema induction. Once present, theroles associated with the riding frame are mappedonto the two elements, establishing a relation betweenthem. While the witch element is associated with therider role, the unicorn element is associated with theridee role.

In Figure 33 the mental space is set out dia-grammatically using a circle. This mental space islabelled picture to show that the mental space rep-resents the ‘world’ inside the picture. The expressiona witch introduces an element into the mental space,which we label a, and the expression a unicorn intro-duces a second element which we label b. The rela-tion holding between the two elements is capturedby the expression a ride b. The riding frame,recruited by schema induction, is represented in the


Figure 33. Mental space representation of a relation

a b

a: WITCH

b: UNICORN

a RIDE b

RIDING frame<RIDER, ENTITY RIDDEN>

PICTURE

lower dialogue box. (See also property, role-valuereadings.)

relational predication In Cognitive Grammar, a relationalpredication relates to the schematic meaning encodedby lexical classes such as verbs, adjectives, prepositionsand so on (relations). The term ‘predication’ relates tomeaning and refers to the semantic pole of a symbolicassembly. Relational predications are conceptuallydependent. Relational predications are divided intotwo sub-categories: temporal relations and atemporalrelations. (See also nominal predication.)

relationships between constructions In ConstructionGrammar (2), the constructicon consists of a networkof constructions and relationships between them.Relationships between constructions are captured interms of inheritance (2) and motivation.

relationships between symbolic assemblies In CognitiveGrammar, the set of interlinking and overlapping rela-tionships holding between symbolic assemblies. Thereare three kinds of relationships that constitute thenetwork: (1) symbolisation – the symbolic linksbetween the semantic pole and phonological pole of agiven symbolic assembly; (2) categorisation – forexample, the link between the expressions rose andflower, given that rose is a member of the categoryflower; and (3) integration – the relation betweenparts of a complex symbolic assembly such as flower-s.

replicator An element of language realised in an utter-ance. A central construct in Utterance SelectionTheory. (See also altered replication, lingueme, normalreplication.)


resemblance-based metaphor A metaphor based on a per-ceived resemblance between two entities rather thanbeing motivated by embodied experience. Resemblance-based metaphor thus contrasts with correlation-based metaphor. An example of a resemblance-basedmetaphor is the following: Achilles is a lion. In this case,the perceived resemblance between Achilles, the Greekwarrior, and a lion is not physical: Achilles does notactually look like a lion. Instead, due to cultural knowl-edge which holds that lions are courageous, by describ-ing Achilles as a lion we associate him with the lion’squalities of courage and ferocity. Thus the perceivedresemblance relates to behavioural qualities associatedwith both Achilles and lions. (See also image metaphor.)

resultative construction One of the verb argument con-structions studied by Adele Goldberg in the develop-ment of her theory of Construction Grammar (2). Theresultative construction is illustrated by the examplesbelow:

1. They shouted themselves hoarse2. He drank himself unconscious

The construction has the following semantics: Xcauses Y to become Z, where X corresponds to theagent (subject) NP, Y to the patient (object) NP andZ to the result argument, which may be realisedeither by an adjective phrase (AP) like hoarse (1) or bya preposition phrase (PP). The properties associatedwith the resultative construction are summarised inTable 11. (See also construction (1).)

role reversal imitation The third aspect of the humanintention-reading ability, central to first language acqu-isition. Infants who understand that people manifest


intentional behaviour may attend to and learn (by imi-tation) the behavioural means that others employ tosignal their intentional state. For example, the child mayimitate the use of the word rubber duck by an adult indirecting attention to an object. However, this processdoes not just involve imitation, but the recognition thatby uttering this phrase, the infant can perform a rolereversal, thereby signalling a communicative intention:that the adult attend to the toy. (See also communica-tive intention, joint attention frame, pattern-findingability, socio-cognitive mechanisms in first languageacquisition.)

role-value readings The observation in Mental SpacesTheory that ambiguities which arise in noun phrases(NPs) with definite reference are due to the NP pos-sessing two possible readings: one relating to a roleand one to a value. Consider the following example:Your car is always different. This could mean thatevery time I see your car, some aspect of the car haschanged; it might have had a respray, acquired somenew hubcaps and so on. Alternatively, this sentencecould mean that you have a new car every time I seeyou. The first reading is the value reading: some aspect


Table 11. Properties of the English resultativeconstruction

The English resultative constructionSubject argument has to be an animate agentObject argument has to be a patient (which thus can

undergo a change of state)Verb has to encode direct causationResultative adjective has to designate the endpoint of a

scale Resultative adjective cannot be deverbal

or ‘value’ associated with the same entity has changed.The second reading is the role reading: the entity itselfis different.

running the blend see elaboration (1).

rule/list fallacy A term coined by Ronald Langacker todescribe a specific instance of the exclusionary fallacy.To commit the rule/list fallacy is to exclude, forinstance, listing a unit such as a word if there is a rulewhich can predict the lexical unit. This line of reason-ing is fallacious as it adopts the view that one mustposit either rules or lists but not both. Langacker arguesthat there is a third choice: to posit rules and lists.

salient examples A kind of metonymic ICM. Memorableor salient examples belonging to a particular categorygive rise to this type of ICM. For instance, OxfordUniversity is a salient example of a university, in partdue to its history, its teaching and scholarship, and inpart due to the nature of the colleges that make up theuniversity. Although in many ways atypical in terms ofBritish and other international higher education insti-tutions, people, particularly in the United Kingdom,often rely upon Oxford as a point of comparisonfor other universities. Typicality effects occur whenOxford serves to establish a means of evaluating andassessing another university. (See also generators,ideals, paragons, social stereotypes, typical examples.)

sanction The way in which a particular mental schemalicenses a particular instantiation. To illustrate, considerFigure 34.

S


The box labelled G represents the repository of con-ventional units of language: the grammar. The boxlabelled U represents a particular usage event: an utter-ance. The box labelled A in the grammar represents alinguistic unit: a symbolic assembly. The circle labelledB represents a specific linguistic element within anutterance. The arrow signals that B instantiates (or‘counts as an instance of’) schema A. This means thatA sanctions B. (See also Cognitive Grammar, usage-based model, usage-based thesis.)

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis see linguistic relativity

scaling In Blending Theory, a kind of compression inwhich a vital relation holding between input spaces (anouter-space relation) gives rise to reduced complexity inthe blended space. Specifically, scaling gives rise to areduced scale, thereby forming an inner-space relation.For instance, the professor who presents the eventswhich have taken place over the 4.6 billion years ofevolutionary time in terms of a 24-hour day for thesake of undergraduate students during a lecture on evo-lution is performing scaling. (See also syncopation.)

scanning A notion developed in Cognitive Grammar.Relates to how the aspects of a scene are perceived,


Figure 34. Sanction in Cognitive Grammar

G U

A B

visually or otherwise, and give rise to a conceptual rep-resentation. Two types of scanning are distinguished:sequential scanning and summary scanning whichserve to distinguish between temporal relations andatemporal relations respectively.

Scene Encoding Hypothesis In Construction Grammar (2)the hypothesis that the prototype for a particularinstance of constructional polysemy relates to a recur-ring scene from everyday experience which is encodedby the construction (1). For instance, while the ditransi-tive construction exhibits polysemy, according to AdeleGoldberg, successful transfer, as in the following:Max gave Bella the biscuit, represents the central or pro-totypical sense of the ditransitive construction. Thisfollows as this instance of the construction encodes arecurring experiential scene in which an agent causes arecipient to receive some object by way of transfer.

schema A symbolic assembly viewed from the perspectiveof the usage-based thesis. (See also Cognitive Grammar,schema-instance organisation.)

schema induction In Mental Spaces Theory, the processwhereby knowledge structures such as idealisedcognitive models or semantic frames are recruited inorder to provide a mental space with internal struc-ture. Schema induction is prompted for by linguisticexpressions. For instance, in the following utterance:In the picture the witch is riding the unicorn, theexpression is riding prompts for a riding frame. Thisknowledge structure provides roles for rider andridee which can be mapped onto the witch and theunicorn respectively, thereby providing the mentalspace with internal structure.


schema-instance organisation In Cognitive Grammar, lin-guistic units are held to form a structured network ofschemas. Schemas are modelled in hierarchical fashionin terms of a more abstract schema and more specificinstances, as illustrated in Figure 35.

schematic categories The categories which make up theschematic systems in the Conceptual StructuringSystem Approach. Each schematic system is made upof several schematic categories which serve to encodedifferent aspects of schematic meaning. For instance,the configurational system has a number of schematiccategories which include: plexity, dividedness, bound-edness, degree of extension, pattern of distribution,axiality. These categories structure the scenes encodedby language and the participants that interact withinthese scenes.

schematic meaning (also structural meaning, structuringfunction) The kind of meaning associated with ele-ments in the conceptual structuring system as encodedby closed class forms. Meaning of this kind is not richin nature, and thus contrasts with the meaning associ-ated with elements in the conceptual content system asencoded by open class forms. Schematic meaning relatesto concepts having to do with number, time reference,


Figure 35. Schema-instance organisation

[P [NP]]

[to me] [on the floor] [in the garage]

whether a piece of information is old or new, whetherthe speaker is providing information or requestinginformation, and so on. Accordingly, it provides a kindof semantic ‘scaffolding’ which supports and structuresthe rich content provided by open class forms and con-trasts with content meaning. For instance, in the fol-lowing sentence, schematic meaning is associated withthe closed class forms marked in bold: The movie starkissed the directors.

Schematic systems In the Conceptual Structuring SystemApproach, the conceptual structuring system is basedupon a limited number of large-scale schematicsystems. These provide the basic organisation of thecognitive representation upon which the rich contentmeaning encoded by open class forms can be organisedand supported. The various schematic systems collab-orate to structure a scene that is expressed via lan-guage. Each schematic system contributes differentstructural aspects of the scene, resulting in the overalldelineation of the scene’s skeletal framework. Thereare four key schematic systems that have beenaddressed in detail by Leonard Talmy in his workalthough there are likely to be more. These are the con-figurational system, the perspectival system, the atten-tional system and the force-dynamics system. (See alsoschematic categories.)

schematisation A special kind of abstraction. Results inrepresentations that are much less detailed than theactual utterances that give rise to them. Schematisationresults in a schema. A schema is achieved by settingaside points of difference between actual structuresleaving just the points they have in common. To illus-trate, consider the following examples:


1. The kitten is in the box2. The flower is in the vase3. The crack is in the vase

Here the lexical item in has three slightly differentmeanings associated with it. These distinct meaningsare situated, arising from context. Nevertheless, whatis common to each of these uses is the rather abstractnotion of enclosure; it is this commonality that estab-lishes the schema for in. Moreover, the schema for insays very little about the nature of the figure and ref-erence object that are associated by the spatial relationdesignated by in. That is, information stored as part ofthe schema holds only that the figure and the referenceobject must exist and that they must have the basicproperties that enable enclosure. (See also usage-basedthesis, utterance.)

scope of predication Relates to that part of a domainmatrix which is essential for the meaning of a linguis-tic unit. The scope of predication is divided into twoconstituent entities, the profile and the base.

search domain That part of a spatial scene which is indi-cated, by linguistic prompts, as the region to be‘searched’ in order to locate the trajector. For instance,the utterance: near the fire is warmer, indicates asearch domain proximal to the landmark, the fire,where greatest warmth can be found/experienced.

secondary landmark In a profiled relationship when thereare two landmarks, the secondary landmark is the par-ticipant which has least salience. For instance, in thefollowing example: Max kicked the ball towards thegoal, there are two landmarks: the ball and the goal.


The secondary landmark is the goal. (See also land-mark, trajector, trajector-landmark organisation.)

secondary reference object In addition to figure-groundorganisation, languages often allow more complex par-titioning of spatial scenes. This involves segregating theground into two reference objects in order to betterlocate the figure. These are termed the reference objectand the secondary reference object. While the referenceobject (also known as the primary reference object) isusually explicitly encoded by a lexical item, the sec-ondary reference object need not be, but can insteadmerely be implied, as in the following: Big Ben is northof the River Thames. While the River Thames isthe primary reference object, the secondary referenceobject, the Earth, is implied by the spatial expressionnorth of. In other words, it is only with respect to theconcept the earth that we can process the informationthat one entity can be ‘north of’ another. The purposeof invoking a secondary reference object is to providethe primary reference object with axial properties inorder to better locate the figure. This is often necessarywhen the primary reference object does not possess itsown intrinsic asymmetry which can be employed as areference frame. (See also encompassing secondary ref-erence object and external secondary reference object.)

selection One of the three parameters of focal adjustment.Selection determines which aspects of a scene areattended to and relates to the notion of a conceptualdomain (1). For instance, in the following examples thelexical item close selects for distinct conceptual domains:

1. Max’s school is quite close to the [space]Lido


2. It’s close to Isabella’s birthday [time]3. That blue is close to the blue of [colour]

my dining room carpet4. Max and Isabella are very close [emotion]

(See also abstraction (2), construal, focal adjustment,perspective.)

selective projection In an integration network, the ideathat not all the structure present in the input spaces isprojected to the blended spaces. It is only the informa-tion that is subject to matching which is required forpurposes of local understanding which is projected.Accordingly, the projection of structure from the inputspaces to the blended space is selective.

Semantic Coherence Principle One of the two principlesthat facilitate fusion (1) in Construction Grammar (2).The Semantic Coherence Principle states that partici-pant roles are matched with argument roles withwhich they overlap, such that one can be construed asan instance of the other. For example, general cate-gorisation principles enable us to determine that thethief participant role of the verb steal overlaps suffi-ciently with the argument role agent, because bothshare semantic properties such as animacy, inten-tion, causation and so on. (See also CorrespondencePrinciple.)

semantic frame A knowledge structure required in order tounderstand a particular word or related set of words.The semantic frame is central to the theory of FrameSemantics. To illustrate, consider the related group ofwords buy, sell, pay, spend, cost, charge, tender, change,and so on. According to Frame Semantics, in order to


understand these words, we need access to a commer-cial event frame, which provides the backgroundknowledge, based on experience, to which these wordsrelate. For instance, the commercial event frameincludes a number of attributes which must include, atthe very least, buyer, seller, goods and money. Thisskeletal frame is represented in Figure 36.

Thus a given word foregrounds a particular part ofthe semantic frame to which it is relativised, and yetcannot be understood without the other elementswhich make up the frame. One consequence of this isthat a word provides a ‘route’ through a particularframe. That is, as words relate to ‘slots’ in the frame,they directly relate certain elements within a frame.This manifests itself in linguistic terms as valence orargument structure.

Valence concerns the ways in which lexical itemslike verbs can be combined with other words to makegrammatical sentences. For example, while buy andpay relate to the actions of the buyer, buy relates to


Figure 36. Partial commercial event frame

COMMERCIALEVENT

Buyer

Seller

Money

Goods

aspect

aspect

aspect

aspect

the interaction between the buyer and the goods,while pay relates to the interaction between the buyerand the seller. This knowledge, which is a conse-quence of the commercial event frame, has conse-quences for grammatical organisation:

1. (a) John bought the car (from the salesperson)(b) *John bought the salesperson

2. (a) John paid the salesperson (for the car)(b) *John paid the car

The valence of verbs in these utterances (how theycombine and with what) is a consequence of how theyare related in the commercial event semantic frame.

semantic network In cognitive lexical semantics, a lin-guistic unit such as a word is treated as being com-prised of related senses or lexical concepts. The rangeof lexical concepts associated with a given word isassumed to form a network of senses which are relatedby degrees, with some lexical concepts being morecentral and others more peripheral. Accordingly, wordsenses are modelled in terms of creating a lattice struc-ture, a semantic network, with a central sense, alsoknown as a prototype. (See also lexical concept, over,radial category.)

semantic potential In LCCM Theory, the nature of ency-clopaedic knowledge to which an individual lexicalconcept provides potential access. That part of aword’s semantic potential which is activated is a con-sequence of linguistic and extralinguistic context. Forinstance, in the following utterances:

1. France is a region of outstanding beauty2. France rejected the EU constitution


the semantic contribution of France is distinct becauseof the differential activation of parts of the ency-clopaedic knowledge to which France provides access.In the example in (1), France provides access to thatpart of the encyclopaedic knowledge relating to Franceas a geographical landmass of a certain kind. In (2)France relates to that portion of the French electoratewho voted against the EU constitution. (See also acti-vation, cognitive model, cognitive model profile.)

semantic structure The form that conceptual structuretakes for purposes of being encoded and externalisedvia language. Semantic structure encompasses thesemantic units conventionally associated with linguis-tic forms. A unit of semantic structure is sometimesreferred to as a lexical concept, particularly in LCCMTheory. (See also construction (1), semantic pole, sym-bolic assembly.)

semantic structure reflects conceptual structure The secondof the guiding principles of cognitive semantics. Assertsthat language refers to concepts in the mind of thespeaker rather than, directly, to entities which inhere inan objectively real external world. In other words,semantic structure (the meanings conventionally associ-ated with words and other linguistic units) can beequated with conceptual structure (that is, concepts).This ‘representational’ view is directly at odds with the‘denotational’ perspective of what cognitive semanti-cists sometimes refer to as objectivist semantics. (Seealso cognitive semantics, concept.)

sensory experience Relates to experience derived fromsensory perception (the ‘senses’) and concerns percep-tual data derived from the external world. Concepts that


derive from sensory experience include, among others,those relating to the domains of space, motion, temper-ature and so on. The other category of experience is sub-jective experience. (See also concept, domain (1).)

sentence An abstract entity based on prototypical pat-terns found in utterances. In other words, a sentence isan idealisation that has determinate properties, oftenstated in terms of grammatical structure. For example,one definition of (an English) sentence might consist ofthe formula: S → NP VP. In this formula, ‘S’ stands forsentence, ‘NP’ for subject noun phrase and ‘VP’ for theverb phrase or predicate which provides informationabout the subject NP. The notion of a sentence, whilebased on prototypical patterns found in utterances, isnot the same as an utterance. Much of formal linguis-tics has been concerned with modelling the propertiesof language that enable us to produce grammaticallywell-formed sentences. Typically, cognitive linguisticsplaces little emphasis on the sentence as a theoreticalentity. In contrast, the notion of a usage event or utter-ance is central to the cognitive perspective.

sequential scanning One type of scanning. In sequentialscanning, aspects of a scene are scanned in a sequentialfashion so that the aspects of the scene are not simul-taneously present at any stage of the scanning. Thisgives rise to a conceptualisation of time as a dynamicprocess and characterises events. Sequential scanningunderpins the conceptual representation that gives riseto temporal relations, as encoded, for instance, byverbs. (See also conceived time.)

simple atemporal relations A sub-category of atemporalrelations. A simple atemporal relation designates a


state, as encoded by in in the following example: thepaper in the bin. Simple atemporal relations contrastwith complex atemporal relations.

simple temporal relations A sub-category of temporalrelations. Simple temporal relations like complex tem-poral relations involve a process, and hence a temp-oral relation, because they construe scenes that holdover a given span of time. However, a simple tempo-ral relation designates a stable and unchanging statewhich nevertheless holds or continues through time,as illustrated by the following example: Max loveschocolate.

simplex Refers to a symbolic assembly which does notcontain smaller symbolic units as sub-parts. Forexample, a simplex symbolic unit such as a morphememay have a complex semantic or phonological struc-ture, but is ‘simple’ in terms of symbolic structure as itdoes not contain smaller symbolic units as sub-parts.The word dog and the plural marker -s are examples ofsimplex symbolic assemblies. (See Cognitive Grammar,complex, linguistic unit.)

simplex network The simplest kind of integration net-work. A simplex network involves two input spaces,one that contains a frame with roles and another thatcontains values. What makes this an integrationnetwork is that it gives rise to a blended space contain-ing emergent structure that is in neither of the inputspaces taken individually. Consider the followingexample: Max is the son of Angela. This utteranceprompts for an integration network in which there isone input containing a family frame with roles formother and son. The second input contains the values


john and mary. The integration network compressesthe role-value outer-space relation into uniquenessin the blend, so that max is the son and angela themother, and so that max is angela’s son. The moti-vation for the cross-space connectors is the genericspace which contains the elements female and male.These elements identify potential counterparts in theinput spaces. This integration network is set out dia-grammaticaly in Figure 37. (See also Blending Theory,double-scope network, mirror network, single scopenetwork.)


Figure 37. Simplex integration network

Input 2

Blend

MOTHER

SONInput 1

ANGELA

MAX

FEMALE

MALE

MAX IS THE SONOF ANGELA

simulation The human ability to mentally activate orrehearse perceptual images such as particular sensa-tions or experiences in the absence of the external per-ceptual stimulus which gives rise to the images. This isachieved, in part, by activating those regions of thebrain responsible for processing the sorts of percep-tions being simulated. For example, humans can men-tally simulate a particular kind of redness, even in theabsence of perceiving a red entity. Events can also besimulated, such as the stages involving in filling a carup with petrol, including mentally rehearsing theactions involved in taking the petrol cap off, removingthe petrol nozzle from the pump, placing it in thepetrol tank, pressing the lever so that the petrol flowsinto the tank and so on. The ability to simulate can beprompted for by language and is central to some recenttheories in cognitive linguistics such as BlendingTheory and Embodied Construction Grammar.

single-scope network A type of integration network. Inthe single scope network both input spaces contain aframe but each is distinct. Furthermore, only one of theinput frames structures the blend. Consider the fol-lowing example: Microsoft has finally delivered theknock-out punch to its rival Netscape. This sentenceprompts for an integration network in which there aretwo input spaces. In one input there are two businessrivals, microsoft and netscape, and Microsoft takesNetscape’s market share. In the other input there aretwo boxers, and the first boxer knocks out the second.In the blend, microsoft and netscape are boxers,and microsoft knocks out netscape. What distin-guishes this type of network is that only one frame(here the boxing frame rather than business frame)serves to structure the blend. However, the elements


from both inputs are projected: roles for boxers andvalues microsoft and netscape. The integrationnetwork for this blend is set out diagrammatically inFigure 38. (See also Blending Theory, double-scopenetwork, focus input, framing input, metaphoricblend, mirror network, simplex network.)

situated embodiment A view of embodied cognition asso-ciated with the work of Jordan Zlatev. Relates to theidea that embodiment, as it emerges in semantic struc-ture in language, is embedded or ‘situated’ within


Figure 38. Single scope integration network

Input 2

Blend

BOXER 1

BOXER 2

ONE BOXER KOsTHE OTHER

Input 1

MICROSOFT

NETSCAPE

M DEFEATS N

COMPETITIONBETWEEN

COMPETITORS

M KNOCKS OUT N

BOXING CORP.M

BOXING CORP.N

socio-cultural practices. This perspective thereforeadvocates a synthesis between spatio-physical aspectsof embodiment and embodiment as a consequence ofthe fundamentally social nature of human interaction,practice and function.

social stereotypes A kind of metonymic ICM. Socialstereotype ICMs are ICMs which emerge from publicdiscussion. For instance, the stereotypical bachelor inour culture is a womaniser who lacks domestic skills.Typicality effects can arise if a particular bachelor con-trasts with this social stereotype ICM. For instance, anunmarried man with one sexual partner who enjoysstaying at home cooking and takes pride in his house-work may be judged atypical with respect to the socialstereotype for bachelors. (See also generators, idealisedcognitive model, ideals, paragons, salient examples,typical examples.)

socio-cognitive mechanisms in language acquisitionRelates to the view that children bring a battery ofsocio-cognitive skills to the language acquisitionprocess and is advocated by developmental psycholin-guists who take an emergentism perspective. These cog-nitive skills are domain-general: they are not specific tolanguage, but relate to a range of cognitive domains.According to cognitive linguists such as MichaelTomasello these skills facilitate the ability of humans toacquire language. There are two kinds of generalcognitive ability that facilitate the acquisition of lan-guage: pattern-finding ability and intention-readingability.

source domain In Conceptual Metaphor Theory the sourcedomain is the domain (2) which provides structure by


virtue of metaphor. This is achieved by cross-domainmappings projecting structure from the source domainonto the target domain thus establishing a conventionallink at the conceptual level. For instance, in themetaphor love is a journey, as evidenced by examplessuch as: This relationship is going nowhere, Our rela-tionship is stuck in the mud, journey is the sourcedomain.

space A fundamental conceptual domain (1/2) employedin Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Cognitive Grammar,the Conceptual Structuring System Approach andPrincipled Polysemy. The domain of space consists ofmatter which can be continuous or discrete, and loca-tions occupied by matter. The nature of this domainderives from mechanisms central to perception whichprovide sensory experience thereby facilitating appre-hension of physical aspects of our external physicalenvironment. (See also time.)

space builders In Mental Spaces Theory, mental spacesare set up by space builders which are linguistic unitsthat either prompt for the construction of a newmental space or shift attention back and forth betweenpreviously constructed mental spaces. Space builderscan be expressions like prepositional phrases (in 1966,at the shop, in Fred’s mind’s eye, from their point ofview), adverbs (really, probably, possibly, theoreti-cally), connectives (if . . . then . . .; either . . . or . . .)and subject-verb combinations that are followed byan embedded sentence (Fred believes [Mary likesbananas], Mary hopes . . ., Susan states . . .). What isspecial about space builders is that they require thehearer to ‘set up’ a scenario beyond the ‘here and now’,whether this scenario reflects past or future reality,


reality in some other location, hypothetical situations,situations that reflect ideas and beliefs, and so on.

spatial relation A relationship, based on spatio-geometricproperties, that holds between a figure and a referenceobject. For instance, in an utterance such as: The bikeis beside the building, a spatial relation of proximityand adjacency is designated by the preposition besideand what we know about the nature of bikes, build-ings and how they are normally located with respect toone another. (See also figure-ground organisation, ref-erence frame, region.)

spatial scene A unit of spatial experience as encoded inlanguage. Spatial scenes are configured according tofour parameters: a figure, also known as the trajector;a reference object, also known as the landmark; aregion; and potentially a secondary reference object,which in combination with the primary referenceobject gives rise to a reference frame. For instance, inthe spatial scene encoded by the utterance The bike isnext to the school, The bike is the figure and the schoolis the reference object. The region is established byvirtue of the combination of the preposition whichencodes a spatial relation and the reference object andthus serves to encode the location of the figure. Thenotion of a spatial scene is associated in particular withthe Principled Polysemy framework as applied tospatial particles.

specific-level metaphor A term coined by George Lakoffand Mark Turner in their application of ConceptualMetaphor Theory to poetic metaphor. Relates to arelatively specific or fine-grained level of metaphoricrepresentation which borrows structure from more


schematic or abstract levels of metaphor known asgeneric-level metaphor. The process whereby structureis borrowed by the specific-level metaphor is known asinheritance. For instance, the specific-level metaphorlove is a journey borrows structure from thegeneric-level metaphors that make up the EventStructure Metaphor.

strength One of the factors which governs the attentionalsystem in the conceptual structuring system. Relates tothe relative prominence of referents: whether they areeither backgrounded or foregrounded. For instance, inthe following example: The wine merchant sold Ediththe champagne, the focus of attention is on the seller,the wine merchant, which illustrates a focus of atten-tion pattern. The consequence of this pattern is that thewine merchant receives greater attentional strength.(See also Conceptual Structuring System Approach,mapping, pattern.)

structural meaning see schematic meaning

structuring function see schematic meaning

sub-part links One of a number of inheritance linksbetween constructions posited in ConstructionGrammar (2). Involves a type of inheritance (2) inwhich one construction is a proper sub-part of anotherconstruction but exists independently. Consider thefollowing example.

1. The French flew Jack to the conference2. Jack flew

Example (1) is an instance of the caused motion con-struction. Example (2) is an instance of the intransitive


motion construction. While (1) lexcially profiles theargument roles cause (The French), theme (Jack) andgoal (the conference), (2) profiles only the theme(Jack). In this sense, the construction illustrated in (2)is a proper sub-part of the construction in (1). Thus therelationship between the two constructions is capturedby a sub-part link. (See also construction (1), profil-ing.)

sub-sense (also micro-sense) A term coined by AlanCruse. A distinct word meaning that appears to bemotivated by the specific situational context in whichthe word (and the utterance in which the word isembedded) occurs. However, the distinct sense disap-pears in other contexts. This suggests that sub-senseslack full autonomy. The following illustrates acontext-specific sub-sense of the lexical item knife:

Mother: Haven’t you got a knife, Jonny?Jonny: (at the table not eating his meat: has penknife

in his pocket, but no knife of the appropriatetype) No

Although Jonny does have a knife (a penknife), thecontext (sitting at the meal table) stipulates that it isnot a knife of the appropriate kind, that is it is not acutlery knife. (See also facet.)

subjective construal A form of construal in which there isimplicit dependence on the ground, and thus thecontext of the utterance, including participants, timeof the speech event and so on, is not explicitly men-tioned. For instance, the speaker and hearer areusually subjectively construed or ‘off stage’, and onlybecome objectively construed or ‘on stage’ whenlinguistically profiled by expressions such as I or


you, the phenomenon of objective construal. (See alsoprofiling.)

subjective experience (also introspective experience)Experience of this kind is subjective or internal innature and includes emotions, consciousness and expe-riences of time such as awareness of duration (includ-ing protracted duration and temporal compression),simultaneity and so on. One of the most fundamentalproperties of the human conceptualising capacity is itstendency to structure concepts or domains relating tointrospective experience in terms of concepts thatderive from sensory experience. This is evident, forinstance, in the phenomenon of conceptual metaphor.The other category of experience is sensory experience.(See also concept, domain (1), domain (2).)

substantive idioms Idioms of this kind are ‘lexicallyfilled’, which means that they have fixed lexical itemsas part of their composition. For example, kick themop does not have the same communicative impact askick the bucket and spill the champagne does not havethe same communicative impact as spill the beans.Both kick the bucket and spill the beans are substan-tive idioms because most or all of the substantive orcontent expressions involved are intrinsic to the idiom.Idiomatic expressions of this kind contrast with formalidioms. (See also Construction Grammar (1).)

summary scanning One type of scanning. In summaryscanning, aspects of a scene are scanned cumulativelyand are simultaneously present in the conceptual rep-resentation. This gives rise to a gestalt representationof time as a unified whole and characterises staticscenes. Summary scanning underpins the conceptual


representation that gives rise to atemporal relations asencoded, for instance, by prepositions. (See also con-ceived time.)

superschemas Those elements of conceptual structurethat are shared both by the primary target concept andthe primary source concept in a given primarymetaphor. (See also Superschematic Rule, super-schematic structure.)

Superschematic Rule The requirement within the frame-work of Primary Metaphor Theory that what distin-guishes metaphor of any sort from metonymy, idiomsand other kinds of figurative expression is that thetarget and source concepts/domains in a metaphormust share superschematic structure. For instance, inthe resemblance-based metaphor ‘ship of state’, inwhich a nation is conceptualised as a ship on a seavoyage being guided by those making the decisions,both target and source share superschematic structure:they are both bounded entities. (See also super-schemas.)

superschematic structure A notion developed withinPrimary Metaphor Theory. Relates to the observationthat highly schematic elements of conceptual struc-ture are shared by the primary target concept andthe primary source concept in a primary metaphorgiving rise to superschemas. For instance, in theprimary metaphor difficulty is heaviness, thesuperschematic structure that is common to bothtarget: difficulty, and source: heaviness, is that of ascalar relation. Similarly, what is common to theprimary target and source concepts in the primarymetaphor anger is heat is the superschematic


structure of being an unbounded entity. (See alsosuperschemas, Superschematic Rule.)

symbolic assembly A linguistic unit and the fundamentalunit of grammar in Ronald Langacker’s theory ofCognitive Grammar. The symbolic assembly has twopoles: a semantic pole (its meaning) and a phonologicalpole (its sound or form). Symbolic units can be simplexor complex in terms of their symbolic structure.

symbolic thesis One of the two guiding principles of cog-nitive approaches to grammar. The symbolic thesisholds that the fundamental unit of grammar is a form-meaning pairing, a linguistic unit (called a symbolicassembly in Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar or a con-struction (1) in construction grammars). This is atodds with the ‘words and rules’ approach to grammaradopted in formal linguistics.

By adopting the symbolic thesis, cognitive approachesto grammar are not restricted to investigating aspects ofgrammatical structure independently of meaning, as isoften the case in formal linguistics. Instead, cognitiveapproaches to grammar encompass the entire inventoryof linguistic units defined as form-meaning pairings.These run the gamut from skeletal syntactic configura-tions such as the ditransitive construction (expressed inJohn baked Mary a cake) to idioms (like kick thebucket), to bound morphemes like the -er suffix, towords. This entails that the modular approach towardslanguage and the mind cannot be meaningfully upheldwithin cognitive linguistics where the boundary betweencognitive semantics and cognitive approaches to gram-mar is less clearly defined. Instead, meaning andgrammar are seen as mutually interdependent andcomplementary. (See also usage-based thesis.)


symbolic unit see linguistic unit

syncopation In Blending Theory, a kind of compressionin which a vital relation holding between input spaces(an outer-space relation) gives rise to reduced com-plexity in the blended space, thereby giving rise to aninner-space relation. Specifically, syncopation reducesthe number of events in a temporal ‘string’. Forexample, a pictorial ‘time-line’ used to represent evo-lutionary development, for instance, can select just afew notable events in evolution, such as the emergenceand extinction of the dinosaurs, followed by the emer-gence of primates, and then hominids, and then homosapiens; this represents compression by syncopation.(See also scaling.)

target (1) The entity in conceptual metonymy which ishighlighted or accessed by virtue of a second entityknown as a vehicle. A target is typically not encodedlinguistically in linguistic manifestations of metonymy.For instance, in the following utterance: DowningStreet refused comment, the target is Prime Minister.Downing Street is the official residence of the BritishPrime Minister which facilitates metonymic access toPrime Minister. This particular metonymy can bestated employing the formula place for person orplace for institution in which the target comessecond in the formula. (See also Domain HighlightingModel.)

target (2) The entity which is identified in an utterance byvirtue of invoking a particular reference point. To illus-trate, consider the following example: You know that

T


girl who works part-time in the Dean’s office? Well,her room-mate is having an affair with a much oldermarried man from out of town. In this example the‘room-mate’ is the target, the entity invoked by virtueof the ‘girl who works in the Dean’s office’ whichserves as a reference point. (See also dominion.)

target domain In Conceptual Metaphor Theory the targetdomain is the domain (2) being structured by virtue ofmetaphor. This is achieved due to cross-domain map-pings projecting structure from the source domainonto the target domain thus establishing a conven-tional link at the conceptual level. For instance, in themetaphor love is a journey, as evidenced by exam-ples such as: This relationship is going nowhere, Ourrelationship is stuck in the mud, love is the targetdomain.

target domain override A constraint on the InvariancePrinciple. Serves to ensure that a metaphoric entail-ment that is incompatible with the target domain willfail to map. That is, the target domain can override ametaphoric entailment projected from the sourcedomain in a way that preserves the cognitive topology(conceptual structure) of the target domain. To illus-trate, consider the examples below which relate to themetaphor causation is transfer (of an object):

1. She gave him a headache state2. She gave him a kiss event

While the source domain for both of these examples istransfer, the first example relates to a state and thesecond to an event. The source domain transferentails that the recipient is in possession of the trans-ferred entity. However, while this entailment is in


keeping with states, because they are temporallyunbounded, the same entailment is incompatible withevents, because they are temporally bounded andcannot therefore ‘stretch’ across time. This is illus-trated below:

3. She gave him a headache and he still has it state

4. *She gave him a kiss and he still has it event

Thus, in the case of the example in (4), the domainrelating to events overrides the projection of the entail-ment of continued possession from the source domainas such an entailment is incompatible with this partic-ular target.

temporal compression The phenomenologically real expe-rience in which time ‘feels’ as if it is proceeding ‘moreslowly’ than usual and is most often associated withour experience of routine behaviours which we carryout effortlessly without much attention to the task athand. In cognitive linguistics this notion has beenstudied in detail by Vyvyan Evans. Evidence thattemporal compression is encoded in language comesfrom examples such as the following: The time hassped/whizzed by; Where has the time gone? Time flieswhen you’re having fun. (See also protracted duration.)

temporal relations (also process) A sub-category of thelarger category relational predication. Temporal rela-tions are processes which are encoded by verbs andwhich are accessed via sequential scanning. Temporalrelations can be divided into two types: simple tempo-ral relations and complex temporal relations. (See alsoatemporal relations, conceived time, processing time,summary scanning.)


temporal sequence model The term given to the time-based cognitive model for time in English by VyvyanEvans. This model relates to the concepts earlier andlater. Unlike the moving ego and moving time cogni-tive models, this cognitive model does not involvean ego (and thus the subjective experience of now).Instead, a temporal event is understood relative toanother earlier or later temporal event. The model isillustrated in Figure 39. Directionality is signalled bythe arrow. Earlier events (events are represented by thesmall circles) are understood as being located in frontof later events.

To illustrate the temporal sequence model considerthe following linguistic examples:

1. Monday precedes/comes before Tuesday2. Tuesday follows/comes after Monday

In these sentences, later follows earlier: the earlierevent, Monday, is understood as being located in frontof the later event, Tuesday. In other words, it is relativeto Tuesday, rather than an ego (the subjective experi-ence of now), that Monday is earlier. (See alsomoving ego model, moving time model.)

Thesis of Embodied Cognition see Embodied Cognition

thing In Cognitive Grammar, a technical term for anygiven region of a conceptual domain (1) encoded by anoun. (See also nominal predication.)


Figure 39. The temporal sequence model

LATER EARLIER

thinking for speaking A term coined by Dan Slobin.Captures the idea that a particular language forces itsspeakers to pay attention to certain aspects of scenesof experience for purposes of semantic and grammati-cal encoding in the native language in question. Inother words, language is one form that cognitiontakes, and the ideas we wish to express must conformto the linguistic conventions of a given language.

time An important conceptual domain assumed byConceptual Metaphor Theory, Cognitive Grammar,the Conceptual Structuring System Approach as wellas other theoretical approaches and perspectives incognitive linguistics.

The domain of time consists of actions and eventswhich exhibit the properties of chronology (or pro-gression) and duration. The nature and structure ofthis domain relates to and derives from neurologicaland cognitive aspects of subjective experience includ-ing protracted duration and temporal compression.The cognitive linguistics of time have been studiedmost extensively by Vyvyan Evans. He argues that thedomain of time is encoded in language at two levels ofrepresentation: the lexical concept and the cognitivemodel.

In Cognitive Grammar time, which is a basicdomain, is divided into conceived time and processingtime and is important for, among other things, the dis-tinction between temporal relations and atemporalrelations.

In the Conceptual Structuring System Approach, thedomains of time and space are held to constitutehomologous categories and can thus exhibit concep-tual alternativity. (See also ego-based cognitive modelfor time, time-based cognitive model for time.)


time-based cognitive model for time A temporal referenceframe which serves to ‘locate’ events by virtue of theirrelationship to other temporal events. A central infer-ence associated with this cognitive model is the dis-tinction between earlier and later events. The specifictime-based cognitive model in English is known as thetemporal sequence model. (See also ego-based cogni-tive model for time, moving ego model, moving timemodel.)

TR see trajector

trajector (also TR) The focal, or most prominent, partic-ipant in a profiled relationship. (See also multiplex tra-jector, over, trajector-landmark organisation.)

trajector-landmark organisation A notion developed inCognitive Grammar. Relates to the relative promi-nence of participants in a linguistically encoded sceneand reflects the more general perceptual phenomenonof figure-ground organisation. Ronald Langackerargues that the grammatical functions subject andobject are reflections of trajector-landmark organisa-tion. Langacker calls the semantic pole of the symbolicassembly that fulfils the subject function the trajector,which reflects the observation that the prototypicalsubject is dynamic. The semantic pole of the symbolicassembly that fulfils the object function is called thelandmark. This reflects the observation that the proto-typical object is stationary or inert, as evidenced by anexample such as the following: The car passed thegarage. (See also action chain.)

trajector-landmark reversal A grammatical phenomenonin which the trajector and landmark in a profiled


relationship are reversed. For instance, active andpassive constructions exhibit trajector-landmark rever-sal in that the agent constitutes the trajector in an activeconstruction while the patient is the landmark. In apassive construction the patient is construed as the tra-jector and the agent is demoted to the backgroundedlandmark.

typical examples A kind of metonymic ICM. TypicalityICMs arise from a typical example of a particular cat-egory. For instance, in some cultures robin andsparrow are typical members of the category bird.This is because in some parts of the world these birdsare very common. In this respect, our environment hasconsequences for what we judge as good examples ofa category. Furthermore, we may evaluate a member ofthe category bird with respect to a typical example. Inthis way, typicality effects arise when the typicalexample stands for the entire category. (See alsogenerators, ideals, paragons, salient examples, socialstereotypes.)

typicality effects Relates to the phenomenon whereby aparticular instance or exemplar is judged as beingmore or less representative of a given category.Typicality effects are held, in Prototype Theory, toresult from the prototype structure of human cate-gories and are measurable by goodness-of-exampleratings. For instance, while a robin, for many people,might be judged to be a representative example ofthe category bird, ostrich would be judged to benot very representative and thus non-typical. Thesedifferential judgements in terms of representative-ness are what are known as typicality effects. (Seealso prototype.)


unidirectionality The view in Conceptual MetaphorTheory that conceptual metaphors serve to map struc-ture from a source domain to a target domain but notvice versa. For example, while love is conceptualisedin terms of journeys, we cannot conventionally struc-ture journeys in terms of love: travellers are not con-ventionally described as ‘lovers’ or car crashes in termsof ‘heartbreak’ and so on. Hence there is a general con-straint on the cross-domain mappings that underpinconceptual metaphor which holds that the mappingsare unidirectional.

unification In Primary Metaphor Theory, this is theprocess whereby two or more primary metaphorscombine so as to give rise to a compound metaphor.For instance, Joseph Grady, the architect of PrimaryMetaphor Theory, argues that the metaphor theoriesare buildings is a compound metaphor which derivesfrom the unification of the primary metaphors per-sisting is remaining erect and organisation isphysical structure. This is set out diagrammaticallyin Figure 40.

usage event see utterance.

usage-based model A model of language which adopts theusage-based thesis. A salient example of such a modelis the theory of Cognitive Grammar.

usage-based thesis One of the two guiding principles ofcognitive approaches to grammar. The usage-basedthesis holds that the mental grammar of the languageuser (his or her knowledge of language) is formedby the abstraction of symbolic units from situated

U


instances of language use: an utterance. An importantconsequence of adopting the usage-based thesis is thatthere is no principled distinction between knowledgeof language and use of language (competence and per-formance in Generative Grammar terms), since knowl-edge of language is knowledge of how language isused. The usage-based thesis is central not just to cog-nitive approaches to grammar but approaches to bothlanguage change and language acquisition which takea cognitive linguistic perspective, as developed, forinstance, by Michael Tomasello and William Croft.

utterance (also usage event) A situated instance of lan-guage use which is culturally and contextually embed-ded and represents an instance of linguistic behaviouron the part of a language user.

An utterance has a unit-like status in that it repre-sents the expression of a coherent idea, making (at leastpartial) use of the conventions of the language. In otherwords, an utterance is a somewhat discrete entity.Nevertheless, an utterance is not an absolutely discreteor precisely identifiable unit. This is because utterances


Figure 40. Unification in Primary Metaphor Theory

PERSISTING ISREMAINING ERECT

ORGANISATION ISPHYSICAL STRUCTURE

THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS

involve grammatical forms (for example, word order),semantic structures (patterns of meaning), speechsounds, patterns of intonation (for example, pitch con-tours), slight pauses, and accelerations and decelera-tions. While these properties converge on discretenessand unity, they do not co-occur in fixed patterns andtherefore do not provide a set of criteria for collectivelyidentifying an utterance. In this respect, utterancesdiffer from the related notion of sentence. In particular,they exhibit graded grammaticality. (See also usage-based thesis).

utterance schema A term coined by the developmentalpsychologist Michael Tomasello. Relates to an earlymulti-word utterance in first language acquisitionwhich exhibits functional asymmetry. That is, theexpressions contain a relatively stable element with‘slots’ that can be filled by other lexical items. Thusearly multi-word utterances, rather than containingtwo or more words of equal status, tend to be ‘built’around a functionally more salient and stable word.Some examples of attested utterance schemas include:Here’s the X, I wanna X, More X, It’s a X, There’s a X,Put X here, Throw X, X gone, X here. The obligatoryelement in an utterance schema is known as the ‘pivot’.

Like a holophrase, an utterance schema reflects thecommunicative intention of an equivalent adult utter-ance, but represents the acquisition of more schematicknowledge, allowing a wider range of lexical items tofill the slots. (See also verb-island construction.)

Utterance Selection Theory A usage-based theory of lan-guage change developed by William Croft. This theoryviews language use as the interface that mediatesbetween the conventions of a language (those aspects


of use that make a language stable) and mechanismsthat result in deviation from convention resulting inlanguage change. For linguistic conventions to changesomeone must break a convention and this innovationmust then undergo propagation: the change spreadsthrough the linguistic community and becomes estab-lished as a new convention. Language change is viewedas a consequence of selectional pressures exerted onlinguistic conventions, because language is a system inuse that changes as a response to the new uses to whichit is put. Borrowing ideas from evolutionary theoryCroft argues that innovations which are successful, inthe sense of being selected by language users by virtueof being replicated, give rise to propagation and thusresult in language change.

As this theory subscribes to the usage-based thesis,the key construct in the Theory of Utterance Selectionis the utterance. The elements of an utterance that arereproduced by language users are referred to as repli-cators. The elements of language that are realised in anutterance and that can therefore count as replicatorsinclude words, morphemes and grammatical construc-tions. Croft calls these linguistic replicators linguemes.

valence see argument structure

variable embodiment The idea that different organismshave different kinds of experiences due to the nature oftheir embodiment. (See also embodied cognition,embodied experience, embodiment.)

Vehicle The entity in conceptual metonymy which servesto provide access to or to highlight a second entity

V


known as a target. A vehicle is typically encoded lin-guistically. For instance, in the following utterance:Downing Street refused comment, the vehicle isDowning Street, the official London residence of thePrime Minister. The vehicle facilitates metonymicaccess to Prime Minister. This particular metonymycan be stated employing the formula place forperson or place for institution in which thevehicle comes first in the formula. (See also DomainHighlighting Model.)

verb argument constructions The set of constructionsassociated with verbal argument structure studiedby Adele Goldberg in developing her theory ofConstruction Grammar (2). These include the causedmotion construction, the ditransitive construction andthe resultative construction. (See also construction(1).)

verb-island construction A type of utterance schema. Asmost utterance schemas appear to revolve aroundverb-like elements, Michael Tomasello labels theseunits verb-island constructions.

viewpoint space The mental space from which the dis-course is currently being viewed and from which otherspaces in a mental spaces lattice are currently beingbuilt. (See also base space, event space, focus space,Mental Spaces Theory.)

vital relations In an integration network, vital relationsare the connectors that serve to identify counterpartswithin and across mental spaces. Gilles Fauconnier andMark Turner argue that there is a relatively small set ofvital relations which recur frequently in conceptual


integration. It is precisely the frequency with whichthese connectors occur that licenses the application ofthe term ‘vital’ to describe them.

The importance of vital relations is that conceptualintegration proceeds by virtue of compression of agiven vital relation holding between counterparts indistinct input spaces, resulting in a compressed vitalrelation which is projected to the blended space. A vitalrelation which connects counterparts across inputspaces is known as an outer-space relation. The com-pressed vital relation that occurs in the blended spaceis known as an inner-space relation. Table 12 providessome examples of outer-space vital relations and theircompression into inner-space vital relations. (See alsoBlending Theory, scaling, syncopation.)


Table 12. Vital relations

Outer-space vital relation Inner-space vital relation(compression)

time scaled timesyncopated time

space scaled spacesyncopated space

representation uniquenesschange uniquenessrole-value uniquenessanalogy identity

categorydisanalogy change

uniquenesspart-whole uniquenesscause-effect (bundled with scaled timetime and change) uniquenesscause-effect property

What’s X doing Y? construction (also WXDY construc-tion) An idiomatic expression studied by Paul Kayand Charles Fillmore in support of their theory ofConstruction Grammar (1). Like the let alone con-struction, the What’s X doing Y? construction is a pro-ductive formal idiom that has identifiable syntactic,semantic and pragmatic properties. What is ‘special’about the WXDY construction is the incongruityjudgement it gives rise to. This construction is illus-trated by the examples below.

1. What’s [x John] doing [y kissing that woman]?2. What are [x these dishes] doing [y in the sink]?3. What’s that [x man] doing [y with my necktie on]?4. What’s [x Mike] doing [y with that hosepipe]?5. What is [x Jane] doing [y covered in spaghetti]?6. What is [x Mary] doing [y naked]?

As these examples illustrate, the construction lendsitself to a wide range of specific examples. The Y partof the construction is particularly flexible and can beheaded by various categories including participialverb forms (kissing, covered), prepositions (in, with,without) or adjectives (naked). (See also idiomaticexpressions.)

window of attention One of the kinds of pattern whichserve to govern the distribution of attention in theattentional system. The window of attention patterninvolves the explicit mention of some part or parts ofan event (‘windowing’), while other parts may beomitted (‘gapping’). The windowing pattern differsfrom the focus of attention pattern which focusesattention on participants. For instance, a path ofmotion consists of a beginning, a middle and an end.

W


In the following examples, the whole path of motion iswindowed in (1), whereas in the examples in (2–4)only the initial, medial or final portion of the path iswindowed, respectively:

1. The champagne cork shot out of the bottle, throughthe air and into Jane’s eye

2. The champagne cork shot out of the bottle[initial]

3. The champagne cork shot through the air[medial]

4. The champagne cork shot into Jane’s eye[final]

(See also conceptual structuring system, ConceptualStructuring System Approach.)

WXDY construction see What’s X doing Y? construction

XYZ construction A grammatical construction (1) spe-cialised for prompting for conceptual integrationstudied in detail by Mark Turner. Some examples ofthis construction include the following:

1. Money is the root of all evil2. Vanity is the quicksand of beauty3. Necessity is the mother of invention4. Death is the mother of beauty5. Children are the riches of poor men

These examples all share a form first noted by Aristotlein the Poetics. The form consists of three elements, x,y and z. These are all noun phrases. Two of the ele-ments, y and z, form a possessive construction (brack-eted) connected by the preposition ‘of’. The purpose of

X


the construction is to propose a particular perspectiveaccording to which x should be viewed, as indicatedbelow:

6. Children are [ the riches of poor men]x y z

In (6), we are asked to view children as the riches ofpoor men, which results in a number of positive infer-ences relating to the ‘value’ of children. In addition tothe elements x, y and z, the construction prompts fora fourth element, w. In order to understand children(x) in terms of riches (y) we are prompted to constructa conceptual relation between children (x) and poormen (z) and a parallel relation holding between riches(y) and those who possess riches, namely rich men.This is the missing element (w), which is a necessarycomponent to the interpretation of this construction:in the absence of a y–w (riches–rich men) relation-ship parallel to the x–z (children–poor men) rela-tionship, there is no basis for viewing children (x) andriches (y) as counterparts. This idea is illustrated in (7).

7. (a) children ↔ poor menx z

(b) riches ↔ rich meny w

According to Blending Theory, ‘children/poor men’and ‘riches/rich men’ each inhabit distinct inputspaces. The XYZ construction prompts for conceptualintegration which serves to give rise to the analogy interms of which children are conceptualised in terms ofthe riches of poor men. This is the emergent structure.


Annotated Further Reading

Below you will find an annotated listing of books that willallow you to discover more about cognitive linguistics.The selection of books has been divided into four sections:

1. textbooks;2. works of reference;3. core readings in cognitive semantics;4. core readings in cognitive approaches to grammar.

TextbooksCroft, William and D. Alan Cruse (2004) Cognitive

Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.A recent introduction to cognitive linguistics. Particularly

good coverage of lexical semantics and constructionalapproaches to grammar.

Evans, Vyvyan and Melanie Green (2006) CognitiveLinguistics: An Introduction. Mahwah, NJ andEdinburgh: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates/EdinburghUniversity Press.

The most comprehensive general introduction to the field.Each chapter provides a detailed annotated reading listand exercises. Also includes chapters which comparecognitive linguistic theories with other theoreticalframeworks.

Kövecses, Zoltán (2002) Metaphor: A PracticalIntroduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

An accessible introduction to the key ideas in ConceptualMetaphor Theory.

Lee, David (2001) Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction.Oxford: Oxford University Press.

An accessible general introduction, focusing on generalideas rather than detail. The selection of topics covered,is, nevertheless, a little uneven.

Taylor, John (2002) Cognitive Grammar. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

An excellent textbook introduction to Langacker’stheory.

Taylor, John (2003) Linguistic Categorization, 3rd edn.Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Provides a highly accessible account of cognitive linguisticapproaches to typicality effects and fuzzy categories asmanifested in language.

Ungerer, Friedrich and Hans-Jorg Schmid (2006)Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics, 2nd edn. London:Longman.

Very clear explanations of the areas presented, particularlyon prototype and basic level objects research. However,the coverage is rather one-sided focusing primarily on(older traditions in) cognitive semantics.

Works of referenceCuyckens, Hubert, René Dirven and John Taylor (2003)

Cognitive Approaches to Lexical Semantics. Berlin:Mouton de Gruyter.


An excellent representative selection of original articlesrelating to contemporary approaches to cognitive lexicalsemantics.

Dirven, René and Ralf Pörings (2002) Metaphor andMetonymy in Comparison and Contrast. Berlin:Mouton de Gruyter.

A collection reproducing seminal and influential articlesrelating to conceptual metaphor and metonymy.

Evans, Vyvyan, Benjamin Bergen and Jörg Zinken (2007)The Cognitive Linguistics Reader. London: Equinox.

The largest single-volume collection of readings in cogni-tive linguistics and a significant work of reference.Contains twenty-eight articles by leading figures in cog-nitive linguistics including a major review article of thecognitive linguistics enterprise written by the Reader’seditors.

Fauconnier, Gilles and Eve Sweetser (1996) Spaces, Worldsand Grammar. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

An edited volume consisting of original articles whichaddress various semantic and grammatical issuesmaking use of Fauconnier’s theory of mental spaces.

Geeraerts, Dirk (2006) Cognitive Linguistics: BasicReadings. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

A collection of twelve seminal articles by leading figures incognitive linguistics.

Geeraerts, Dirk and Hubert Cuyckens (In press) OxfordHandbook of Cognitive Linguistics. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

A major reference work containing original encyclopaedia-like articles by leading experts.


Gonzalez-Marquez, Monica, Irene Mittelberg, SeanaCoulson and Michael Spivey (eds) (2006) EmpiricalMethods in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam, NJ:John Benjamins.

A recent edited volume comprising original articles byprominent cognitive linguists and psychologists. Thecollection both makes the case for empirical methodsin cognitive linguistics and represents the state of theart.

Gries, Stefan Th. and Anatol Stefanowitsch (eds) (2006)Corpora in Cognitive Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton deGruyter.

An important contribution that makes the case for the useof empirical corpus-based linguistics in cognitive lin-guistic theorising.

Hampe, Beate (2005) From Perception to Meaning: ImageSchemas in Cognitive Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton deGruyter.

An edited collection of papers by leading scholars pre-senting a range of often conflicting positions on thenature of image schemas.

Janssen, Theo and Gisela Redeker (1999) CognitiveLinguistics: Foundations, Scope and Methodology.Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

An edited volume containing original articles by a selec-tion of leading cognitive linguists. The articles addressthe theoretical and empirical basis of cognitive linguis-tics and cognitive linguistic theories.

Östman, Jan Ola and Mirjam Fried (2005) ConstructionGrammars: Cognitive Grounding and TheoreticalExtensions. Amsterdam, NJ: John Benjamins.


An edited collection of original papers addressing theoret-ical and methodological issues relating to construc-tional approaches to grammar.

Core readings in cognitive semanticsCoulson, Seana (2000) Semantic Leaps: Frame-Shifting

and Conceptual Blending in Meaning Construction.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

An important study on the role of conceptual blending inlanguage processing and comprehension.

Croft, William (2000) Explaining Language Change: AnEvolutionary Perspective. London: Longman.

A seminal work in which Croft presents a usage-basedtheory of language change which applies insights fromthe generalised theory of natural selection to language.

Dancygier, Barbara and Eve Sweetser (2005) Mental Spacesin Grammar: Conditional Constructions. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Presents a theoretical account of conditional constructionsusing the framework of Mental Spaces Theory.

Evans, Vyvyan (2004) The Structure of Time: Language,Meaning and Temporal Cognition. Amsterdam, NJ:John Benjamins.

Investigates the relationship between lexical and conceptualstructure in the domain of time. The only book-lengthtreatment of temporal cognition from the perspective ofcognitive linguistics. Also represents a precursor to thedevelopment of LCCM Theory.

Fauconnier, Gilles (1994) Mental Spaces. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.


This is a revised edition of Fauconnier’s classic book,first published in English in 1985. Presents a ground-breaking theory of semantic reference, successfullyresolving many semantic phenomena which had bedev-illed formal approaches.

Fauconnier, Gilles (1997) Mappings in Thought andLanguage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

In this volume Fauconnier updates and extends his theoryof mental spaces. He also introduces his collaborativework with Mark Turner on Conceptual BlendingTheory.

Fauconnier, Gilles and Mark Turner (2002) The Way WeThink: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s HiddenComplexities. New York: Basic Books.

The definitive introduction to conceptual blending by thetwo architects of the theory. Highly accessible.

Feldman, Jerome (2006) From Molecule to Metaphor: ANeural Theory of Language. Cambridge, MA: MITPress.

An extremely accessible introduction to the NeuralTheory of Language project associated with cognitivelinguists and cognitive scientists at the University ofCalifornia, Berkeley.

Gibbs, Raymond (1994) The Poetics of Mind. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Presents psycholinguistic evidence for the conceptual basisof figurative language phenomena such as metaphor.

Johnson, Mark (1987) The Body in the Mind: The BodilyBasis of Meaning, Imagination and Reason. Chicago:Chicago University Press.


One of the classic texts in cognitive linguistics. Providesthe first detailed treatment of image schemas.

Lakoff, George (1987) Women, Fire and DangerousThings: What Categories Reveal About the Mind.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

One of the classic texts in cognitive linguistics. Lakoffmakes the case for a novel theory of idealised cognitivemodels in order to account for recent findings in humancategorisation. Also provides a philosophical frame-work for research in cognitive linguistics which remainsinfluential.

Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson (1999) Philosophy inthe Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge toWestern Thought. New York: Basic Books.

An updated account of Lakoff and Johnson’s seminal ideason conceptual metaphors and the notion of embodiedcognition.

Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson (2003) Metaphors WeLive By, 2nd revised edn. Chicago: University of ChicagoPress.

This classic introduction to Conceptual MetaphorTheory was originally published in 1980. The secondedition features a new afterword detailing some of themore recent insights and developments in metaphorresearch.

Palmer, Gary (1996) Toward a Theory of CulturalLinguistics. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

In this book Palmer makes a compelling case forapplying cognitive linguistics to cultural aspectsof language, arguing for a theory of cultural lingu-istics.


Sweetser, Eve (1990) From Etymology to Pragmatics:Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Another highly influential and now classic text in cogni-tive linguistics. Sweetser uses ideas from ConceptualMetaphor Theory and Image Schema Theory in order toaccount for semantic aspects of grammatical change.

Talmy, Leonard (2000) Toward a Cognitive Semantics,Vols I and II. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Brings together, and updates, Talmy’s classic papers inwhich he explores how language encodes variousaspects of conceptual structure including space, force-dynamics and motion.

Tyler, Andrea and Vyvyan Evans (2003) The Semanticsof English Prepositions: Spatial Scenes, EmbodiedExperience and Cognition. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

The first book-length treatment of the Principled Polysemyapproach to lexical representation. Also represents themost detailed cognitive linguistic study of Englishspatial relations. The book makes the case for the expe-riential basis of prepositional meanings and their exten-sions.

Core readings in cognitive approaches to grammarCroft, William (2002) Radical Construction Grammar.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.Introduces and makes the case for a Radical Construction

Grammar.

Dabrowska, Ewa (2004) Language, Mind and Brain:Some Psychological and Neurological Constraints onGrammar. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.


An excellent and highly accessible overview and review ofthe cognitive linguistic position with respect to keyissues in psycholinguistics, including language acquisi-tion, brain lateralisation and modularity. Also includesa review of cognitive linguistic criticisms of Chomsky’sUniversal Grammar hypothesis.

Goldberg, Adele (1995) Constructions: A ConstructionGrammar Approach to Verbal Argument Structure.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

A classic. Makes a compelling case for a constructionalapproach to grammar employing verbal argument con-structions as a test case.

Goldberg, Adele (2006) Constructions at Work: TheNature of Generalization in Language. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

An updated constructional account. Also includes newfindings on the way children acquire constructions.

Langacker, Ronald (1987/1991) Foundations of CognitiveGrammar, Vols I and II. Stanford, CA: StanfordUniversity Press.

Volume I of Langacker’s two-volume edifice lays out thetheoretical assumptions of his theory of CognitiveGrammar. Volume II applies the theoretical architectureto a range of grammatical phenomena.

Tomasello, M. (2003) Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press.

An important recent synthesis of empirical findings relat-ing to first language acquisition. Presents the case for ausage-based perspective on language acquisition.


Authors Mentioned

Below you will find a list of researchers mentioned in theGlossary, followed by a listing of some of the areas ofresearch undertaken by each researcher.

Jens AllwoodCognitive lexical semantics, meaning-construction

Antonio BarcelonaMetaphor, metonymy

Lawrence BarsalouFraming, knowledege representation, perceptualsimulation

Elizabeth BatesDevelopmental psycholinguistics, emergentism

Benjamin BergenConstruction Grammar, Embodied ConstructionGrammar

Claudia BrugmanCognitive lexical semantics, over

Nancy ChangFirst language acquisition, Embodied ConstructionGrammar

Seana CoulsonBlending Theory, language comprehension, languageprocessing, Mental Spaces Theory

William CroftConstruction Grammar, Domain Highlighting Model,language change, linguistic typology, RadicalConstruction Grammar, Utterance Selection Theory

D. Alan CruseCognitive lexical semantics

Hubert CuyckensCognitive lexical semantics, prepositions

Barbara DancygierBlending Theory, conditional constructions, MentalSpaces Theory

Paul DeaneCognitive lexical semantics, prepositions

Merlin DonaldCognitive development, evolutionary psychology,mimesis

Vyvyan EvansCognitive lexical semantics, metaphor, meaning-construction, LCCM Theory, prepositions, PrincipledPolysemy, temporal representation


Gilles FauconnierBlending Theory, Mental Spaces Theory

Jerome FeldmanCognitive science, Neural Theory of Language

Charles FillmoreConstruction Grammar, Frame Semantics

Dirk GeeraertsCognitive lexical semantics, historical lexicology

Raymond GibbsEmbodied cognition, empirical approaches to cognitivelinguistics, metaphor, metonymy

Adele GoldbergConstruction Grammar, first language acquisition

Louis GoossensMetaphor, metonymy

Joseph GradyMetaphor, Primary Metaphor Theory

Anette HerskovitsCognitive lexical semantics, prepositions

Paul HopperConstruction Grammar, discourse analysis, EmergentGrammar, grammaticalisation

Ray JackendoffConceptual semantics, constuctional approaches togrammar


Mark JohnsonConceptual Metaphor Theory, image schemas, metaphor,applications of cognitive semantics to philosophy

Paul KayColour categorisation, Construction Grammar

Zoltán KövecsesConceptual Metaphor Theory, metaphor, metonymy,cultural linguistics

Tania KutevaDistributed spatial semantics, grammaticalisation

George LakoffCategorisation, cognitive lexical semantics, ConceptualMetaphor Theory, Construction Grammar, framing,metaphor, Neural Theory of Language, application ofcognitive semantics to politics

Ronald LangackerCognitive Grammar

John LucyLinguistic relativity

Jean MandlerCognitive development, image schemas, knowledgerepresentation, language development

Laura MichaelisConstruction Grammar, Embodied ConstructionGrammar


Rafael NúñezCognitive science, temporal representation in languageand gesture, application of cognitive semantics tomathematics

Günter RaddenCognitive Grammar, metaphor, metonymy, linguisticmotivation

Eleanor RoschBasic level categories, categorisation, Prototype Theory

Dominiek SandraCognitive lexical semantics, psycholinguistics

Chris SinhaCognitive development, the extended mind, distributedspatial semantics, language and intersubjectivity, theevolution of language and cognition

Eve SweetserBlending Theory, conditional constructions, discourseanalysis, metaphor, modality, Mental Spaces Theory,applications of cognitive semantics to semantic changeand meaning-construction

Leonard TalmyAttention, Conceptual System Structuring Approach,fictive motion, force-dynamics, linguistic evolution,spatial representation in language, sign language

Michael TomaselloCognitive development, evolutionary psychology, firstlanguage acquisition, language evolution anddevelopment


Elizabeth Closs TraugottGrammaticalisation, Invited Inferencing Theory,semantic change

Mark TurnerBlending Theory, cognitive poetics, ConceptualMetaphor Theory, metaphor, application of cognitivesemantics to social science

Andrea TylerApplication of cognitive linguistics to languagepedagogy, prepositions, Principled Polysemy

Claude VandeloiseCognitive lexical semantics, prepositions

Jörg ZinkenCultural linguistics, discourse analysis, metaphor

Jordan ZlatevCognitive lexical semantics, embodied cognition,mimesis, spatial semantics


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