Cognitive semantics and the semiological function of language

This chapter provides a critical examination of the cognitive approach, which claims to follow a semiological or symbolic principle according to which the fundamental role of language is to allow the symbolization of conceptualizations by means of phonological sequences. It asks whether Cognitive Grammar is faithful to this principle and argues that the cognitive postulate of a continuum between semantics and pragmatics stands in direct contradiction to it. Critical assessments are also offered of Prototype Theory, Conceptual Semantics, Construction Grammar, and Natural Semantic Metalanguage.

The truth-conditional approach to meaning

This chapter argues that the autonomous syntax postulate leads to a view of semantics as interfacing with syntax only once the latter has autonomously generated a sentential sequence, which is then sent to the semantic component for interpretation. Since only sentences are true or false, this situates semantics on the level of propositions and the truth-conditions associated with them. While this hypothesis has the advantage of providing linguists with a ready-made toolkit of logical concepts and formulae, it is argued to misrepresent the way meaning is related to form in natural language, as it is generally not the case that a stable meaning is paired with a stable linguistic form on the level of the sentence.

A final comparison with the Columbia School approach to meaning

This chapter marks the points of divergence between the approach taken in the book and the Columbia School, which both share the assumption that linguistic categories take the form of signal-meaning pairs and that meanings are language-specific. The Columbia School postulates that meanings are inherently relational and divide up semantic fields contrastively in an exhaustive way. Contrary to this Saussurean-style postulate, it is argued that meaning is not essentially contrastive or relational in nature and that assuming that it is leads to a significant distortion of certain meanings, especially those treated as unmarked in the binary opposition-based system.

Sign-based semantics: meaning as linguistically-signified cognitive content

This chapter demonstrates the explanatory power of an approach that grounds the analysis of natural-language meaning on the linguistic sign itself. Cases covered include the multifarious uses of the preposition for, verbal complementation with aspectual and causative verbs, the phenomena of control and raising in adjective + to-infinitive constructions, the use of wh- words with the bare and to-infinitives, the modal and non-modal uses of the verbs dare and need, and a meaning-based account of full-verb inversion and existential-there constructions.

Introductory remarks on the question of the autonomy of syntax

This chapter lays down the gauntlet to challenge the autonomy of syntax, a basic principle of linguistic analysis proposed by Chomsky in 1982 and followed by most researchers working in the generative paradigm. It announces the book’s intent to argue that semantics plays a highly significant role in syntax, and that a properly articulated linguistic semantics, together with the requisite pragmatics, goes a long way towards explaining the relational processes involved in the building of syntactic sequences in natural language. This relates the approach taken in the book to those advocated by the Columbia School and by Cognitive Grammar.

Concluding reflections on natural language and embodiment

This chapter highlights a dimension of embodiment that is often overlooked and that concerns the basic design architecture of human language itself: the ineludable fact that the fundamental relation on which language is based is the association between a mind-engendered meaning and a bodily-produced sign. It is argued that this oversight is often due to treating meaning on the level of the sentence or the construction, rather than of the lower-level linguistic items where the linguistic sign is stored in a stable, permanent, and direct relation with its meaning outside of any particular context. Building linguistic analysis up from the ground level provides it with a solid foundation and increases its explanatory power.