Dingfang 2009 - Cognitive Approaches To Lexical Semantics

Language and Linguistics Compass 3/1 (2009): 314–337, 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2008.00120.
Cognitive Approaches to Lexical Semantics

Shu Dingfang*
Shanghai International Studies University
Abstract
This article reviews the achievements and recent research programs in the field
of cognitive lexical semantics, which has become a full-fledged field since the
early 1980s, when important research findings in cognitive psychology concerning
the internal structure of categories (prototype structure and family resemblance
structure) were adopted to analyze lexical categories (Taylor et al. 2003). Cognitive
linguists have since changed their conceptions about the nature of word meanings,
and the interplay between words and their contexts. The traditional dividing lines
between lexicon and grammar, and linguistic knowledge and encyclopedic
knowledge have been largely blurred, and meaning is seen as a manifestation of
conceptual structure, which is embodied and entrenched in the schematic network
of structures and is extended on the basis of language usage events.
Introduction
Cognitive semantics is to some extent a revolution against formal
approaches to meaning construction (e.g. the truth-conditional model and
generative grammar). Meaning is described in terms of the human construal
of reality rather than the objective reflection of the real world. Words are
not ‘containers’ of their meaning, but are points of access to encyclopedic
knowledge. Cognitive semantics takes a usage-based view of language and
defines language as a fixed inventory of conventional linguistic units. The
lexicon, morphology, and grammar form a gradation without arbitrary
boundaries posited within. And the separation between linguistic and
encyclopedic knowledge, the distinction between lexicon and grammar,
and the boundaries of lexical categories are largely blurred (cf. Langacker
1987, 1990, 1991, 1999).
The past two decades have witnessed the rapid developments of cognitive
lexical semantics. Topics that are traditionally treated as peripheral figurative
instruments, like metaphors and idioms have received special attention in
cognitive linguistic studies. Cognitive linguists have explored the internal
structure of lexical categories, the polysemous nature of lexical items,
their systematic relations and underlying motivating mechanisms, as well
as larger conceptual structures like frames or scenarios (Taylor et al. 2003).
New advances have been made with regard to the nature of lexical
© 2009 The Author
Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Cognitive Approaches to Lexical Semantics 315
Fig. 1. Categories and their members
categories, sense relations, dynamic meaning construction, interaction

between words and larger linguistic units as well as the integration of
encyclopedic knowledge into meaning construction.
This review aims to provide an overall picture of the main topics,
achievements and future prospects in the field of cognitive lexical semantics
and attempts to answer such questions as: What positions do cognitive
semanticists take toward lexical categories, lexical relations, meaning
extension, the relations between lexicon and grammar, and between lin-
guistic meaning and encyclopedic meaning, etc.?
1. Categorization and Linguistic Investigation

Categorization is the basic human cognitive ability to organize and store
experiences. It is closely tied to linguistic studies, and Labov (1973:342)
observes that ‘[i]f linguistics can be said to be any one thing, it is the study
of categories’. Langacker (1987) proposes that categorization, together
with symbolization and integration, forms the three basic relations of
language structure. Taylor (1989) also points out the importance of cate-
gories in describing the object of linguistic investigation, and proposes
that each level of language is composed of categorized units.
1.1 TWO DIFFERENT VIEWS ON CATEGORIZATION
The traditional Aristotelian view of categorization, known as the Standard

Criterial-Attribute Model, insists on necessary and sufficient conditions
for membership on the basis of a precise hierarchy, shared properties and
equal status among category members, as shown in Figures 1, 2.
The assumptions of the classical theory seem to be in accord with people’s
intuitions about categorization. As Figure 2 shows, according to the classical
theory of categorization, the ANIMAL category includes the BIRD category,
and the BIRD category includes robins, sparrows, bluebirds, etc. Each
category has clear-cut boundaries and their members share common defining
properties. For instance, it is usually believed that a creature that has a
© 2009 The Author Language and Linguistics Compass 3/1 (2009): 314–337, 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2008.00120.x
316 Shu Dingfang
Fig. 2. Bird category and its members
beak, feathers, two wings and two legs, and lays eggs is a bird. However,
the rigid view of attributes and categorization cannot hold because people
could respond differently to questions like whether a robin is a bird,
whether an ostrich is a bird, or whether a one-legged robin is a bird, etc.
Similar problems arise in semantic feature analysis, in which a word
like bachelor is analyzed as a combination of the semantic features of
[+HUMAN], [+MALE], [+ADULT], and [−MARRIED]. Nevertheless,
the nature of ‘bachelorhood’ is hard to decide when it comes to divorced
men or popes who meet all the conditions but are not supposed to be a
bachelor (Fillmore 1982).
The first major crack in the classical theory is generally acknowledged
to have been noticed by Wittgenstein (Wittgenstein 1953:1 : 66–71, in
Lakoff 1987). With his famous analysis of game, Wittgenstein proposes the
notion of family resemblance as the principle that underlies category
membership.
Rosch (Rosch 1973, 1975, 1978) studied categories of physical objects
like ‘furniture’, ‘bird’, ‘vehicle’, etc. and proposed the Prototype Model
of categorization, dealing a deadly blow to the classical categorization
theory within experimental psychology. They developed for the first time
the experimental paradigms of prototype identification including Direct
Rating, Reaction Time, and Production of Examples, etc.
The basic idea is that there are no necessary and sufficient properties
shared by all category members. The membership of a category follows a
gradience from prototypical members (good examples) to peripheral ones
(bad examples). Figure 3 demonstrates the goodness-of-example (GOE)
rating of the BIRD category (in Britain).
Subjects show gradience in the judgment over the membership of the
BIRD category with robin as the best example, and dove the least typical one.
1.2 PROTOTYPE THEORY AND THE STRUCTURE OF LEXICAL CATEGORIES
The Prototype model proves its explanatory power in meaning extension

and sense relations. Lakoff (1987) comments that ‘the application of
Fig. 3. Goodness-of-example rating of the Bird category (Rosch 1975, cited in Ungerer and
Schmid 1996: 13)
prototype theory to the study of word meaning brings order into an area
where before there was only chaos’. He studies there constructions and con-
cludes that they can be analyzed as forming a natural category with the central
deictic as the prototype. For instance, (1) a is a better example than (1) b:
(1) a. There is Henry!

b. There will stand the new stadium for the 1996 Olympics.
Fillmore (1982) analyzes the polysemous verb climb as in (2) a d:
(2) a. The boy climbed the tree.
b. The locomotive climbed the mountainside.
c. Prices are climbing day by day.
d. The boy climbed down the tree and over the wall.
Climb in (2a) means both ‘motion upward’ and ‘the use of hands to
grasp onto the thing climbed’; (2b) involves the motion upward, with ‘the
uses of hands’ understood metaphorically (i.e. the railway track as hands);
(2c) only involves metaphorical upward motion; (2d) involves downward
rather than upward motion. Therefore, the word climb forms a category
including central senses and peripheral senses with motivated links like
metaphor, metonymy, or image schemas.
Aitchison (1992) demonstrates the importance of cultural factors on
lexical prototype identification. Yuan (1995) modifies the traditional
definition of Chinese grammatical categories by family resemblance. Lee
(2001) applies the radial model in the analysis of the process of language
change, the structure of noun and verb categories, and the concept of
agency. Liao (2005) discusses subcategorization with regard to the semantic
system of a polysemous word, in which meanings split or shift from the
prototype and their variants may constitute a subcategory and thus form a
knowledge network.
Langacker (2006:138) illustrates the ‘subsquish’ between the categories
of adjective and preposition:
318 Shu Dingfang
(3) a. Ellen is proud {of/*∅} her roses. (typical adjective)

b. The drugstore is opposite {from/?∅} the bank. (more an adjective
than a preposition)
c. The shed is near {?to/∅} the barn. (both adjective and preposition)
d. Sarah is like {Ø/??unto} a bumblebee. (more a preposition than an
adjective)
e. The shed is beside {∅/*to} the barn. (typical preposition)
Both categories have prototypes and thus include both central and
peripheral members. Peripheral members of two categories are often
more similar than their prototypes, which tend to be maximally distinct.
For instance, proud in (3a) and beside in (3e) are typical examples of
adjectives and prepositions respectively, while opposite in (3b) and near in
(3c) are analyzed as having both adjectival and prepositional variants
(Langacker 2006).
The concept of Prototype has become a cornerstone of cognitive theories
such as the Prototype Model (Rosch 1975), the Radial Model (Lakoff
1987), and the Schematic Network Model (Langacker 1987, 1990, 2006).
In these models, central cases are acknowledged as prototypes on the basis
of which extensions and sanctions could be made. Linguistic constructions
other than words are also analyzed in light of the prototype theory. For
instance, in ‘A constructional network in appositive space’, Farina (2006)
claims that appositive space is structured both via a network of family
resemblances and via the centrality of one specific construction, the
prototype.
2. Metaphor, Metonymy and Image Schemas – Motivating Mechanisms for

Meaning Construction and Extension
2.1 MOTIVATION
‘In the simplest cases, lexical items are pairings of phonological forms
with individual concepts. But such simple cases are rare exceptions.
Polysemy is the norm. Most words have a number of systematically related
meanings’ (Lakoff and Johnson 1999:499).
Among the polysemous senses of an expression, some are more proto-
typical relative to others or more schematic relative to others (Langacker
2007b:3). Meaning extension from prototypical to less prototypical senses
is usually motivated by related image schemas, metaphor, metonymy
(Lakoff 1987), and or conceptual integrations.
2.2 IMAGE SCHEMAS
‘Image schemas refer to the schematic and imagistic concepts which are
abstracted from pre-conceptual bodily experience, function as constituents
of more complex notions, and provide the structure projected metaphori-

cally to more abstract domains’ (Langacker 2007b).
The use of an image schema is one way in which embodied experience
manifests itself at the cognitive level. For instance, the examples in (4) are
motivated by the image schema of source–path–goal, as shown in Figure 4:
Fig. 4. The source–path–goal schema
(4) a. The railway goes all the way from the east to the west
b. Tamen bei shang nan xia, zou bian le zhongguo.
They northward go up southward go down travel all over China.
They went up to the north and down to the south, traveling all over
China.
The first example from English and the second one from Chinese
involve fictive and factive (see Talmy 2000a:100 for details) dynamic and
static motion events, but they both share one commonality, namely, the
image schema of ‘source–path–goal’.
Most scholars agree that many areas of experience are metaphorically
structured by means of a rather small number of image schemas. Johnson
(1987) investigates about 20 image schemas such as CONTAINER, BAL-
ANCE, COMPULSION, RESTRAINT REMOVAL, ENABLEMENT,
ATTRACTION, BLOCKAGE, CONTACT, etc.
Johnson and Lakoff (2002) suggest that these image schemas might be
so deeply grounded in common human experience that they constitute,
as it were, universal pre-linguistic cognitive structures. Many of the schemas
clearly derive from the most immediate of all our experiences, particularly
our experience of the human body (Taylor 2003).
The theory of image schemas has been widely applied in the field of
meaning extension and sense relations, particularly in the study of
polysemy, and polysemous prepositions (Lakoff 1987; Taylor 2003). It has
been found that meaning extensions can be explained by image schemas
and image schema transformations on which polysemous senses are built
up (e.g. Langacker 1999).
2.3 METAPHOR
Traditionally, metaphor is a figure of speech that is mutually exclusive

with respect to ordinary everyday language. Opposed to the traditional
approach, which treats metaphor as a matter of language, cognitive
linguists hold that the locus of metaphor is not in language, but in the
way we conceptualize one mental domain in terms of another. Take (5)
as one example:
320 Shu Dingfang
Table 1. The source-target domain mappings (adapted from Lakoff and

Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1993)
Source domain Target domain
Starting the journey Birth

Obstacles on journey Difficulties in life
Choices of routes Choices of career, marriage etc. in life
End of the journey Death
(5) a. There are always obstacles and detours on the way to our career success in
life.
b. Wo xian zai chu zai ren sheng de cha lu kou.
I now stand at life’s crossroads.
‘I am now at the crossroads of my life’.
It is obvious that the above metaphorical expressions are based on the
conceptualization of Life as a journey, which is not just used for talking
about life, but for reasoning about it as well. We take words from the
source domain to talk about those in the target domain, and there is a
correspondence between their internal structures as shown in Table 1:
Lakoff (1993) proposes Conceptual Metaphor Theory and claims that
‘metaphors are conventional cross-domain mappings in the conceptual
system’. For example, CLASSICAL CATEGORIES ARE CONTAIN-
ERS is a conceptual metaphor. In other words, classical categories are
understood metaphorically in terms of bounded regions, or ‘containers’,
as in the classical syllogism:
(6) Socrates is a man.
All men are mortal.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
which is of the form:
If X is in category A and category A is in category B, then X is in
category B.
Another metaphorical semantic concept is the concept of quantity,
which involves metaphors like the well-known LINEAR SCALES ARE
PATHS. We can easily find examples from languages like English or
Chinese as in (7):
(7) a. He is way ahead of me in intelligence.
b. Ta bi wo zhishang gao de duo.
He compared with me intelligence higher much more.
‘His intelligence is much higher than mine’.
As a phenomenon in which one conceptual domain is systematically
structured in terms of another, one important feature of metaphor is
Fig. 5. Typical schema of over as in try our magic carpet over the desert (adapted from Lakoff
1987: 425)
Fig. 6. Throw up a hamburger all over his instrument (adapted from Lakoff 1987: 421)
meaning extension. That is, metaphor gives rise to new meanings (Evans
and Green 2006). The study of prepositions has provided strong evidence
against traditional views of categorization and in favor of the prototype
approach. Brugman (1988) made a detailed studies of over and became the
first to explicitly propose the idea that lexical items are natural categories
of senses. As the extension from Brugman’s exploration of sense relations,
Lakoff (1987) shows the precise relations among spatial senses and
describes metaphorical extensions of the spatial senses based on the more
detailed investigation of over.
Take some sentences with the word over as examples (from BNC simple
search http://sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/saraWeb?qy=over):
(8) try our magic carpet over the desert
(9) throw up a hamburger all over his instrument
(10) John Henry was retired in July after a racing career over eight seasons.
(11) They have no legitimate power over me.
The central meaning of over is the static spatial relation of one being
ABOVE the other as in (8) (see Figure 5 in which the trajector is directly
above the landmark).
A slight extension from the schema of ABOVE to ABOVE AND
ACROSS could be made in over’s polysemous network. Just as in Figure 6,
the hamburger (the trajector) is moving long the path (represented by the
arrow) above and across the landmark.
In example (10), there is a metaphorical extension from the spatial to
the temporal domain. Sentence (11) is motivated by the metaphor UP IS
CONTROL, so a person with power above is supposed to be in control.
322 Shu Dingfang
2.4 METONYMY
Metonymy is also one of the major mechanisms motivating the relation-
ships between different senses of lexical items. ‘In contrast to metaphor
which is defined as the cross-domain mappings, a definition of metonymy
that has gained some popularity in cognitive linguistics contrasts meto-
nymical semantic shifts within a domain or domain matrix’ (Peirsman and
Geeraerts 2006:269):
The essence of metonymy resides in the possibility of establishing connections
between entities which co-occur within a given conceptual structure. This
characterization suggests a rather broader understanding of metonymy than that
given by traditional rhetoric. The entities need not be contiguous, in any spatial
sense. Neither is metonymy restricted to the act of reference. On this broader view,
metonymy turns out to be one of the most fundamental processes of meaning
extension, more basic, perhaps, even than metaphor (Taylor 2003:325).
Metonymy is one of the basic characteristics of cognition. It is extremely
common for people to take one well-understood or easy-to-perceive
aspect of something and use it to stand either for something as a whole
or for some other aspect or part of it. The most famous example of
metonymy is as in (12) when the waitress uses the food name to refer to
the customer who orders it (Lakoff 1987):
(12) The ham sandwich just spilled beer all over himself.
Metonymic concepts allow us to conceptualize one thing by means of
its relation to something else (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). The relation
could be phonological, conceptual or morphosyntactic. The most repre-
sentative relations include (i) the part for the whole; (ii) producer for
product; (iii) object used for user; (iv) controller for controlled; (v) institution
for people responsible; and (vi) the place for people responsible (Lakoff
and Johnson 1980:38).
One domain or domain matrix contains various parts, and which one
we choose is determined by what aspect we wish to focus on. For
instance, we can use both ‘new faces’ and ‘good heads’ to refer to their
possessor as in (13) and (14):
(13) We need some new faces here.
(14) We need some good heads here.
The point is not just that we use parts to stand for the whole, but we
pick out a particular characteristic that is the most salient. When new
members join a group, the first impression usually comes from the faces;
if a person is thought to be intelligent, it is usually attributed to his/her
head. This is why (13) means new members while (14) means intelligent
people.
The cognitive theory of metaphor and metonymy is at the ‘crossroads’
which will frame future research in the field for a number of years,
Table 2. Mappings for SURGEON IS A BUTCHER (Evans and Green 2006: 402)
Source: BUTCHER Mappings Target: SURGEON
BUTCHER SURGEON
CLEAVER SCALPEL
ANIMAL CARCASSES HUMAN PATIENTS
DISMEMBERING OPERATING
including the important changes the theory is undergoing (more precise

definitions and the experiential motivations, etc.), the interaction between
metaphor and metonymy, and the new tendencies or results in the
applications of the cognitive theory of metaphor and metonymy (Barcelona
2003).
2.5 THE CONCEPTUAL BLENDING THEORY (HEREAFTER BT)

Having outlined the basic tenets and applications of conceptual metaphor
and metonymy in lexical semantics, a brief reference to BT is in order
because of its immediate relevance to Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT)
and its implications for lexical semantics.
BT has evolved from CMT and Mental Space Theory, to which it is
complementary as a result of its explanatory power in the creative aspects
of meaning construction.
‘This surgeon is a butcher’ is a well-cited metaphor discussed by Grady
et al. (1999) as having posed a problem for traditional CMT and motivated
the development of the BT approach. (See Table 2 for the cross-domain
mappings within the CMT framework.)
It can be seen from Table 2 that the target domain of SURGEON is
projected from the source domain BUTCHER with corresponding map-
pings. The difficulty this example poses for CMT is that it actually implies
a negative evaluation of the surgeon’s incompetence, which could not be
inferred directly by cross-domain mappings.
The conceptual integration network is a key concept in the BT
approach, in which four mental spaces work together as a mechanism for
the inference of emergent meaning. There are two input spaces in which
elements in each input are linked by mappings, a generic space that
abstracts the commonalities from the two spaces, and a blended space that
creates a novel expressive effect. (See Figure 7 for the basic diagram of the
integration network.)
As for the example of ‘The surgeon is a butcher’, instead of a two-
domain directional mapping between the source and the target domain,
it could be analyzed as the result of a blend of surgeon and butcher in
which the blended agent has a surgeon’s goal and uses a butcher’s means
324 Shu Dingfang
Fig. 7. The basic four-space integration network (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 46)
(Brandt and Brandt 2005). It is the contradiction between the helping and
the healing as the surgeon’s presumable goal, and butchery as the means
being named that results in the emergent content of incompetence (Grady
et al. 1999:103–106).
BT is believed to be complementary to, rather than competing with,
CMT (see Grady et al. 1999 for the argument), each addressing certain
phenomena not accounted for by the other theory. On the one hand, the
practical application of CMT does not concern the analysis of what
metaphors mean but concerns the uncovering of underlying conceptual
metaphors in metaphoric discourse (Brandt and Brandt 2005); on the
other hand, Grady et al. (1999) observe that in spite of the fact that both
CMT and BT put great emphasis on inferential structure between conceptual
domains and are in a sense complementary, only BT allows for the pos-
sibility of an emergent structure containing elements that do not appear
in either of the inputs (Grygiel 2004).
Slingerland (2005) goes a step further by arguing that blending the two
inputs is not only used to help the recipient of the blend to better
apprehend the situation intellectually, but also help him/her to know how
to feel about it.
With the advent of BT, much improvement has been made in online
meaning construction. Evans and Green (2006:437–439) explicate the two
important contributions made by BT to the understanding of conceptual
metaphor, i.e. its account of emergent structure and its account of the
derivation of compound metaphors. Croft and Cruise (2004:203–204),
Kovecses (2005:268), and Evans and Green (2006:403–404), among other

scholars, also acknowledge the relative mental complexity and conceptual
richness made explicit by the blending model (Schmidt 2008).
In the field of lexical semantics, blending theory has significant impli-
cations for analyzing novel metaphors, poems, polysemy, semantic change,
etc. Fauconnier and Turner (2003) argue that blending is an important
mechanism in the development of lexical polysemy. Grygiel (2004)
presents a new approach to semantic change where meaning alternation
is perceived as a by-product of conceptual blending processes and diachronic
structures are argued to possess the same characteristics as their synchronic
counterparts.
Blending is also employed as complementary to metaphor and metonymy
in exploring compounds. Benczes (2005: 264) comments that ‘with the
help of metaphor and blending theory, it becomes possible to highlight
the variety and complexity of meaning within a class of compounds that
semanticists such as Downing (1977) and Warren (1978) for instance
relegated into one big group (i.e. those based upon resemblance or com-
parison)’. BT has particularly significant implications for languages like
Chinese that forms words mainly by compounding in comparison with
derivation employed in English. Shen (2006) argues that integration is not
only an important way of word formation but also an important way of
sentence formation in Chinese.
Also, BT was employed in the analysis of resultative constructions (as a
complement to the billiard–ball model, see Broccias 2004), persuasive
discourse (Coulson and Pascual 2006), philosophical texts (Slingerland
2005), and poems (Quindos 2005), etc. Brandt and Brandt (2005) propose
a cognitive-semiotic approach to metaphor, making the first attempt at
giving a semiotic account of metaphor, by integrating central ideas from
both CMT and BT.
Linguists modify and advance BT and CMT during the process of
their studies. Contrary to Grady et al. (1999), Grygiel (2004) holds that
instead of being limited to novel, unique, or short-lived meanings, BT
can be successfully applied to the study of broadly understood semantic
change that leads to both abrupt and ephemeral alterations as well as to
gradual and synchronically imperceptible sense developments. Brandt
and Brandt (2005) suggest that one future task for blending theory
should be to recognize the structural and telic differences between virtual
blends, constructed for the purpose of making sense, and other types of
blends, so that analytic tools are as specified as the objects of study are
varied. Besides the constitutive and governing principles outlined by
Fauconnier and Turner (2002), Coulson and Pascual (2006) also propose that
the frames and cultural models of a particular community, together with
overall knowledge of the communicative event, the cognitive task, the
issues dealt with, and the discursive goal, etc., could also constrain the
integration.
326 Shu Dingfang
3. The Encyclopedic Nature of Meaning Representation

The encyclopedic nature of semantic structure is one central principle of
cognitive semantics as against the dictionary view that takes words as
neatly packaged bundles of meaning (Evans and Green 2006). The position
on whether it is possible to distinguish between linguistic and encyclopedic
knowledge is the major dividing line between the main tenets of the
generative and the cognitive school of thought. Cognitive linguists do not
deny the distinction between linguistic and non-linguistic encyclopedic
knowledge but consider them to be on a continuum (Paradis 2003).
3.1 THE DICTIONARY VERSUS ENCYCLOPEDIC VIEW OF WORD MEANING
Traditionally, the dictionary entry model assumes that the words of a

language are associated with fixed and determinate meanings. Knowledge
of a language can be partitioned into two major components – knowledge
of the lexicon and knowledge of the grammar. (Taylor et al. 2003). This
dictionary view of word meaning leads to a number of dichotomies, such
as sense and reference, semantics and pragmatics, knowledge of word
meaning and knowledge of culture and the society.
It is usually argued that only a small subset of our knowledge of a
concept needs to be represented as the linguistic meaning or hard core of
a word. However, there is not always a hard-and-fast line between dic-
tionary knowledge, contextual, and encyclopedic knowledge. For instance,
is the fact that ripe bananas are yellow part of the meaning of the word
banana or is it something that you happen to know? (Taylor 2007). In
most cases, encyclopedic knowledge has to be drawn on for meaning
interpretation.
For instance, in (15) we have the same word safe (Taylor 2007):
(15) a. a safe driver

b. a safe beach
c. a safe house
d. a safe place
e. The money is safe.
The right interpretation of these safe examples depends not only on their
profiled concept of ‘out of danger’, but also on the relevant encyclopedic
background situation referred to. Thus, a safe driver is the person who can
drive safely, and a safe beach is possibly a beach without robberies or a
beach with no sharks.
The importance of encyclopedic knowledge has been recognized by
linguists from different linguistic camps (Conceptual Semantics [ Jackendoff
2002]; Qualia Model [Pustejovsky 1995]; Encyclopedic Semantics [Wierz-
bicka 1984, 1995], etc.).
Cognitive linguists hold that encyclopedic knowledge is an integral part

of the meaning representation (see Haiman 1980; Fillmore 1982, 1985;
Langacker 1987; Lakoff 1987, etc.) It highlights the importance of both
the profiled concept and the general background knowledge upon which
the concept is profiled, such as Frame Semantics (Fillmore 1982), Ideal-
ized Cognitive Models (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1987), Cognitive
Domains (Langacker 1987), Mental Spaces (Fauconnier 1994), etc. It holds
the encyclopedic view which denies a principled distinction between
semantics and pragmatics, and takes lexical items as points of access to
encyclopedic knowledge.
3.2 COGNITIVE FRAMES OF PROFILED CONCEPTS
Fillmore (1982) uses frame for the structured way in which the scene is
represented or remembered, and proposes that words evoke frames, and
the frame structures the word-meanings. One frequently quoted example
is the seemingly synonymous pair of ground versus land. The concepts
appear to denote the same thing in the world but profile it against a
different frame. ‘Land’ describes the dry surface of the earth in contrast
with ‘sea’; ‘ground’ describes the dry surface of the earth in contrast with
‘air’. So a bird that spends its life on ‘land’ does not go in the water and
a bird that spends its life on ‘ground’ does not fly (Lee 2001). The two
words land and ground, then, differ not so much in what it is that they can
be used to identify, but in how they situate that thing in a larger frame.
Langacker (1987) holds a similar position by arguing that a word’s
scope of predication involves a profile and a base. A profile is the entity
designated and a base is the cognitive structure against which the desig-
natum of a semantic structure is profiled. For instance, the word hypotenuse
profiles a straight line, with a right-angled triangle as the base against which
hypotenuse is understood. On the other hand, lexical entities provide access
to domains of large encyclopedic network knowledge. All linguistic units
are considered as context-dependent to some degree.
3.3 ENCYCLOPEDIC KNOWLEDGE AND EXPLANATIONS FOR SEMANTIC EXTENSION AND

CHANGE
In comparison with competence-based grammar that assumes clear-cut

boundaries of lexical primitives and categories that could be neatly separated
from contextual and encyclopedic meaning, cognitive linguistics assumes
the performance-based grammar that emphasizes the role of usage events and
the participation of encyclopedic knowledge in meaning construction. The
encyclopedic view offers a unified explanation in semantic change, meaning
extension, and polysemy etc. (Langacker 1987; Taylor 2007).
The choice between competence-based grammar and performance-based
grammar and hence the view on the linguistic and encyclopedic boundary
328 Shu Dingfang
determines the way in which polysemy is viewed. Kiefer (1995:1) classifies

three approaches to polysemy studies:
(i) the minimalist approach according to which lexical (semantic) meaning
is largely underspecified and independent of context;
(ii) the maximalist position which claims that lexical meaning is open-
ended: Any aspect of encyclopedic meaning can become part of lexical
meaning, and finally
(iii) the intermediate position embraces the view that lexical meaning is
inseparable from the context, but it maintains that not everything we
know about the world is part of lexical meaning.
It is the maximalist position that makes cognitive linguistics stand out
from traditional formal approaches. The view on the linguistic-encyclopedic
continuum shows its explanatory power in relevant fields of natural
language data.
Fillmore (1982) regards polysemy as arising from alternative framings of the
same lexical item. Lakoff (1987) sees polysemy as a special case of prototype-
based categorization, where the senses of the word are the members of a
category. Langacker (1987) employs the network model to explain polysemy,
in which different frequency of activation and different degrees of entrenchment
may result in the formation of relatively entrenched variants of the entities,
and thus form polysemy. Allwood (2003) introduces the notion of ‘meaning
potentials’ to address this issue. In his approach, no attempt is made to
distinguish between lexical and encyclopedic information in terms of the
kind of information that is contained in the meaning potential. Precisely
what is activated is subject to individual language users (cf. Evans 2006).
Evans (2006) also introduces the notion of semantic potential, to which
words provide access with different knowledge being potentially activated.
Another appeal of the encyclopedic view lies in its implications for
semantic extension that is invariably based on some perception of similarity
or association between the original sense of an expression and its extended
senses. The basis for extension may lie at any distance from its core within
our encyclopedic knowledge of the designated entity. For instance, in and
out are often extended to invisible and visible or inaccessible and accessible,
respectively. The basis for this extension is the fact that an object is
commonly hidden from view when contained in another, and visible
otherwise (Langacker 1987).
Apart from word meaning construction and extension, the encyclopedic
view can also offer explanations for constructions that are larger than words.
Take (16) as one example (Goldberg 1995):
(16) Frank sneezed the napkin off the table.
The interpretation of the word sneeze in the di-transitive construction
could be attributed to our encyclopedic knowledge of the way people
sneeze and the possible results of sneezing.
The encyclopedic view and the prototype theory function together as

the scaffolding principles of lexical semantics. The integration of encyclo-
pedic knowledge into meaning representation leads to an important
hypothesis: knowledge structures are dynamically constructed and are
more flexible than they were previously thought to be. The encyclopedic
view often serves as a background assumption rather than an independent
research subject.
4. The Usage-Based Thesis and Lexicon-Grammar Continuum

A usage-based model is one in which the speaker’s linguistic system is
fundamentally grounded in ‘usage events’, which means the general patterns
are tightly linked with their instantiations (Barlow and Kemmer 2000).
Language is defined as a fixed inventory of linguistic units based on usage
events involving general human cognitive ability. There is no clear-cut
dichotomy between lexicon and grammar. Instead, linguistic units are
symbolic constructions of meaning-form pairings ranging from morphology
to sentence structures.
Granted the limited applicability of certain rules to linguistic structures
and the unpredictability of class memberships, the question of how to
specify the proper restrictions arises. Langacker (1988:148) gives the
answer with a usage-based character of the framework, together with the
network model of complex categories, according to which:
(S)ubstantial importance is given to the actual use of the linguistic system and
a speaker’s knowledge of its use; the grammar is held responsible for a speaker’s
knowledge of the full range of linguistic conventions, regardless of whether these
conventions can be subsumed under more general statements. A non-reductive
approach to linguistic structure employs fully articulated schematic networks
and emphasizes the importance of low-level schemas. (Langacker 1987:494)
Barlow and Kemmer (2000) point out three key characteristics of Lan-
gacker’s usage-based model: it is maximalist, non-reductive, and bottom
up. In this view, grammar is massively and highly redundant, rather than
stripped down and economical; there is no need to choose between the
general patterns and their instantiations since the specific and the general
are mutually linked through the usage.
The fully usage-based thesis is what makes Goldberg’s model (1995)
depart from early versions of construction grammar (Fillmore et al. 1988,
Fillmore and Kay 1993, etc.). Both cognitive grammar (Langacker 1987,
1990, 1991, 1999, etc.) and construction grammar (Goldberg 1995, 2002, etc.)
are developed in light of the symbolic and the usage-based assumptions
and ‘both types of approach view the grammar as an inventory of symbolic
units rather than a system of rules or principles’ (Evans and Green 2006).
With regard to the nature of lexicon-grammar relations, these two
cognitive frameworks share a number of basic ideas that constructions (not
330 Shu Dingfang
rules) are the primary objects of description; that lexicon and grammar are
not distinct, but a continuum of constructions (form-meaning parings); and
that constructions are linked in networks of inheritance (or categorization)
(Langacker 2007a: 421–422). On the other hand, besides the differences
in theoretical devices and descriptive constructs, cognitive grammar and
construction grammar differ in their research focuses. Langacker’s
approach attempts to model the cognitive mechanisms and principles that
motivate and license the formation and use of symbolic units of varying
degrees of complexity. Goldberg’s approach focuses on the argument
structure of sentence-level constructions such as the English ditransitive
construction (e.g. Lily knitted George a jumper) and the English resultative
construction (e.g. Lily drank herself stupid.) (Evans and Green 2006: 666).
The constructional approach, especially Goldberg’s construction grammar,
solves the debates on the roles of words in sentence meaning construction.
It preserves compositionality in a weakened form and argues that words
contribute meaning to sentences, but not all the meaning. Sentence-level
constructions have their own conventional schematic meaning independent
of the verbs and other lexical items that are embedded in them (Evans
and Green 2006: 671).
This schematic network model has been widely applied in linguistic
study (e.g. Bybee 1988, 1994, 1995; Tomasello 1992, 2000; Lamb 1998;
Croft and Cruse 2004, etc.). The important consequences of this view
include the built-in advantage of the lower-level schemas in the competition
with respect to higher-level schemas, the crucial functions of contexts and
usage events in meaning construction, and the role of the token/type
frequency and actual usage data like corpora.
5. Verb-Framed Versus Satellite-Framed Languages – Typological Studies of

Form–Meaning Association from the Cognitive Perspective
Motivated by the cognitive processes involving conceptual partitioning
and the ascription of entityhood, world languages are divided into
verb-framed and satellite-framed languages on the basis of the semantic-
to-form association (Talmy 2000b).
The human mind in perception or conception can extend a boundary
around a portion of what would otherwise be a continuum, whether of
space, time, or other qualitative domain, and ascribe to the excerpted
contents within the boundary the property of being a single unit entity.
One category of such is perceived or conceptualized as an event (Talmy
2000b: 215).
A certain type of event complex (termed macro-event) is recognized
as a kind of cognitive unit that is fundamental and pervasive in the under-
lying conceptual organization of language. A macro-event is composed of
a co-event (usually the manner or cause of the main event), a framing
event (the main event), and the support relation between them. The
framing event consists of four components of the figural entity, the

ground entity, the activating process, and the association function.
Among the four components, the association function alone or the
association function together with the ground entity can be considered
the schematic core of the framing event, thus called the core schema.
According to whether the core schema is mapped into the verb root or
the satellite (the grammatical category of any constituent other than a
nominal or prepositional-phrase complement that is in a sister relation to
the verb root), languages are divided into verb-framed and satellite-
framed languages (Talmy 2000b).
For instance, as shown in example (17) and (18) respectively, English
and Chinese are both characteristically a satellite-framed language due to
the fact that they express Path (the core schema in the framing event) by
satellite together with prepositions or by satellite alone.
(17) He walked away from his wife. (The path expressed by the preposi-
tional phrase from his wife plus the satellite away.)
(18) Ta ti po le chuang hu.
He kick (ed) broken the window. (The path expressed by the
satellite of the verb complement broken.)
The cognitive perspective of this two-way division is a useful tool for
typological analysis, and has been applied to an incredibly wide range of
languages. It offers a very interesting perspective upon verb comparison.
Botne (2005) develops a detailed semantic analysis of a dozen COME and
GO verbs in an eastern Bantu language. These verbs are shown to differ
not only in the typical motional elements such as path and landmark
encoded in the motion schema, but also in what component of the motion
schema is salient. Ozcaliskan (2005) finds that typological differences also
hold true for the metaphorical extensions of motion events through the
comparison of English and Turkish.
Researchers (Slobin and Hoiting 1994; Slobin 2004; Zlatev and Yang-
klang 2004) also find inadequacy of the theory in its application to
particular languages, one of which is that some languages do not seem to
fit in the binary typology. Some languages do not have one and only one
clear main verb as in serial verb languages. Some languages have verbs
consisting of two morphemes – one for manner and one for path – both
of equal status as in Hokan and Penutian languages (Delancey 1989); some
languages have a small number of general verbs that can be combined
with preverbs expressing manner and path as in the Australian Aboriginal
language Jaminjung (Schultze-Berndt 2000), and so on (Talmy 2005, 2006).
Talmy (2000b: 272) proposes that ‘Mandarin is a strongly satellite-
framed language, regularly using its satellites to specify Path, aspect, state
change, some action correlation, and much realization’. Tai (2003) argues
against this claim on the basis of the main verb status of the resultative
complement, and proposes that Chinese is primarily a verb-framed language
332 Shu Dingfang
and only secondarily a satellite-framed language. Shen (2003) argues that

it is important to differentiate the semantic and the syntactic core before
we make the typological dichotomy between ‘core-framed’ and ‘satellite-
framed’ languages. And the differentiation between the core and the
satellite in Mandarin is relatively harder to make due to the lack of
morphological markers. Thus he holds that ‘Chinese is not a typical
satellite framed language; because the complements expressing paths are
also verbs, the division between core and satellite is not clear cut’.
One possible solution that has been put forward is the addition of a
third type of lexicalization pattern. Slobin (2004) proposes what he calls
an equipollently framed category; this would cover all those languages that
present problems for the original typology (Talmy 2005, 2006).
Talmy (2005) admits the possible application of Slobin’s theory on
condition that the indeterminate condition occurs. But he further pro-
poses an expanded set of factors that tend to indicate that a language treats
a particular constituent type as its main verb or verb root. No particular
factor or factors are criterial for main verb status, but it is the convergence
of factors that make one constituent type privileged with main verb status
(Talmy 2005, 2006).
There is still much to be desired in this field. First, it tends to focus on
synchronic aspects of lexicalization, neglecting the diachronic aspects.
Second, so far it has mainly converged on the semantic-syntactic associations,
especially in motion events. To get a comprehensive view of lexicalization
(meaning-form association) patterns, other lexicalization patterns and
productivity, and pragmatic factors, etc. shall also have to be taken into
account.
6. A Glimpse of Future Prospects on Cognitive Lexical Semantics

Cognitive linguistics is characterized by ‘the primacy of semantics in
linguistic analysis, the encyclopedic nature of linguistic meaning and the
perspectival nature of linguistic meaning’ (Geeraerts and Cuyckens 2007a: 5).
Cognitive lexical semantics highlights the role of human conceptualization
and the participation of the general cognitive ability in meaning construction.
Instead of searching for generalities in a top-down way, it looks for
schematicity on the basis of language use. It offers new perspectives on
the nature of lexical categories, the relationships between them and with
the outside world.
Cognitive linguists have always been exploring new areas for lexical
semantic study. Grondelaers and Geeraerts (2003) comment that cognitive
linguistics is characterized by a strategy that extrapolates findings from
lexical semantics to grammar at large. Michaelis (2003) argues that the
meaning of the whole is in many cases not a compositional function of
the meanings of its parts. Grammatical constructions themselves have
meanings, no less than lexical items. Moreover, constructions may have
priority, in that the construction may ‘coerce’ the meanings of its constit-
uents (Taylor et al. 2003). Apart from searching for mechanisms underlying
word formation and word relations, researchers have also begun to look
for mechanisms that guide construction formation, and the roles of the
lexicon in constructions and relations between constructions.
The dynamic usage-based thesis of lexical semantics has been widely
applied to language use, language acquisition and language change (see
Langacker 1987; Barlow and Kemmer 2000; Bybee and Hopper 2001,
cited in Croft and Cruse 2004). It could provide more plausible explanations
to the following issues:
(i) The distinction between ‘polysemy’ and ‘homonymy’, and that between
‘ambiguity’ and ‘vagueness’. Structural, collocational, or pragmatic
contexts play an important role in the entrenchment of the different
senses of a word, which further give rise to the two distinctions.
(ii) Language acquisition. Mutual support has been proven by studies on
language acquisition (Tomasello 2000; Cameron-Faulkner and Kidd
2007).
(iii) Data-based research. This also represents the current trends of related
study, namely, the application of usage-based models with reference
to corpora data (Gries 2006; Gries, Hample, and Schonefeld 2005,
etc.)
(iv) The nature of words and constructions. The usage-based model offers
new perspectives on the role of words, constructions, grammar, and
their relationships. It emphasizes the importance of specific instances
and lower-level regularities, with higher-level generalizations emerging
only as a special case (Langacker 2006). Meaning is taken as a property
of situated usage-events, rather than words. It is not a function of
language per se, but arises from language use (Evans 2006).
There are still debates on the extent to which linguistic evidence can
warrant conclusions about the mental representations underlying linguistic
meanings (Gibbs and Matlock 1999; Jackendoff 1999; Meira 2001), the
necessity of embodiment philosophy ( Johnson and Lakoff 2002; Krzes-
zowski 2002; Rakova 2002), the polysemous nature of words and con-
structions (Allwood 2003; Zlatev 2003; Dunbar 2001; Tuggy 1993), and
the validity of corpus frequency within the usage-based framework (Gries,
Hample, and Schonefeld 2005), etc.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Tang Shuhua, my doctoral student, for her invaluable help
with the collection of the relevant material and the first draft of this
article. I also wish to thank Ken Turner, for inviting me to write this
article, and my other students, Huang Jie and Tian Zhen, for their con-
tributions to the final completion of this project.
334 Shu Dingfang
Short Biography
Dr. Shu Dingfang is Professor of linguistics at Shanghai International
Studies University (SHISU). His research interests include semantics,
metaphor, and language teaching theories.
Note
* Correspondence address: Shu Dingfang, Institute of Linguistic Studies, Shanghai International
Studies University, Shanghai 200083, China. E-mail: shudfk@yahoo.com.
Works Cited
Aitchison, J. 1992. Good birds, better birds and amazing birds: the development of prototypes.
Vocabulary and applied linguistics, ed. by P. J. L. Arnaud, and H. Bejoint, 71–84. Basingstoke,
UK: Macmillan Academic and Professional.
Allwood, J. 2003. Meaning potentials and context: some consequences for the analysis of
variation in meaning. Cognitive approaches to lexical semantics, ed. by H. Cuyckens, R.
Dirven, and J. Taylor, 29–66. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Barcelona, A. (ed.). 2003. Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads: a cognitive perspective.
Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Barlow, M., and S. Kemmer. 2000. Usage-based models of language. Stanford, CA: CSLI
Publications.
Benczes, R. 2005. Creative noun-noun compounds. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics
3.250–68.
Botne, R. 2005. Cognitive schemas and motion verbs: COMING and GOING in Chindali
(Eastern Bantu). Cognitive Linguistics 16.43–80.
Brandt, L., and P. A. Brandt. 2005. Making sense of a blend: a cognitive-semiotic approach to
metaphor. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 3.216–49.
Broccias, C. 2004. The cognitive basis of adjectival and adverbial resultative constructions.
Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 2.103–126.
Brugman, C. M. 1988. The Story of ‘Over’: polysemy, semantics, and the structure of the
lexicon. New York: Garland Publishing.
Bybee, J. L. 1988. Morphology as lexical organization. Theoretical morphology: approaches
in modern linguistics, ed. by M. Hammond, and M. Noonan, 119–41. San Diego, CA:
Academic Press.
——. 1994. A view of phonology from a cognitive and functional perspective. Cognitive
Linguistics 5.285–305.
——. 1995. Regular morphology and the lexicon. Language and Cognitive Processes 10.425–55.
Bybee, J., and P. Hopper. 2001. Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure. (Typolog-
ical Studies in Language, 45.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Cameron-Faulkner, T., and E. Kidd 2007. I’m are what I’m are: the acquisition of first-person
singular present BE. Cognitive Linguistics 18.1–22.
Coulson, S., and E. Pascual. 2006. For the sake of argument: mourning the unborn and reviving
the dead through conceptual blending. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 4.153–81.
Croft, W., and D. A. Cruse. 2004. Cognitive linguistics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press.
Delancey, S. 1989. Klamath stem structure in generic and areal perspective. Papers from the
1988 Hokan-Penutian Languages Workshop, 31–9. Eugene, OR: University of Oregon.
Downing, P. 1977. On the creation and use of English compound nouns. Language 53.810–42.
Dunbar, G. 2001. Towards a cognitive analysis of polysemy, ambiguity, and vagueness. Cognitive
Evans, V. 2006. Lexical concepts, cognitive models and meaning construction. Cognitive
Evans, V., and M. Green. 2006. Cognitive linguistics: an introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press.
Farina, J. C. A. 2006. A constructional network in appositive space. Cognitive Linguistics 17.1–37.
Fauconnier, G., and M. Turner. 2002. The way we think: conceptual blending and the mind’s
hidden complexities. New York: Basic Books.
——. 2003. Polysemy and conceptual blending. Polysemy: patterns of meaning in mind and
language, ed. by B. Nerlich, V. Herman, Z. Todd, and D. Clarke, 79–94. Berlin: Mouton
de Gruyter,
Fauconnier, G. [1985] 1994. Mental Spaces. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Fillmore, C. J., and P. Kay. 1993. Construction grammar coursebook, chapters 1–11 (Reading
materials for Ling. X 20). Berkeley, CA: University of California.
Fillmore, C. J., P. Kay, and M. K. O’Connor. 1988. Regularity and idiomaticity in grammatical
constructions: the case of let alone. Language 64.501–38.
Fillmore, C. 1982. Frame semantics. Linguistics in the morning calm, ed. by Linguistic Society
of Korea, 111–37. Seoul, South Korea: Hanshin.
——. 1985. Frames and the semantics of understanding. Quaderni di Semantica 6.222–54.
Geeraerts, D., and H. Cuyckens. 2007a. Introducing cognitive linguistics. The Oxford handbook
of cognitive linguistics, ed. by D. Geeraerts, and H. Cuyckens, 3–21. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
——. (eds.). 2007b. The Oxford handbook of cognitive linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Gibbs, R. W., and T. Matlock. 1999. Psycholinguistics and mental representations. Cognitive
Goldberg, A. E. 1995. Constructions: a construction grammar approach to argument structure.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
——. 2002. Surface generalizations: an alternative to alternations. Cognitive Linguistics 13.327–56.
Grady, J., T. Oakley, and S. Coulson. 1999. Blending and metaphor. Metaphor in cognitive
linguistics, ed. by R. W. Gibbs, and G. Steen, 101–24. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Gries, S. T. H. 2006. Cognitive determinants of subtractive word formation: a corpus-based
perspective. Cognitive Linguistics 17.535–58.
Gries, S. T. H., B. Hample, and D. Schonefeld. 2005. Converging evidence: bringing together
experimental and corpus data on the association of verbs and constructions. Cognitive
Grondelaers, S., and D. Geeraerts. 2003. Towards a pragmatic model of cognitive onomasiology.
Cognitive Approaches to Lexical Semantics, ed. by H. Cuyckens, R. Dirven, and J. Taylor,
67–92. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Grygiel, M. 2004. Semantic change as a process of conceptual blending. Annual Review of
Cognitive Linguistics 2.285–304.
Haiman, J. 1980. Dictionaries and encyclopedias. Lingua, 50.329–57.
Jackendof, R. 1999. Paradox regained. Cognitive Linguistics 10.271–7.
——. 2002. Foundations of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Johnson, M. 1987. The body in the mind: the bodily basis of meaning, imagination and reason.
Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
Johnson, M., and G. Lakoff. 2002. Why cognitive linguistics requires embodied realism. Cogni-
tive Linguistics 13.245–63.
Kiefer, F. 1995. Introduction to the special issue of Folia Linguistica. Folia Linguistica XXIX/
1–2.1–5.
Kovecses, Z. 2005. Metaphor in culture. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Krzeszowski, T. P. 2002. Problems that are not supposed to arise? Cognitive Linguistics 13.265–69.
Labov, W. 1973. ‘The meaning of words and their boundaries.’ New ways of analyzing variation
in English, ed. by C.-J. N. Bailey, and R. W. Shuy, 340–73. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown
University Press.
Lakoff, G. 1987. Women, fire, and dangerous things: what categories reveal about the mind.
Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
——. 1993. The contemporary theory of metaphor. Metaphor and thought, 2nd edn., ed. by
A. Ortoney, 202–51. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
336 Shu Dingfang
Lakoff G., and M. Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
——. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh. The embodied mind and its challenge to western thought.
New York: Basic Books.
Lamb S. 1998. Pathways of the brain: the neurocognitive basis of language. (Current Issues in
Linguistic Theory, Vol. 170.) Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Langacker, R. W. 1987. Foundations of cognitive grammar, vol. 1, theoretical prerequisites.
Stanford: Stanford University Press.
——. 1988. A usage-based model. Topics in cognitive linguistics, ed. by B. Rudzka-Ostyn,
127–61. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
——. 1990. Concept, image and symbol: the cognitive basis of grammar. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
——. 1991. Foundations of cognitive grammar, vol. 2, descriptive application. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
——. 1999. Grammar and conceptualization. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
——. 2006. On the continuous debate about discreteness. Cognitive Linguistics 17.107–51.
——. 2007a. Cognitive grammar. The Oxford handbook of cognitive linguistics, ed. by D.
Geeraerts, and C. Hubert, 421–62. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
——. 2007b. Ten lectures on cognitive grammar. Beijing, China: Foreign Language Teaching
and Research Press.
Lee, D. 2001. Cognitive linguistics: an introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Liao, G, 2005. On the prototype split and shift, subcategorization and relevant problems of a
polysemic category. Foreign Languages and Their Teaching 1.12–13.
Meira, D. 2001. Paradox escaped? Cognitive Linguistics 12.89–96.
Michaelis, Laura A. 2003. Word meaning, sentence meaning, and syntactic meaning. Cognitive
approaches to lexical semantics, ed. by Hubert Cuyckens, René Dirven, and John Taylor,
163–209. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Ozcaliskan, S. 2005. Metaphor meets typology: ways of moving metaphorically in English and
Turkish. Cognitive Linguistics 16.207–46.
Paradis, C. 2003. Is the notion of linguistic competence relevant in cognitive linguistics? Annual
Review of Cognitive Linguistics 1.207–31.
Peirsman, Y., and D. Geeraerts. 2006. Metonymy as a prototypical category. Cognitive Linguistics
17.269–316.
Pustejovsky, J. 1995. The generative lexicon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Quindos, M. T. C. 2005. Blending as a theoretical tool for poetic analysis: presenting an
integrational methodology. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 3.269–99.
Rakova, M. 2002. The philosophy of embodied realism: a high price to pay? Cognitive
Rosch, E. 1973. Natural categories. Cognitive Psychology 4.328–50.
——. 1975. Cognitive representations of semantic categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
General 104.192–233.
——. 1978. Principles of categorization. Cognition and categorization, ed. by E. Rosch, and
B. B. Lloyd, 27–48. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Schmidt, Z. J. 2008. Much mouth much tongue: Chinese metonymies and metaphors of verbal
behaviour. Cognitive Linguistics 19.241–282.
Schultze-Berndt, E. 2000. Simple and complex verbs in Jaminjung: a study of event categori-
zation in an Australian language. MPI Series in Psycholinguistics, no. 14. Wageningen, the
Netherlands: Ponsen and Looijen.
Shen, J. 2003. The resultative construction in Chinese: a typological perspective. Chinese
Teaching in the World 3.17–23.
——. 2006. Blending and haplology. Chinese Teaching in the World 4.5–11.
Slingerland, E. G. 2005. Conceptual blending, somatic marking, and normativity: a case exam-
ple from ancient Chinese. Cognitive Linguistics 16.557–84.
Slobin, D. I. 2004. The many ways to search for a frog. Relating events in narrative. Typological
and contextual perspectives, ed. by S. Strömqvist, and L. Verhoeven, 219–57. Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Slobin, D. I., and N. Hoiting. 1994. Reference to movement in spoken and signed languages:
typological considerations. Proceedings of the twentieth annual meeting of the Berkeley
linguistic society. 487–505. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.
Tai, J. H-Y. 2003. Cognitive relativism: resultative constructions in Chinese. Language and
Linguistics 4. 301–16.
Talmy, L. 2000a. Toward a cognitive semantics, vol. 1: Concept Structuring Systems. Cam-
bridge, MA: MIT Press.
——. 2000b. Lexicalization patterns. Toward a Cognitive Semantics, vol. II: Typology and
Process in Concept Structuring. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
——. 2005. Leonard Talmy: a windowing to conceptual structure and language: Part 1:
lexicalisation and typology. Interview by Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano. Annual Review of
Cognitive Linguistics 3. 325–47.
——. 2006. Leonard Talmy. A windowing onto conceptual structure and language: Part 2:
language and cognition: past and future. Interview by Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano. Annual
Review of Cognitive Linguistics 4. 253–68.
Taylor, J., H. Cuyckens, and R. Dirven. 2003. Introduction: new directions in cognitive lexical
semantic research. Cognitive Approaches to Lexical Semantics, ed. by H. Cuyckens, R.
Dirven, and J. Taylor, 29–66. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Taylor, J. R. 1989. Linguistic categorization: prototypes in linguistic theory. Oxford: Clarendon.
——. 2003. Category extension by metonymy and metaphor. Metaphor and metonymy in
comparison and contrast, ed. by D. René, and R. Porings, 323–49. Berlin/New York:
Mouton de Gruyter.
——. 2007. Ten lectures on applied cognitive linguistics. Beijing, China: Foreign Language
Teaching and Research Press.
Tomasello, M. 1992. First verbs: a case study of early grammatical development. New York and
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
——. 2000. First steps in a usage based theory of language acquisition. Cognitive Lingusitics
11.61–82.
Tuggy, D. 1993. Ambiguity, polysemy and vagueness. Cognitive Linguistics 4.273–90.
Ungerer F., and H-J. Schmid. 1996. An introduction to cognitive linguistics. London: Longman.
Warren, B. 1978. Semantic patterns of noun-noun compounds. Gothenburg, Sweden: Gothen-
burg University Press.
Wierzbicka, A. 1984. Cups and mugs: lexicography and conceptual analysis. Australian Journal
of Linguistics 4.205–55.
——. 1995. Dictionaries vs. encyclopaedias: how to draw the line. Alternative linguistics:
descriptive and theoretical modes, ed. by P. W. Davis, 289–315. Amsterdam/Philadelphia,
PA: John Benjamins.
Wittgenstein, L. 1953. Philosophical investigations. [Trans G. Anscombe]. Oxford: Blackwell.
Yuan, Y. 1995. Family resemblance of lexical categories. China Social Sciences 1.154–170.
Zlatev, J. 2003. Polysemy or generality? Mu. Cognitive approaches to lexical semantics, ed. by
H. Cuyckens, R. Dirven, and J. Taylor, 447–94. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. <http://
sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/saraWeb?qy=over>
Zlatev, J., and P. Yangklang. 2004. A third way to travel. The place of Thai in motion-typology.
Relating events in narrative. Typological contextual perspectives, ed. by S. Strömqvist and L.
Verhoeven, 159–90. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Dingfang 2009 - Cognitive Approaches To Lexical Semantics

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Dingfang 2009 - Cognitive Approaches To Lexical Semantics

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Language and Linguistics Compass 3/1 (2009): 314–337, 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2008.00120.

Cognitive Approaches to Lexical Semantics

Fig. 1. Categories and their members

categories, sense relations, dynamic meaning construction, interaction

1. Categorization and Linguistic Investigation

1.1 TWO DIFFERENT VIEWS ON CATEGORIZATION

The traditional Aristotelian view of categorization, known as the Standard

Fig. 2. Bird category and its members

1.2 PROTOTYPE THEORY AND THE STRUCTURE OF LEXICAL CATEGORIES

The Prototype model proves its explanatory power in meaning extension

(1) a. There is Henry!

(3) a. Ellen is proud {of/*∅} her roses. (typical adjective)

2. Metaphor, Metonymy and Image Schemas – Motivating Mechanisms for

2.2 IMAGE SCHEMAS

of more complex notions, and provide the structure projected metaphori-

Fig. 4. The source–path–goal schema

Traditionally, metaphor is a figure of speech that is mutually exclusive

Table 1. The source-target domain mappings (adapted from Lakoff and

Source domain Target domain

Starting the journey Birth

Source: BUTCHER Mappings Target: SURGEON

including the important changes the theory is undergoing (more precise

2.5 THE CONCEPTUAL BLENDING THEORY (HEREAFTER BT)

Kovecses (2005:268), and Evans and Green (2006:403–404), among other

3. The Encyclopedic Nature of Meaning Representation

3.1 THE DICTIONARY VERSUS ENCYCLOPEDIC VIEW OF WORD MEANING

Traditionally, the dictionary entry model assumes that the words of a

(15) a. a safe driver

Cognitive linguists hold that encyclopedic knowledge is an integral part

3.2 COGNITIVE FRAMES OF PROFILED CONCEPTS

3.3 ENCYCLOPEDIC KNOWLEDGE AND EXPLANATIONS FOR SEMANTIC EXTENSION AND

In comparison with competence-based grammar that assumes clear-cut

determines the way in which polysemy is viewed. Kiefer (1995:1) classifies

The encyclopedic view and the prototype theory function together as

4. The Usage-Based Thesis and Lexicon-Grammar Continuum

5. Verb-Framed Versus Satellite-Framed Languages – Typological Studies of

framing event consists of four components of the figural entity, the

and only secondarily a satellite-framed language. Shen (2003) argues that

6. A Glimpse of Future Prospects on Cognitive Lexical Semantics

You might also like