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- Volume 1, Issue, 2014
Cognitive Linguistic Studies - Volume 1, Issue 2, 2014
Volume 1, Issue 2, 2014
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Cognitive Linguistics: Retrospect and prospect
Author(s): Xu Wen, Kun Yang and Fangtao Kuangpp.: 155–170 (16)More LessAs a new paradigm of linguistics, Cognitive Linguistics has made great achievements over the past 30 years or so. In order to make the latest trends of Cognitive Linguistic research known, this paper presents the outstanding achievements and prominent characteristics of Cognitive Linguistics in various dimensions. In contrast to some other linguistic theories, Cognitive Linguistics has more conspicuous advantages in its theories and other aspects. Cognitive linguistics can offer not only an account of linguistic phenomena but also that of a wide variety of social and cultural phenomena. Therefore, Cognitive Linguistics is not only a school of linguistics but a cognitive social science or a cognitive semiotics, which has lots of implications for various fields or disciplines in the age of big data.
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Scandinavian pancake constructions as a family of constructions
Author(s): Tor Arne Haugen and Hans-Olav Engerpp.: 171–196 (26)More LessThis paper deals with a classical problem in Scandinavian grammar, so-called ‘pancake sentences’, nicknamed after examples like Pannekaker er godt ‘Pancakes are good’ where there seemingly is disagreement between the plural subject and the predicative adjective in the neuter singular. Our aim is twofold. From the theoretical point of view, we shall argue that there are advantages with a construction-based approach, and that such an approach is superior to previous analyses within various generative frameworks.The main reason for this is that the data require generalizations over combinations of subjects and predicative adjectives at a rather specific level. From a more empirical point of view, we shall argue that Scandinavian displays a range of different, but related pancake constructions. For the first time, corpus data are brought into the debate. We show that a construction type that has not received much attention previously is in fact the most frequent type, namely constructions where the subject is a deverbal noun.
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Where do they come from?: The origin of cleft sentences and related problems in Mandarin Chinese
Author(s): Heyou Zhangpp.: 197–217 (21)More LessMuch work has been done to explore the origin and functions of the Chinese “Shi…De” construction, but there are still some problems left unsolved. Firstly, there is no consensus on what a syntactic category the “Shi…De” construction belongs to. Second, no agreement has been reached with regard to the functions of De and Shi in the “Shi…De” construction. Third, the reason why Chinese chooses “Shi…De” to assume the function of focusing is not clear. Moreover, though previous studies have discussed the origin and the diachronic distribution of this construction, the mechanism for its generation or its genesis is left untouched. This paper discussed the Chinese “Shi…De” construction from a synchronic perspective. The findings include: (1) The Chinese “Shi…De” constructions are essentially assertive sentences which relate to the grammaticalization of Shi; (2) De as an empty word is a particle at the phrase level and a functor together with a Shi at the sentence level; (3) The “Shi…De” construction is endowed with its own semantic function; (4) The mechanism for forming Chinese cleft sentences is analogy.
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A Cognitive Grammar approach to the SLocPAdjC in Mandarin Chinese
Author(s): Keding Zhangpp.: 218–235 (18)More LessSLocPAdjC (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.
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A corpus-based diachronic investigation of metaphorical containers of sadness in English
pp.: 236–251 (16)More LessThis paper addresses the question of conceptual diversity in the seat of emotions via a corpus-based case study of diachronic variation in the metaphorical containers of sadness in English. Data sourced from Literature Online, Early English Books Online and the British National Corpus reveal three types of metaphorical containers of sadness: (1) the human body in general and whatever is either literally internal to it, or at least often conceptualized as such, such as the heart and the soul; (2) external body parts and different kinds of superficial body features, such as the eyes and the voice; and (3) containers that are not inherently connected with the human body, such as a room and a sonnet. A comparison between the types of metaphorical containers in different periods shows that whereas the percentage of the third type of containers remains constant by and large, there has been a noticeable increase in the percentage of the second type of containers and a quite obvious decrease in the percentage of the first type of containers. It is argued that the diachronic variation in the relative frequencies of the two types of containers may have been related to a shift in the general conception of body and emotions, and specifically to the gradual disintegration of humoral theory.
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Metaphorical eternity in action: The nonlinguistic realization of death metaphors in Iranian culture
Author(s): Mohsen Bakhtiarpp.: 252–270 (19)More LessConceptual metaphors can be made real in culture and structure many areas of human experience in nonlinguistic ways (Kövecses 2005). In this paper, relying on a cognitive account of metaphor, I attempted to find out in which ways death metaphors manifest themselves in Iranian culture. Analyzing the rituals of death in Iran, it was revealed that Iranians rely on a set of basic concetual metaphors to conceptualize the taboo of death. Heavily motivated by religious instructions, the whole scenario of death is conceptualized in terms of human physical and psychological experiences. In addition to the event of death, which is conceptualized via the highly generic DEATH IS LIFE metaphor, in this culture, an important mapping of this metaphor, that is, THE DEAD ARE EMOTIONAL BEINGS, is extensively realized and enacted, which provides a unique subsystem for making euphemistic reference to death. Furthermore, the paper comes to the conclusion that most of the entailments of the source domains and some of the source domains turn into social-physical reality. The whole system of death rituals as structured by metaphors imply that we metaphorically never die.
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Temporal prepositions explained: Cross-linguistic analysis of English and Swedish unit of time landmarks
Author(s): Marlene Johansson Falckpp.: 271–288 (18)More LessTo what extent can factors such as the size of a unit of time landmark and zoomed in effects explain the patterns of temporal prepositions in English (Lindstromberg, 1998/2010)? How important are these factors cross-linguistically? This paper is a corpus linguistic analysis of unit of time landmarks in English in and on instances, and in their Swedish equivalents, i and på instances. My aims are to investigate how temporal in and on relationships are construed in terms of spatial ones and to identify shared and differing patterns between these two closely related languages. Shared patterns may provide clues in regard to which factors are salient when time is construed in terms of space. Differing patterns highlight the fact that a given way of construing time in terms of space is not the only alternative. Systematicity at this level of abstraction is potentially useful for the second language (L2) learner.
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Subclasses of Chinese noun phrases and the parallel occurrence of de 的
Author(s): Yuanjie Wangpp.: 289–312 (24)More LessChinese noun phrases are divided into three subclasses, namely, classification phrases, quantification phrases, and identification phrases, to describe and explain the parallel occurrence of de in the NPs with a single modifier. The parallelism exists not only between the three subclasses of NPs, but also, within the quantification phrases, between the nominal quantification modifiers and the verbal quantification modifiers. The reason for this parallel occurrence is that, the classification phrase tends to occur without de when its modifier has a higher ability to classify the head noun, so do the quantification phrase when its modifier has a higher ability to count the head noun, and the identification phrase when its modifier has a higher ability to identify the head noun.
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Formant frequency characteristics in Palestinian Arabic-speaking aphasics
Author(s): Hisham Adampp.: 313–328 (16)More LessThe aim of this paper is to examine the acoustic characteristics of Arabic vowels as produced by Palestinian Arabic-speaking Broca’s aphasics compared to normal speakers. Five subjects diagnosed with Broca’s aphasia and five normal speakers residing in the West Bank participated in this study. The subjects produced 240 vowel tokens of the eight Arabic vowels (/i:/, /i/, /e:/, /a:/, /a/, /o:/, /u:/ and /u/,). The samples were analyzed using PRAAT and the formants F1 and F2 of the eight Arabic vowels were measured. F1 and F2 values were compared to the data in the literature. Comparisons among speakers of Palestinian Arabic indicated that Broca’s aphasics’ formant frequencies were significantly different to those of normal speakers, showing that formant frequencies of F1 and F2 are generally higher among Broca’s aphasics compared to the control group. Furthermore, the findings reveal that the acoustic vowel space of Broca’s aphasics is more centralized compared to the control subjects. The results also indicate that Broca’s aphasics were able to maintain the phonemic contrast between the long and short vowels. In general, the results may contribute to neurolinguistic research across different languages, especially given that Palestinian Arabic is studied significantly less than other Arabic dialects. Furthermore, the results may have clinical applications when evaluating and/or treating Palestinian Arabic-speaking Broca’s aphasics.
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Uncanny resemblance
Author(s): Alessandro Cavazzana and Marianna Bolognesi
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