Operationalising Cognitive Grammar : experimental and theoretical approaches
One of the main advantages of cognitive linguistics (and in particular Cognitive Grammar) over other approaches to the study of language structure is the fact that every descriptive construct is defined in psychological terms. This means, ideally, that any cognitive linguistic description of a word or grammatical construction constitutes a hypothesis about the mental representation of that structure. It should thus be possible to verify such descriptions, or to decide between competing analyses of a phenomenon, by experimentally testing the hypotheses that they entail. Such tests have been rare, however, due to the difficulty of operationalising many of the semantic notions used in Cognitive Grammar. The present thesis reports on attempts to operationalise and test (using questionnaires, production tasks, and reaction time measurements) four descriptive claims formulated in the framework of Cognitive Grammar: that finite complementation constructions are headed by the complement-taking predicate; that the first object in a three-argument clause is more âfigure-likeâ than the second object; that impersonal there in an existential clause refers to the locative scene as a whole; and that non-finite clauses
Kalyan, Siva
Q300 English studies
Operationalising Cognitive Grammar : experimental and theoretical approaches. One of the main advantages of cognitive linguistics (and in particular Cognitive Grammar) over other approaches to the study of language structure is the fact that every descriptive construct is defined in psychological terms. This means, ideally, that any cognitive linguistic description of a word or grammatical construction constitutes a hypothesis about the mental representation of that structure. It should thus be possible to verify such descriptions, or to decide between competing analyses of a phenomenon, by experimentally testing the hypotheses that they entail. Such tests have been rare, however, due to the difficulty of operationalising many of the semantic notions used in Cognitive Grammar. The present thesis reports on attempts to operationalise and test (using questionnaires, production tasks, and reaction time measurements) four descriptive claims formulated in the framework of Cognitive Grammar: that finite complementation constructions are headed by the complement-taking predicate; that the first object in a three-argument clause is more âfigure-likeâ than the second object; that impersonal there in an existential clause refers to the locative scene as a whole; and that non-finite clauses
cognitive grammar experimental theoretical_approach one_main advantage cognitive_linguistics particular cognitive grammar approach study language structure fact every descriptive construct define psychological term mean ideally cognitive_linguistic description word grammatical construction constitute hypothesis mental_representation structure thus possible verify description decide compete analysis phenomenon experimentally test_hypothesis entail test rare however_due difficulty many semantic notion use cognitive grammar present report attempt test use_questionnaire production_task reaction_time measurement descriptive claim formulate framework cognitive grammar finite complementation construction head_complement taking predicate first object argument clause figure like second object impersonal existential clause refers locative scene whole non finite_clause