scholarly journals Ser and estar from the Cognitive Grammar perspective

2019 ◽  
pp. 9-46
Author(s):  
Alejandro Castañeda Castro
Keyword(s):  
Active Zone ◽  
Cognitive Grammar ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Dependency Relation ◽  
Adjectival Passive ◽  
Ser And Estar ◽  
Basic Semantic

This article explores the various uses of ser and estar in Spanish based on the assumptions of Cognitive Grammar (CG). The application of certain concepts of this model to the description of the attributive and non-attributive values of ser and estar allows us to identify a unifying thread that facilitates an integrated description of each use. These concepts and theoretical instruments include grammaticalization through attenuation, active zone, profile/base distinction, and dependency relation through correspondences, among others. In accordance with the symbolic conception of grammar characteristic of CG, we defend the idea that in their attributive and non-attributive uses both ser and estar are signs in which a basic semantic structure present in all the values can be recognized, although with different emergent nuances in specific constructions facilitated by different processes of metonymic extension. The main argument of this paper is that, in the ser/estar opposition, the marked element is estar as it contains a stative-episodic component that, be it in the foreground of the profile or the background of the base presupposed by this verb, is present in all its uses, locative, attributive, as an auxiliary in progressive periphrasis and in adjectival passive constructions. Ser, however, is a copulative verb by default, and may be associated with the notion of identification or correspondence in all its attributive uses and takes on predicative nuances both in its use in locations of event nouns and as an auxiliary in passives.

scholarly journals Obserwator i jego pozycja w opowiadaniu Tadeusza Borowskiego „Odwiedziny”

LingVaria ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (28) ◽  
Author(s):  
Łukasz Wnuk
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Full Text ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Cognitive Grammar ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
The Third ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Literary Output

The Observer and His Position in Tadeusz Borowski’s Short Story Odwiedziny (‘The Visit’) The article is an analysis of Tadeusz Borowski’s short story Odwiedziny (‘The visit’). It focuses on linguistic and narrative devices through which the speaker influences the recipient’s perception, and so shapes the reading of his work. The first part is introductory, it presents the goals of the paper. The next part recalls the most important existing interpretations, both of Borowski’s literary output as a whole, and of the text at hand. They form the starting point to an analysis of the position of the character-narrator with regard to the events he is describing, and to the relation between the author, the narrator, and the main character of the story. These considerations constitute the third part of the present paper. It begins with a citation of the full text of the story, and is followed by the main argument announced in the title which refers to Ronald Langacker’s cognitive grammar and takes into special consideration such notions as scene, current discourse space, and vantage point. The closing part of the paper contains conclusions, contrasted with the theses put forward in the context of Borowski’s work, as well as suggestions of possible directions of further analysis of the story within the framework of cognitive linguistics.

scholarly journals Another look at Syntactic Analysis of Hausa Verbs from Wallace Chafe’s Semantic Structure Form Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-77
Author(s):  
Ahmed Mohammed Bedu
Keyword(s):  
Structure Theory ◽  
Syntactic Analysis ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Structure Form ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Back Seat ◽  
Language Research ◽  
Semantic Element ◽  
Basic Semantic ◽  
Selection Of

For several decades, linguists have arrived at the conclusion that semantic structure is the area in which the well-formedness of sentence is determined in all natural languages. Over these years, the issue of semantic structure in syntactic analysis of Hausa verbs takes a back-seat in the Hausa language research despite the centrality of verb as category that determines the organization of the rest categories of the sentence. The present paper employs Wallace Chafe’s semantic structure theory to analyze Hausa sentences that were generated from the Parsonian seven grades of Hausa verbs to justify their structural consideration within semantic structure theory which specifies verb semantically in term of their semantic units that include states, processes and actions. The findings of paper indicate that the semantic formation rules govern the configuration of the basic semantic element in well-formed ‘semantic structure’ underlying the sentence of the language in which verbs dictate the selection of accompanying nouns and of the relations which such nouns bear to verbs.

scholarly journals A Contrastive Study of Lexical Semantics in English

2005 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2 (1)) ◽  
pp. 72-79
Author(s):  
Carlos Inchaurralde
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Lexical Semantics ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Contrastive Study ◽  
Basic Semantic

The article presents the initial generalizations of research in the fields of semantics and lexicography which are based on the examination carried out in 1962. Proceeding from the current results of the research, as well as the criteria elaborated in the fields of modern psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics, the article puts forward the idea of the expansion of the lexical semantics in English and the existence of a basic semantic structure. The possibility of further similar researches with the inclusion of the Spanish vocabulary is also emphasized in the article.

An Investigation of How People of Different Age, Sex, and Temperament Estimate the World

1999 ◽  
Vol 85 (2) ◽  
pp. 533-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Trofimova
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Space ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
The World ◽  
Basic Semantic ◽  
Age And Sex

Results of a study on 167 subjects demonstrated that the basic semantic structure of consciousness is associated with a person's temperament, age, and sex. Concrete particularities of estimations and structure of the semantic space depend upon these biologically based characteristics. The results suggest the presence of a phenomenon of “projection through capacities”: when a person registers only those aspects of objects or situation that he can properly react to and deal with in their own behavior.

The interaction of metonymy and metaphor in the meaning and form of ‘bahuvrihi’ compounds

2008 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 208-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Barcelona
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Characteristic Property ◽  
Similar Type ◽  
Cognitive Grammar ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Large Set ◽  
Large Sample ◽  
Ongoing Work

This paper reports on ongoing work on a large sample of bahuvrihi compounds in English and Spanish. After a brief characterization of bahuvrihi compounds, distinguishing them from a similar type of exocentric compounds (V+O compounds), the goal of the paper is clearly stated, namely to answer a number of questions, especially these two: (a) Does the metonymy CHARACTERISTIC PROPERTY FOR CATEGORY motivate the exocentric nature of all the compounds in the sample?; (b) Are other metonymies or metaphors also involved? If so, which are the metonymic or metaphoric patterns observable in conceptualizations underlying these compounds? The bulk of the paper is devoted to the detailed conceptual analysis of a large set of representative bahuvrihis in both languages. The results show that the above metonymy is responsible for the exocentric nature of all the compounds in the sample and that the characteristic property mapped by that metonymy is conceptualized in one of these three ways: literally, metonymically or metaphorico-metonymically. These three conceptualization patterns constitute the three major types of bahuvrihis in both languages; various further subtypes are proposed for each type. The paper ends with some tentative remarks on the Cognitive Grammar representation of the semantic structure of these compounds, on the connection between their semantic structure and their grammar and prosody, on a blending account of these lexemes, and on the contrasts identified between both languages.

scholarly journals Utterances as tool-mediated specifications of affordances - ecological pragmatics

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Borchmann
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Stimulus Configuration ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Private Language ◽  
Accurate Analysis ◽  
Private Language Argument ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
Concept Of Information ◽  
Basic Semantic ◽  
Adequate Analysis

Abstract The established descriptions of information structure assume that the basic cognitive unit is a categorization, and that the basic semantic structure is a predication. Descriptions based on these assumptions, however, cannot provide an adequate analysis of certain types of utterances that form a part of activities. The article presents a solution to this problem based on Wittgenstein’s private language argument and the concept of information in Gibson's theory of affordances. The basic cognitive assumption is that performers of activities attend to variations in the environment, for example visibility, and perceive the states of variations (e.g., 3000 feet). A state is defined as a local, temporary occurrence of a stimulus configuration that specifies an affordance. The basic pragmatic assumption, then, is that performers of activities share the states of variations by means of utterances. This ecological-pragmatic assumption allows for a rethinking of the usefulness of the reference-predicate distinction and bring forward different dimensions of informational analysis of utterances. It is claimed that an informative and accurate analysis of utterances that form a part of activities relies two distinctions: a distinction between a convention based regulation of attention and a convention based specification of an affordance, and a distinction between sharing information and nesting information

A Cognitive Grammar approach to the SLocPAdjC in Mandarin Chinese

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keding Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Active Zone ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cognitive Domain ◽  
Cognitive Grammar ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Joint Function ◽  
Spatial Region ◽  
Nominal Phrase ◽  
The Subject

SLocPAdjC (Locative subject + adjective-predicate construction) is an idiosyncratic construction in Mandarin Chinese. It has its own specific structural and cognitive properties which are different from those of other constructions. Its structural properties are that it has locative phrases as its subject and adjective phrases as its predicate without the help of any linking verb. In addition, only state adjectives, and not property adjectives, can normally occur in SLocPAdjC as predicates. As is observed from the Cognitive Grammar perspective, what the predicate describes in SLocPAdjC is not the subject proper, but a certain facet of the spatial region of the entity designated by the subject. This depends on two cognitive mechanisms. One is the spatial region profiling mechanism of the subject, and the other is the active zone activating mechanism of the predicate. The former means that the signified entity of the nominal phrase in the subject functions as the base. The postposition serves to profile a certain spatial region of the base and makes this region a prominent candidate for the predicate to describe. The latter means that the adjective in the predicate, based on the cognitive domain it belongs to, activates a certain facet of or in the spatial region as the active zone which eventually becomes the actual matter to be described by the predicate. What’s more important, the meaning of the SLocPAdjC in Mandarin Chinese resides in the joint function of the profiling mechanism of the subject and the activating mechanism of the adjective-predicate.

Semantic Structure and Episodic Context: The Analogy Between LSA and TCM

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc W. Howard ◽  
Aditya V. Datey ◽  
Hong-Liang Gai
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Structure

Attitude Datives in Social Context – The Analytic Tools

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youssef A. Haddad
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Cognitive Grammar ◽  
Stage Model ◽  
Sociocultural Context ◽  
Present Material ◽  
Situational Context ◽  
Pragmatic Markers ◽  
Activity Types ◽  
Contextualization Cues

This chapter defines attitude datives as evaluative and relational pragmatic markers that allow the speaker to present material from a specific perspective and to invite the hearer to view the material from the same perspective. It identifies three types of context that are pertinent to the analysis of these datives. These are the sociocultural context (e.g., values, beliefs), the situational context (i.e., identities, activity types), and the co-textual context (e.g., contextualization cues). The chapter draws on Cognitive Grammar and Theory of Stance and puts forth a sociocognitive model called the stancetaking stage model. In this model, when a speaker uses an attitude dative construction, she directs her hearer’s attention to the main content of her message and instructs him to view this content through the attitude dative as a filter. In this sense, the attitude dative functions as a perspectivizer and the main content becomes a perspectivized thought.

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