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Resumo : No ensaio “Cognitive linguistics and autonomous linguistics”, publicado em 2007 no Oxford handbook of cognitive linguistics , John R. Taylor sugere o dialogo e mesmo a integracao da linguistica cognitiva com outras vertentes de estudos da linguagem. Seguindo essa linha argumentativa, reanalisa-se neste artigo a teoria das metaforas conceituais de George Lakoff e Mark Johnson. O objetivo e explicitar os excessos empiricos e retoricos cometidos por esses autores desde a publicacao do livro Metaphors we live by , ha 40 anos, como consequencia em grande medida de seu ataque a gramatica gerativa de Noam Chomsky. Com isso, espera-se facilitar a aproximacao entre o gerativismo e o cognitivismo, ja iniciada por pesquisadores como o proprio Taylor, Ray Jackendoff, Peter Culicover, Alan Prince e Paul Smolensky. Palavras-chave : Linguistica cognitiva; metaforas conceituais. George Lakoff; Mark Johnson; Metaphors we live by . Abstract : In his essay Cognitive Linguistics and Autonomous Linguistics , published in the 2007 Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics , John R. Taylor suggests dialogue and even integration between cognitive linguistics and other approaches in language studies. Following Taylor’s line of argument this article reviews George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s theory of conceptual metaphor. This study intends to address both authors’ empirical and rhetorical excesses since publishing Metaphors we live by forty years ago as an outcome of their rejection of Noam Chomsky’s generative grammar. Thus, it is expected to further converge generativism and cognitivism, as already initiated by researchers such as Taylor, Ray Jackendoff, Peter Culicover, Alan Prince, and Paul Smolensky. Keywords : Cognitive linguistics; conceptual metaphors. George Lakoff; Mark Johnson; Metaphors we live by .

There has been a long-standing controversy in the context of language evolution on whether the original function of human language was internal thought or external communication. However, given the fact that language clearly serves both functions, internalization and externalization must have been co-evolutionarily acted in the emergence of human language. This article proposes a theoretical hypothesis about this co-evolutionary relationship of internalization and externalization, which especially explains the emergence of the human lexicon. To discuss the evolution of language from a comprehensive perspective, this article proposes a promising model that integrates two approaches with different standpoints: generative grammar and cognitive linguistics. This paper also examines the definition and nature of the lexicon and lexical items based on this integrated model. The hypothesis presented here demonstrates that the co-evolutionary work of internalization and externalization has been involved in two processes in the development of the lexicon: the establishment of syntactic objects (lexical items) and the improvement of creativity responsible for the expansion of lexicon size. The main conclusion is that these processes have formed a positive feedback loop and provided our lexicon with complex and unique properties.

A Linguística Funcional (LF), a Linguística Cognitiva (LC) e a Gramática de Construções (GC) tendem a ser vistas como modelos teóricos mutuamente compatíveis, se não em grande medida coincidentes. Esse estado de coisas torna difícil identificar com precisão os limites e as áreas de intersecção entre as três teorias, o que pode levar, segundo argumentamos, a certas concepções equivocadas. Diante desse cenário, este artigo parte da seguinte questão: quais são os limites e as intersecções entre LF, LC e GC? Em um esforço para responder a essa pergunta, e com isso mapear o território das abordagens cognitivo-funcionais, adotaremos aqui duas perspectivas. De um lado, assumimos um ponto de vista histórico, buscando reconstruir brevemente as origens de cada arcabouço. De outro, concentramo-nos no momento presente, procurando oferecer uma descrição sucinta do mercado teórico contemporâneo de cada um desses paradigmas. Resumidamente, sustentamos que (i) cada arcabouço teórico surgiu a partir de um questionamento distinto em relação à tradição da linguística gerativa e (ii) o desenvolvimento histórico de cada modelo resultou, nos dias de hoje, em uma situação de forte convergência, mas de modo algum sobreposição completa, entre os três quadros teóricos.

In his “Meaning and Formal Semantics in Generative Grammar” (Erkenntnis 80(1):61–87, 2015), Stephen Schiffer argues that truth-conditional semantics is a poor fit with generative linguistics. In particular, he thinks that it fails to explain speakers’ abilities to understand the sentences of their language. In its place, he recommends his “Best Bet Theory”—a theory which aims to directly explain speakers’ abilities to mean things by their utterances and know what others mean by their utterances. I argue that Schiffer does not provide good reason to prefer the Best Bet Theory over truth-conditional semantics in the context of generative linguistics. First, his negative arguments against the truth-conditional approach are unpersuasive, and second, the Best Bet Theory involves an explanatory circularity which makes it unfit for linguistic theorizing. I conclude that the Best Bet Theory is thus not even a viable competitor to truth-conditional semantics in generative linguistics.

One of the most salient hallmarks of construction grammar is its approach to argument structure and coercion: rather than positing many different verb senses in the lexicon, the same lexical construction may freely interact with multiple argument structure constructions. This view has however been criticized from within the construction grammar movement for leading to overgeneration. This paper argues that this criticism falls flat for two reasons: (1) lexicalism, which is the alternative solution proposed by the critics, has already been proven to overgenerate itself, and (2) the argument of overgeneration becomes void if grammar is implemented as a problem-solving model rather than as a generative competence model; a claim that the paper substantiates through a computational operationalization of argument structure and coercion in Fluid Construction Grammar. The paper thus shows that the current debate on argument structure is hiding a much more fundamental rift between practitioners of construction grammar that touches upon the role of grammar itself.

This chapter surveys theoretical approaches to Persian syntax, with an emphasis on more recent work. It begins with a brief discussion of what constitutes a theoretical, as opposed to descriptive, approach, and proceeds with a look at Linguistic Typology, Construction Grammar, and Cognitive, Functionalist, and Corpus approaches. At the end of the chapter, formal approaches such as RRG, HPSG, and LFG are touched upon as well as formal generative work prior to Minimalism, which is covered in the previous chapter. The discussion in each case is intended to showcase the way in which aspects of Persian syntax have been addressed. The advantages to considering Persian both in a historical context and within the family of other Iranian languages is highlighted, and a number of distinctive constructions within the language are discussed in light of how they have been treated within the literature.

Treball Final de Grau en Estudis Anglesos. Codi: EA0938. Curs acadèmic: 2017/2018 The production of languages has been studied for a long time in order to create theories which should be able to answer questions such as “how do we acquire language?”. In this paper, I am going to summarize, explain and compare previous generative theories and Construction Grammar which will be seen from the perspective held by Langacker and Croft. This revision of the theory should give the opportunity to understand it from different points of view and it also will be compared with other theories that have been highly important in the field of Generative Grammar and Cognitive Linguistics. In the end, this research will find out if Construction Grammar can answer a question I have been wondering for years: “How can we produce utterances and sentences that we have not heard or seen previously?”. Besides that, a way to use Construction Grammar may be found as a tool for teaching languages, which is an important aspect that must be studied.

Cognitive and generative approaches to linguistics have taken a different perspective on grammatical polysemy and grammaticalization. While the former see polysemy as a core characteristic of language and a necessary result of grammaticalization within idiolects, the latter see it as a less interesting phenomenon peripheral to linguistics proper. Grammaticalization is seen as a phenomenon of language acquisition which does not disturb the homogeneity of idiolects. These differing perspectives have generated much debate between the two approaches and are even in large part responsible for the different programmatic focuses of each. While the disagreement over grammatical polysemy between these two approaches to language is rooted in entrenched commitments on each side that are perhaps irreconcilable, at least some common ground does seem to be possible. Specifically, when it comes to inter-generational corpora, it seems that both cognitive and generative approaches to linguistics can agree that the universal phenomenon of grammaticalization would result in polysemy at least at the language community level. This can serve as a common ground on which both generative and cognitive linguists can join efforts in describing and explaining usage profiles of grammatically polysemous forms at the corpus level according to prototypicality, even if disagreement persists on the nature of the idiolect.2Keywords: polysemy, polyfunctionality, grammaticalization, cognitive linguistics, generative linguistics, corpus linguistics, ancient languages

I review and challenge the views on simplicity and its role in linguistics put forward by Ludlow (The philosophy of generative linguistics, 2011). In particular, I criticize the claim that simplicity—in the sense pertinent to science—is nothing more than ease of use or “user-friendliness”, motivated by economy of (cognitive) labor. I argue that Ludlow’s discussion fails to do justice to the diversity of factors that are relevant to simplicity considerations. This, in turn, leads to the neglect of crucial cases in which the rationale for simplification is unmistakably epistemic, as well as instances where simplicity is part of the content of substantive, empirical hypotheses. I illustrate these points with examples from the history of generative linguistics, such as: (a) the shaping influence exerted by simplicity, via its involvement in the notion of “linguistically significant generalization”, (b) its methodological and substantive contribution to the goal of explanatory adequacy, and (c) its central role in the Minimalist Program’s search “beyond explanatory adequacy”.

The aim of the present study is to represent the evidence of various correspondences between phonology and cognitive linguistics and to show the advantages of cognitive grammar than generative grammar. The article evaluates the hypothesis holding that connectionist theories (e.g. cognitive grammar) don’t have any directionality in their formulations due to their cross-dimensional correspondences and this can be their exclusive feature. This research can be considered as a theoretical and descriptive study. The samples were chosen from among English abbreviations, specifically short messages. In prominence view, arranging data is determinant in ordering things and events in the mind. This point of view is based on “figure and ground” that can be used in phonology as well. The rich- get richer and the poor- get poorer’ is catchphrases frequently used in economy and I use them in my paper. We can use the proverbs as principles in phonological deletion. The results also refer to the principle, according to which vowels are expected to undergo reduction in unstressed positions. Corroborating the “bathtub effect” (a principle in psychology) in consonants deletions was another emerged result. After assessing the samples, the hypothesis was approved and it was shown that having a cognitive approach to various linguistic modules causes some exclusive and attractive features which the generative grammar theories don’t have them. Also, it was revealed that a cognitive principle affects the pattern of deletions in text messages.

Due to copyright restrictions, the access to the full text of this article is only available via subscription. The dominance of syntactic studies in linguistics has caused lexis and grammar to be perceived as two distinct categories. With introduction of the paradigm of cognitive linguistics, the studies in syntax have been replaced by those in lexis and concepts. Semantics has come to the fore through the studies in cognitive linguistics, and there has been a trend from syntactic studies to lexical ones. In addition to research in cognitive linguistics, construction grammar has also emphasized the continuum between lexis and grammar. With the emergence of corpus linguistics, the studies regarding the continuum between lexis and grammar have gained momentum, and thus studies of collocations have been theorized. Early studies of collocations have focused on only lexis and disregarded grammar. However, in the process the studies have also incorporated grammar as well, and this view supports the idea that each word has its own grammatical properties. Therefore, lexis and grammar should be studied on the same continuum because there is a continuum between these two categories rather than a discontinuum. Within the framework of this paradigm, this study focused on verb + noun lexical collocations across the health, physical and social sciences in the written academic genre and analyzed these lexical collocations through the frequency and chi-square analysis. The study aimed to search for commonalities and differences between the verbs with their collocations. The results showed that there were more similarities and relationship between the health and physical sciences, while the social sciences indicated a significant difference compared to the other two. The study found 165 common verbs used across the three sciences. 12 verbs among the 165 verbs were found to be candidates verb + noun lexical collocations as prototypes.

Following the Principle of Compositionality, the meaning of a complex expression is influenced, to some extent, not only by the meanings of its individual words, but also the structural way the words are assembled. Compositionality has been a central research issue for linguists and psycholinguists. However, it remains unclear how does syntax influence the meaning of a sentence. In this paper, we propose an interdisciplinary approach to better understand that relation. We present an empirical study that seeks for the different weights given by humans to different syntactic roles when computing semantic similarity. In order to test the validity of the hypotheses derived from the psychological study, we use a computational paradigm. We incorporate the results of that study to a psychologically plausible computational measure of semantic similarity. The results shown by this measure in terms of correlation with human judgments on a paraphrase recognition task confirm the different importance that humans give to different syntactic roles in the computation of semantic similarity. This results contrast with generative grammar theories but support neurolinguistic evidence.

Based on data from extraction, embedded V2, and complementizer stacking, this paper proposes a cP/CP-analysis of CP-recursion in Danish. Because extraction can be shown to be possible from relative clauses, wh-islands, and adverbial clauses, and given that long extraction is successive-cyclic, an extra specifier position has to be available as an escape hatch. Consequently, such extractions require a CP-recursion analysis, as has been argued for embedded V2 and for complementizer stacking.Given that CP-recursion in embedded V2 clauses does not allow extraction, whereas other types of CP-recursion do, we suggest that embedded V2 is fundamentally different, in that main clause V2 and embedded V2 involve a CP (“big CP”), whereas all other clausal projections above IP are instances of cP (“little cP”). The topmost “little” c° has an occurrence feature that enables extraction but bars spell-out of its specifier.

The paper deals with the role of analogical and metaphorical thinking in the public communication of contemporary physics. We focus on the cognitive aspects: how to disseminate complicated formal physical concepts to a non-professional public maintaining the ‘correct’ disciplinary meaning (communication of ‘good physics’). To face the issue from the perspective of cognitive linguistics, we analyze the characterization of the generative aspect of ‘new’ meanings in the analogical and metaphorical use in order to evaluate the construction of ‘actual’ physical meaning. We investigate the research problem by analyzing a set of ‘relevant’ analogies and metaphors taken from popular science literature within the framework of conceptual metaphor. A case study is presented: Schrodinger's analogy for ‘elementary particle’.The results of the analysis suggest that the conceptual metaphor perspective might be a potential tool both to assess the quality of analogical forms used in dissemination of physics and to design new and ‘better’ analogies and metaphors. Besides, in a recursive process this analysis could help to focus on those meaningful cognitive aspects that characterize, and refine, a ‘complete’ and ‘correct’ physical conceptWe think that fruitful results of inquiry might come from a deeper interdisciplinary approach between linguistics and physics.

How do speakers who move to a new dialect region acquire phonological features of the new dialect? While social factors surely play an important role, second dialect acquisition must be constrained by aspects of the linguistic system: the form of phonological representations, their malleability, and the processes that manipulate them to yield surface forms. Second dialect data thus has the potential to shed light on foundational questions in phonological theory. This paper reviews two prominent models of phonological representation – Generative Phonology and Usage-based Phonology – and sets out the predictions each makes regarding how particular kinds of second dialect features may be acquired. These predictions are then evaluated against the results of a sociolinguistic study of mobile adults who acquired their native dialect of English in Canada and later moved to the New York City region, focusing on evidence of change with respect to two features: the cot/caught distinction and height of /ɑʊ/ in Canadian Raising environments. It is argued that the results of this study can best be accounted for within a usage-based model in which phonological representations are both phonetically rich and linked to social labels.

This paper describes a revision of proposals about the link between language and cognition, starting with some authors of the late 19th century. Subsequently, several approaches were developed about some disciplines of the cognitive sciences. The objectives are to highlight interdisciplinary influence on the formation of theoretical support and to differentiate between two approaches that coexist in linguistics under the auspices of a common denominator, cognitive vision, namely generative proposal and cognitive linguistics. After comparing both viewpoints, it can be concluded that ideas about cognition are even opposite. In this research, it is defended the need to differentiate terminologically between these cognitive visions and it is proposed to refer to them respectively as independent and interdependent (from the cognitive system).

The theoretical and methodological underpinnings of the cognitive paradigm have traditionally been discussed against the background of generative grammar, its immediate predecessor. A significantly less researched yet no less interesting relationship is the one between the cognitive and structuralist paradigm. This article focuses on the in part converging, in part diverging semiotic assumptions underlying European structural linguistics and Cognitive Grammar. A comparison of important concepts of both theories (isomorphism, the sign concept, compositionality, and case marking) shows that, although Cognitive Grammar arrives at a more realistic understanding of how language works in discourse, the theory fails to offer a coherent theory of the linguistic sign.

In this paper, we will show that the well-known distinction between idiomatically combining expressions (ICE) and idiomatic phrases (IP) is not as clear-cut and uniform as has been assumed in the literature: for example, we show that V one's head off idioms can neither be neatly classified within one class nor within the other. We compare our approach to these idioms with two recent formal accounts that neglect some insights from the cognitive linguistics framework: on the one hand, Jackendoff's account of these idioms fails to recognize the systematic syntax-semantics correspondences provided by the Talmian typology of motion events; on the other hand, Glasbey's lexical storage-based account of their aspect fails to recognize the metaphorical process that determines their atelic interpretation. More generally, we also show how, despite generative claims to the contrary, various conceptual processes can overrule the aspect provided by grammar. We conclude this paper by showing that even part and parcel IPs like kick the bucket can be shown to have a partially compositional nature, whereby a strict, dichotomic division between ICEs and IPs does not seem to be empirically adequate.

Studies in the past mainly focus on the garden path phenomenon from the perspective of cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics. The adequacies of their explanations are different, but these theories are imperfect. This paper discusses the garden path phenomenon from the perspective of generative grammar. The author holds that the θ-attachment principle can analyze the reason of partial ambiguity of the garden path phenomenon effectively and the garden path phenomenon provides evidence for derivation by phase under the framework of MP in generative grammar. People can clarify the structure of the garden path phenomenon succinctly and enhance the understanding of language mechanism through the analysis of them from the perspective of generative grammar. The faculty of language, which is the biological object, must abide by organism operation law as well. The memories of human beings are limited and cannot load too many syntactic structures at one time. As a result, the faculty of language can simply deal with a limited structure at a time. Only the limited amount of structural information can be accommodated in the active memory and phased spelling can reduce the memory load.

Linguistic structuralism and later generative grammars were mainly concerned with static (logic-or algebra-based) models. A critical overview of theses developments is given in the first section. Starting from proposals made by René Thom, a small group of linguists and semioticians developed a new strategy to search for morphogenetic principles and mechanisms of self-organization in language. In order to allow a methodological comparison of static (logical, set-theoretical) with dynamical (catastrophist) models, major achievements of dynamical models are summarized : the morphogenesis of vowel systems, configurations of attractors in verbal semantics (valence) and force schemata in a speech act (promise). Beyond a dynamical grammar (based on catastrophe theory), discourse and verbal interactions lead to the question of coordination and its stability. Finally the basic problem of neurodynamic synchrony in compositional semantics asks for chaos control. Our methodological comparison of both strategies leads to a reflection on fundamental relations between mathematics and linguistics. Three different perspectives are distinguished. By way of conclusion, the 1978 “ controversy on catastrophes” and its consequences (drawn differently by Thom and Zeeman) highlight aspects of this relation., Le structuralisme linguistique et plus tard les modèles de Chomsky ont favorisé une modélisation surtout logiciste et par le fait même statique. Un résumé critique de cette approche ouvre le débat. À la suite de propositions faites par le mathématicien René Thom, un petit nombre de linguistes et sémioticiens ont élaboré une stratégie nouvelle pour la recherche des principes de la morphogenèse et de l’évolution des structures linguistiques. Pour faciliter une comparaison de la stratégie statique (logique, ensembliste) et de la stratégie dynamique (catastrophiste, synergétique) quelques résultats de la modélisation dynamique sont résumés : la morphogenèse d’un système de voyelles, les configurations d’attracteurs dans le noeud verbal de la phrase (l’actance) et les schémas de force dans la promesse. Au-delà d’une grammaire catastrophiste, la modélisation de l’énonciation fait apparaître une dynamique de coordination. Enfin, la composition sémantique demande un contrôle du chaos au sein des groupes neuronaux en interaction (synchronie). Cette comparaison méthodologique mène à une réflexion sur la relation entre mathématique et linguistique en mettant en relief trois façons de voir cette relation. En conclusion la «controverse des catastrophes » des années 1978, les réactions de Zeeman et Thom et les conséquences pour une méthodologie de la linguistique dynamique sont discutées., Wildgen Wolfgang. La rivalité historique entre une modélisation statique et dynamique des faits linguistiques. In: Histoire Épistémologie Langage, tome 31, fascicule 1, 2009. Mathématiques et langage. pp. 99-126.

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by W. Croft, volume 9, pp. 6323–6330, © 2001, Elsevier Ltd.

The paper focuses on the relation between the analytical philosophy of science and modular and holistic approaches to cognitive linguistics, respectively. The authors show that Chomsky's as well as...

A number of disparate approaches to language, ranging from cognitive linguistics to stochastic implementations of optimality theory, have challenged the classical distinction between knowledge of language and use of language. Supporters of such approaches point to the functional motivation of grammatical structure, language users' sensitivity to the frequency of occurrence of grammatical elements, and the great disparity between sentences that grammars generate and speakers' actual utterances. In this article I defend the classical position, and provide evidence from a number of sources that speakers mentally represent full grammatical structure, however fragmentary their utterances might be. The article also questions the relevance of most corpus-based frequency and probability studies to models of individual grammatical competence. I propose a scenario for the origins and evolution of language that helps to explain why grammar and usage are as distinct as they are.

Since the earliest days of generative grammar, there has existed a strong tendency to consider one argument structure construction in relation to a particular rough paraphrase. Initially this was a result of the emphasis on transformations that derived one pattern from another. While today there exist many non-derivational theories for which this motivation no longer exists, the traditional outlook has not completely lost its grip, as can be seen from continuing focus on partial or incomplete generalizations such as the ‘‘dative’’ construction or the ‘‘locative’’ alternation. This article argues that it is profitable to look beyond alternations and to consider each surface pattern on its own terms. Differences among instances of the same surface pattern are often most naturally attributed directly to the different verbs and arguments involved.

Charles Fillmore (1929-2014) was an American linguist who, at the beginning of his career, formulated the case grammar theory, which was based on the assumptions made by generative grammar. Subsequently, however, he started to criticize generativist account of semantics and accepted some premises of the cognitive approach. As a result of this progress, Fillmore proposed the frame semantics theory, which was later used to develop the FrameNet lexical database. This thesis follows the gradual change of Fillmore's linguistic approach, investigates its causes and illustrates the method on selected case studies. It also shows the practical application of Fillmore's current theory in the FrameNet database. Moreover, the thesis shows in which aspects Fillmore's linguistic model might enhance further linguistic research, and introduces several approaches and projects inspired by Fillmore's thoughts. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

This chapter examines constructional approaches to language variation and aspects of discourse, including idiolectal and community variation. It provides three case studies to illustrate the modeling of inherent variability in cognitive linguistics in general and in Construction Grammar in particular. The chapter shows how the usage-based nature of much research in Construction Grammar may be applied to emergent variation in discourse structures, particularly in dialogic contexts.

The main aim of our chapter is to offer a brief overview of selected turns in contemporary philosophy of language and the study of language, concentrating especially on the ‘formal’, ‘cognitive’ and ‘communicative’ turns. We discuss the most important turns in the philosophy of language (concentrating especially on Frege), next the cognitive turns associated with, on the one hand, Chomsky and the generative enterprise, and Cognitive Linguistics on the other, and we conclude with an overview of the communicative turn, and its more applied implications, including cognitive approach to language analysis, and communicative language teaching.

The purpose of this chapter is the introduction of the framework of Cognitive Grammar, a theoretical development within the field of cognitive linguistics, whose pedagogical application is the focus of the present work. As a first step, Sect. 2.2 introduces, in a general fashion, the overall area of cognitive linguistics, as well as Cognitive Grammar, one of its major subcurrents, together with its definition of grammar/language. All the subsequent sections present the theoretical and descriptive apparatus of Cognitive Grammar, introducing along the way its most relevant notions, definitions, distinctions, terms, etc. First, in Sect. 2.3, the Cognitive Grammar view of language as essentially meaningful, or, in other words, the theory’s symbolic thesis, is introduced and discussed. The introduction to the theory is further effected by explaining in a detailed manner, in Sects. 2.4 and 2.5, the above-mentioned definition of grammar/language espoused by Cognitive Grammar. This theory is further introduced through a discussion, in Sect. 2.6, of its view of the role of cognitive abilities in natural language. Finally, Sect. 2.7 summarizes the diverse array of issues treated in the whole chapter, spells out how Cognitive Grammar conforms to the principles of cognitive linguistics and briefly compares this theory with other cognitive approaches to grammar, evaluating, in a preliminary fashion, its pedagogical potential.

Of all the human sciences, linguistics has had perhaps the most success in pivoting itself towards the physical sciences, particularly in the past fifty years with the dominance of Universal Grammar, which is most closely associated with the work of Noam Chomsky. One of the most important implications of Universal Grammar has been that language production in its most natural and optimal state is organized analytically, and thus shares the same organizational logic of other knowledge systems in Western science, such as the binomial taxonomization of nature and analytic geometry. This essay argues that recent challenges to Universal Grammar represent more than just a theoretical dispute within a single discipline; they threaten to undermine the hegemony of analytical knowledge systems in general. While analytical logic has served Western science well, analogical knowledge systems may be able to address problems that analytical logic cannot, such as ecological crises, the limitations of artificial intelligence, and the problems of complex systems. Instead of studying languages as a means of modeling human thought in general, languages should also be studied and preserved as heteronomous knowledge systems which themselves exist as embodied objects within particular ecologies. Rethinking language as existing on a univocal plane with other ecological objects will provide us with new insight on the ethics and epistemology of analogical knowledge production.

We examine the relations between cognitive psychology and linguistics, restrictively tracked through the precise analysis of colour terms and colour categories, as an emblematic issue in cognitive semantics. We first proceed to a precise exploration of the lexical resources involved in referring to colours (in French), within the diversity of technical devices representing colours, and then explore the diversity of syntactic inscriptions of colour terms in French in descriptive discourses. The diversity of linguistic devices involved in colour naming and their syntactic inscriptions in discourse allow us identifying a diversity of colour conceptualisations. Connecting a semantic theory of languages and a psychological theory of categorisation challenges the mainstream of cognitive linguistics by proposing a semiotic theory of cultural cognition., Nous examinons comment la linguistique cognitive aborde les relations entre langage et pensée à partir de l’exemple emblématique des couleurs. L’analyse linguistique des formes lexicales référant aux couleurs disponibles en langue et repérées dans différents types de corpus (dénominations de pastilles colorées, discours descriptifs de la qualité visuelle), couplée avec une théorie psychologique de la catégorisation, conduit à identifier une diversité de conceptualisations et de modes de référenciation de la couleur. Ceci nous amène à discuter la position naturalisante de la sémantique cognitive et à proposer une théorie linguistique cognitive «située » où s’articulent une sémantique des langues et de la construction du sens en discours, et une théorie psychologique des catégories du sensible dans une sémiotique cognitive des cultures., Dubois Danièle, Cance Caroline. Vers une sémiotique du sensible : des couleurs en discours et en pratiques. In: Histoire Épistémologie Langage, tome 34, fascicule 1, 2012. La linguistique cognitive : histoire et épistémologie. pp. 63-95.

International audience; How linguistics turned cognitive (again)This paper describes the birth of the conglomerate of interconnected views that is known as cognitive linguistics. In today’s parlance, “cognitive linguistics” refers to a movement that was born in the United Sates in the 1970s and progressively took shape in the work of linguists who wished to break away from generative grammar. Although generative grammar was initially perceived by some linguists as a liberating new framework, which made it possible again to explore semantic matters and the mapping of meaning to forms, it soon became clear to the same linguists that the Chomskyan school was not taking generative grammar in that direction. The dissident approach which resulted from their alternative point of view, generative semantics, anticipated and, to a certain extent, prepared the split between cognitive linguistics and the Chomskyan paradigm. Both steps, — the generative semantics period and the ensuing move to cognitive linguistics — are retraced here. In the second part of the paper, the move to cognitive linguistics (or various brands of it) is examined in some detail for four linguists who had all at one point views sympathetic to generative semantics and played a major role in the constitution of cognitive linguistics (Chafe, Talmy, Lakoff and Langacker). The last part describes how the reawakening of semantics and of an empiricist view of cognition favored the adoption of prototype theory and promoted metaphor as an important field of inquiry. Since prototype theory and metaphor have been linked to psychology and general views on cognition, it is appropriate at that point to discuss the interactions between linguistics and cognitive science.

The paper deals with the issue of “psychological reality” of grammar. It is claimed that a grammar is “psychologically real” to the extent it meets two criteria of psychological reality: (1) the criterion of explanatory adequacy in the sense of Chomsky (1965) and (2) the criterion of “realizability” by a psychological model of language use. The first criterion is connected with the language acquisition process – a grammar is psychologically real if it can be learned by a child, while the second, with the “explicit realization mappings” to the PDP neural model of language use – a grammar is “real” if its elements can be associated with analogous constructs in a processing model of language use.

Phonotactics is a central concern in phonology. However, the status of these constraints in cognitive linguistics is different from that in the traditional generative approaches. In cognitive linguistics, meaningfulness is the essential characteristic of language and it may be that speakers do not even spontaneously form autonomous memory structures of meaningless units like the speech sounds, but only of the symbolic ones (Liberman et al. 1980; Read et al. 1986; Lotto and Holt, 2000; Port and Leary 2005; Välimaa-Blum 2005, 2009, in press). Consequently, phonotactic constraints, which pertain to meaningless units, would constitute no independent knowledge base either. Also, languages are learned in function of their actual use, and negative phonotactic constraints, characterizing something that cannot be said, must be excluded on these grounds as well from a speaker’s grammar since it would be difficult to learn them in the absence of positive data (Taylor 2002). However, it has been shown that listeners are able to distinguish phonotactically well-formed nonce words from those that are ill formed (Schatzman and Kager 2007). I will now argue that this does not yet mean that speakers must have independent knowledge of the phonemes or phonotactic principles. The ability to separate what is phonotactically well formed from the ill formed is the result of the interplay of (i) two kinds of knowledge of the positive constraints, i.e., procedural and schematic, and (ii) an auditorily represented mental lexicon (Coleman 1998). Knowing the positive constraints entails knowing the negative ones as well, but without any pure abstract phonotactic constraints. Les contraintes phonotactiques positives correspondent aux séquences de phonèmes autorisées dans une langue et les contraintes négatives, à celles qui leur sont interdites. Cet article tente de préciser le statut de ces contraintes dans la phonologie cognitive. La linguistique cognitive présuppose que les langues sont des systèmes symboliques. Dans ce cadre, il n’est pas évident que les locuteurs disposentdes structures mnésiques des unités non-sémantiques telles que les phonèmes ou la phonotactique (Liberman et al. 1980; Read et al. 1986; Lotto et Holt, 2000; Port et Leary 2005; Välimaa-Blum 2009, sous presse). Aussi, les cognitivistes se fondent sur l’idée que les langues émergent en fonction de leur utilisation. En conséquence, les contraintes pour ce qui ne se dit pas n’ont pas de place dans la linguistique cognitive (Taylor 2002). Néanmoins, Schatzman et Kager (2007) ont démontré que dans des conditions expérimentales, les sujets sont capables, parmi une serie de mots inventés, de rejeter plus rapidement ceux qui vont à l’encontre des contraintes phonotactiques que ceux qui sont en conformité avec eux. Je vais proposer ici que cette capacité est le résultat de l’interaction (i) des connaissances procédurales et schématiques des séquences permises et (ii) d’un lexique auditif (Coleman 1998). Si un locuteur connait les contraintes positives, il connait aussi les contraintes négatives, toutes les deux sans contraintes abstraites.