Questions tagged [cognitive-linguistics]
A branch of linguistics that interprets language in terms of the concepts that underlie its forms. Cognitive linguistics claims that language is part of a larger cognition apparatus and views meaning in terms of conceptualisation and mental spaces, denying that there is a separate module in the human mind dedicated exclusively to language.
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Present participles in a noun phrase
I'm working on a research project on premodufying present participles and I would like to have a native speaker's impression on the grammaticality or frequency of the following options.
There are ...
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Which school of linguistics is the most related to computational linguistics and NLP?
I heard that there are different schools of linguistics: functional, cognitive, and structural/generative/formal.
I was wondering which schools the following books belong to:
Essentials of ...
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The philosophical characteristics of functionalism and structuralism
In (Givón, 2013), the author makes the two following groupings:
Functionalism: rationalism, naturalness, universality, mentalism,
innateness, emergence, evolution
Structuralism: empiricism, ...
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Can language reveal how we think? [closed]
I have just started lightly reading about consciousness and, in trying to think about what it is, I couldn't help but notice how simply thinking about the pronoun "I" could shed quite a bit ...
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What's a cogniteme?
Today, I encountered for the first time the term cogniteme. What is it meaning and history?
A quick search shows that the term is used by Kyrgyz, Ukrainian, and Russian authors and it may be an ad hoc ...
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What is the difference between neurolinguistics and similar fields of study?
What is the difference between neurolinguistics and cognitive linguistics or psycholinguistics?
I am already having trouble understanding the difference between cognitive linguistics and ...
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Does the universal use of noun and verb phrases reflect how humans cognitively see the world as objects and relationships?
The question is: why are noun and verb phrases the basic building blocks of all grammar?
Candidate answer: cognitively, we perceive the world as objects and relationships between objects. Thus, nouns ...
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Are the words "blue" and "red" universally linked to coldness and warmness in different languages?
We often talk about warm vs cold colors. When someone feels sad, we say she "feels blue".
I conjecture this may be universal across cultures due to our experience with the warmness of the ...
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What are the differences between Frames and Image Schemata?
I know there are several schema based theories in cognitive sciences, including psychology and linguistics. I am also aware that they mostly share a lot in common, as, for instance, Rumelhart (1981) ...
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Origin of describing emotions with adjectives associated with taste
You might have seen that most of the adjectives that are related to taste are used to describe emotions.
Salty, sour, sweet, bitter etc. We use these adjectives to describe people and their emotions.
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How does syntax of our language affect our thoughts?
Our language affects the way we perceive the world. I know it is not only because the words that don’t exist in one of the languages may exist in the other ones, but also because of the grammar. We ...
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Are false cognates something languages tend to create?
It could easily be my own bias but I feel like false cognates are suspiciously common. Do similar meanings tend to acquire similar sounds in language evolution? Have there been any studies whether ...
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Why is research on grammatical gender important?
I was wondering why is research on grammatical gender important? Why is exploring this area of linguistics of any interest to linguists? What can it tell us about language (especially with regards to ...
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What is the phenomenon that each word variation is regarded equally, not a variation of the root?
This is a thing that I remember that I read in a cognitive psychology book, but I can't find it out. For example, the word cats has two morphemes: cat + s. So we usually regard cats as a morphological ...
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Can the conceptual metaphor be approached syntactically?
I am really interested in studying how syntax is connected to cognition. I would like to see if the conceptual nature of metaphor can also be approached syntactically. But I don't know where to start. ...
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Are cognitive benefits of bilinguals proof of independence of thought and language?
The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis says that language determines thought. Chomsky's theory states that cognition and language are independent systems.
Biliguals have an advantage in several areas of ...
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Any good book recommendations on the relationship between language and thought? [closed]
Title says it all, I really want to explore this relationship between language and thought.
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Are there logographic writing systems for the blind? Do blind users of logographic writing systems struggle like how deaf users of alphabets do?
I'm not a linguist, but I borrowed a textbook from my university library and read the chapter on writing systems. The textbook is Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction by William O'Grady. In it, ...
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Completely schematic construction?
I'm trying to understand what is a completely schematic construction in cognitive grammar.
I found an example: VP --> V NP
So, is that a construction that can be easily described by a general rule ...
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Another example of Talmy's Ca1 factor in attention phenomena?
I'm a cognitive science student and I am studying the book "Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics".
Leonard Talmy has put a great effort in attention theory, but the part about Ca1 factor has just ...
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What is the 'best' language, and by what metrics, why those metrics...? [closed]
This is sort of the old question that you'd see whispered about a lot in Western academia, and shouted out by linguists of the past, who had their own circumstances, own canons, own less-connected (?) ...
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What aspects of a conceptual metaphor can be compared cross-culturally? [closed]
I'm interested to do a cross-cultural study of a conceptual metaphor 'Love is food' between English and Thai. I would like to compare the use of this metaphor in the two languages to find similarities ...
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Word meaning as function of the composition of its phonemes
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Linguists like to claim that the mapping from sounds to word meanings is mostly arbitrary. Can you point out research that supports this claim? Specificllay I am looking for hard evidience in ...
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Has there been any development or long lasting influence of Leonard Talmy's work?
I've read some of Talmy's work particularly that of his semantic analysis of the spatial organization inherent in the meaning of prepositions like "across","around" or "over" among others. I've found ...
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ODD NUMBER in Cognitive Linguistics of WILLIAM CROFT and D. ALAN CRUSE
In the subsection 4.3.4.2 The ‘odd number paradox’ of Cognitive Linguistics by W. Croft & D. A. Cruse
We read:
The ‘odd number paradox’ has also been put forward as a problem for
prototype ...
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Experimental support for construction grammar?
I realize there are many different instantiations of Construction Grammar (CxG), and I'm not necessarily tied to any particular version yet. I was curious if there are experiments that support CxG, or ...
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What is the view of prototype theory regarding features?
For example, the most prototypical exemplars of bird is robin, the least ones are ostrich or penguin. But since it rejects the classical theory (aka the necessary and sufficient conditions), I think ...
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Relationship of senses across parts of speech
We can have two words which describe a similar concept but have different parts of speech, for example live V, life N.
I live well.
Semantically similar or arguably equivalent construction:
My ...
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Are words in form of verbs and adjectives abstract concepts
There are concrete (like tree, dog) and abstract concepts (like war, love etc.).
I see that concept is expressed as a noun, but what about other parts of speech (verbs, adjectives, etc.)? Are they ...
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Definition of "concept" and "conceptual field in cognitive linguistics
I am writing a Master's thesis dedicated to the conception field "business" in Modern English Language. The definition of "concept" and "conceptional field" is greatly discussed by Russian linguists, ...
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Does Gestalt theory tell us anything about syntax?
According to this article (dlibra.umcs.lublin.pl/Content/21626/czas17868_30_2_2012_4.pdf), cognitive grammar is an approach to grammar which takes into accounts broad perceptual principles, including ...
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Name of the theory of lexical semantics that distinguishes consonants by the values "up" and "down"?
I'm reading "Cognitive interpretation of Czech verse" by Pavel Jiráček about a way to analyze poetry by reading how the consonants, syllables and words conotate "up" and "down".
What is the best ...
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Do multilinguals have one language they predominantly think in?
For those who are bilingual or able to master three or four languages, is there a ruling langauge by which they mainly use to think and study? For instance, A person who was born and lived in the ...
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Subject-verb number agreement with complex subject
There is a common language learner question for English (both native and non-native speakers) to wonder what kind of subject-verb number agreement to have when a sentence is complex. For example, ...
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What will form a minimum yet complete set of verbs that can define any action?
Let us think of a hypothetical situation where I need to identify a set of verbs, where the set can represent all possible actions that can be performed. For example, run can be tuned as a variation ...
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What is the name for the phenomenon or process by which the brain knows what "it" in a sentence refers to?
What is the name for the phenomenon or process by which the brain knows what "it" in a sentence refers to ?
For example : I left my book on the table but when I came back, IT wasn't there.
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Are there resources that classify the common words according to their underlying concepts?
Are there available resources that classify the common words (used in daily life for communications) in the form of a hierarchy according to their underlying concepts (possibly also w.r.p.t. synonyms/...
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Arbitrariness and coinages [closed]
What is the relationship between arbitrariness, as a property of language, and coinages? Because coinages are compound not-arbitrary words, do they not correspond to the particular property of ...
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Does understanding free word order require a distinct cognitive process?
Abbreviate 'a language with free word order' to FWOL (eg: 1, 2, 3, 4). I exemplify with Latin.
When trying to read a FWOL, I must firstly consciously determine the lexical categories of each word, ...
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Has Ray Jackendoff's Parallel Architecture paradigm received a formal review or criticism(s) from Chomsky and/or others?
Ray Jackendoff, a theoretical linguist and cognitive scientist at Tufts University, has been developing his theory of the linguistic Parallel Architecture since departing from the narrow syntactic ...
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Short summary of Cognitive Linguistics [closed]
I'm a german student of English and I have to make a short presentation (about 20 minutes) about the basic assumptions and terms of Cognitive Linguistics. I got a huge collection of books and articles ...
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How do you code a beat gesture in ELAN?
In gesture studies, a beat is described as a gesture which punctuates discourse and signals important parts of speech. I am working on gesture and I have to differentiate beats from other types of ...
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Similar reuse of roots across languages and language families
I have noticed that the Latin vici means both road and conqueror. Interestingly, in Hebrew the root כבש is used for both כביש (road) and for לכבוש (to conquer).
I see a few different reasons why this ...
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Does language influence thinking skills or cognition
I have an intuition, and Hypothesis, that the native language we speak is responsible for our cognition and thinking skills.
e.g. Hebrew speaking people would have poor spatial ability compared to ...
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Can any one experience the World without a language? if yes to what extent, if no, why not?
I am exploring of a possibility of experiencing the world around without a language. By listening, speaking, seeing and reflecting on words made by the alphabets of a language - one experiences the ...
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Usage of definite articles in Germanic and Romance languages
In the Germanic languages, a generic construction using the definite article with mass nouns is unacceptable. In contrast, Romance languages require the definite article to make the generic ...
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What kinds of maths to learn for understanding dynamical systems in cognitive linguistics?
A current trend in cognitive science is to view the mind as a dynamical system (e.g., Continuity of Mind by psycholinguist Spivey, in which cognition--including language comprehension and production--...
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Is there a term for a mental prototype changing?
Years ago, if I heard the word bird I thought about a sparrow since I live in western Pennsylvania and there are sparrows everywhere. But now, if I hear the word bird I picture a blue, two-dimensional ...
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Are universal grammar and Sapir-Whorf really competing theories?
I consider myself a neo-Whorfian and see major flaws in universal grammar, but it doesn't seem to me like they are truly competing theories. Cutting out all of the parts about how language is acquired ...
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What does a cognitive linguistics researcher actually do in practice?
What would a cognitive linguistics researcher do on a daily basis, and how would they go about conducting this research?
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