The grammatical subsystem: encoding semantic structure

According to the cognitive model that we sketched in the last chapter, know ledge of language is represented in the mind of the speaker in terms of a structured inventory. This inventory is structured in terms of a network of links between symbolic units. These symbolic units may be either lexical (open-class) or grammatical (closed-class) elements. This structured inventory represents semantic structure. Recall from Chapter 6 that cognitive linguists view semantic structure as constituting the conventional form that conceptual structure takes for expression in language. In Part II of the book, we began to map out semantic structure by exploring word meaning and sentence meaning. In that part of the book, our emphasis was on the open-class subsystem. In Part III of the book, we complement our exploration of the open-class subsystem by examining the closed-class or ‘grammatical’ subsystem.

 In modern linguistics, the widespread view is that grammar is not independently meaningful. As we will see in detail in this chapter, cognitive linguists argue that grammar is independently meaningful because, like the open-class system, it has a conceptual basis. From this perspective, grammar derives from and reflects embodied experience in a similar way to open-class expressions; the difference between the open and closed classes relates only to the degree of semantic specificity or schematicity that a linguistic unit encodes. In this chapter, we explore the cognitive foundations of grammar posited by Talmy and Langacker and see how these models of the grammatical subsystem represent attempts to understand how grammar encodes concepts relating to TIME, SPACE and FORCE-DYNAMICS, and how it reflects cognitive phenomena like attention and perspective. Cognitive linguists argue that fundamental aspects of embodied experience have left an indelible imprint on the grammatical sub system which provides (in Talmy’s terms) the ‘scaffolding’ across which the open-class subsystem can drape its more specific content.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

انعقاد الجلسة البحثية باللغة الإنكليزية ضمن فعاليات المؤتمر التمهيدي لألفية حوزة النجف الأشرف

مقالة علمية تناقش الأهمية البالغة في معرفة مشايخ الشيخ الطوسي (قدس سره)

دراسة علمية تثبت تاريخ تأليف الشيخ الطوسي لكتاب الفهرست

باحث يقدم دراسة علمية بعنوان (الشيخ الطوسي والكبرى الرجالية تأصيلًا وتطبيقًا)

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

اللوز.. "كنز صحي" يحمي دماغك

رفض اعتماد "لقاح موديرنا" للإنفلونزا.. وكشف الأسباب ؟

تحذير طبي من مرض شائع يزيد خطر الإصابة بنوعين من السرطان

الإنفلونزا لا تضرب الرئة فقط.. دراسة تكشف خطرها على القلب

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

سلاح طبي في ساحات الحرب.. رذاذ يوقف النزيف خلال ثانية !

مايكروسوفت تدق ناقوس الخطر وتحذر من "الذكاء الاصطناعي الخفي"

الإمارات تطلق شراكة عالمية مع ستارلينك لإتاحة التعليم الرقمي

"أوبن إيه آي" تختبر عرض الإعلانات داخل محادثات chatgpt

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Conceptual alternativity

The configuration of SPACE and TIME

Conceptual Structuring System Model of Talmy

The conceptual basis of grammar

Cognitive approaches to grammar summery

Sanctioning and grammaticality

Schemas and instances

Features of the closed-class subsystem

Grammatical knowledge: a structured inventory of symbolic units

Characteristics of the cognitive approach to grammar

Agreement and case

Grammatical functions