Cognitive Grammar An Introduction

This book fills a longstanding need for a basic introduction to CognitiveGrammar that is current, authoritative, comprehensive, and approachable. Itpresents a synthesis that draws together and refines the descriptive andtheoretical notions developed in this framework over the course of threedecades. In a unified manner, it accommodates both the conceptual and thesocial-interactive basis of linguistic structure, as well as the need for bothfunctional explanation and explicit structural description. Starting with thefundamentals, essential aspects of the theory are systematically laid out withconcrete illustrations and careful discussion of their rationale. Among thetopics surveyed are conceptual semantics, grammatical classes, grammaticalconstructions, the lexicon-grammar continuum characterized as assemblies ofsymbolic structures (form-meaning pairings), and the usage-based account ofproductivity, restrictions, and well-formedness. The theory's central claim -that grammar is inherently meaningful - is thereby shown to be viable. Theframework is further elucidated through application to nominal structure, clausestructure, and complex sentences. These are examined in broad perspective, withexemplification from English and numerous other languages. In line with thetheory's general principles, they are discussed not only in terms of theirstructural characterization, but also their conceptual value and functionalmotivation. Other matters explored include discourse, the temporal dimension oflanguage structure, and what grammar reveals about cognitive processes and theconstruction of our mental world.

Ronald W. Langacker retired after 37 years as Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, San Diego. He was originally trained in generative linguistics, and worked for a decade on the Uto-Aztecan family of Native American languages. Since 1976 he has been developing the theory of Cognitive Grammar (a radical alternative to generative theory) as part of the broader tradition of cognitive linguistics.