Ronald W Langacker
Biographic Data
| ID | 105330 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ronald W Langacker |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ronald W |
| FAMILY NAME | Langacker |
| SIGNATURE | LANGACKER R W |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California San Diego |
| ORCID | 0009-0009-7345-455X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 76 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 298 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 75 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1965 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Trees, assemblies, chains, and windows
For describing grammatical organization, metaphors based on a variety of source domains – including trees, networks, chains, paths, and windows – all appear to have some validity. In Cognitive Grammar, they pertain to facets of assemblies, where semantic and phonological structures are connected by relations of symbolization, composition, and categorization. Assemblies have a temporal dimension; consisting in sequenced processing activity that ru…
Levels of Reality
Two fundamental aspects of conceptual and linguistic structure are examined in relation to one another: organization into strata, each a baseline giving rise to the next by elaboration; and the conceptions of reality implicated at successive levels of English clause structure. A clause profiles an occurrence (event or state) and grounds it by assessing its epistemic status (location vis-à-vis reality). Three levels are distinguished in which diff…
Working toward a synthesis
Although Cognitive Linguistics represents a recontextualization with respect to prior tradition, internally it has been diverse and grounded from the outset. In design and principle, this holds for Cognitive Grammar, which seeks a comprehensive yet unified account of structure and use. It foreshadowed the “social turn” by claiming that the speaker-hearer interaction is inherent in linguistic units, which are abstracted from usage events; and also…
Baseline and elaboration
Many aspects of language and cognition involve an asymmetry describable in terms of a baseline (B) and various dimensions and levels of elaboration (E). The baseline has some kind of priority – being already established, in place, or under control – and is generally more substantive than elaborating elements. B/E organization is reflected in the control cycle , a very general cognitive model with many manifestations in everyday experience. Since …
Abstract Motion
Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1986), pp. 445-471
Linguistic manifestations of the space-time (dis)analogy
As facets of interpreted experience, space and time are highly variable in their linguistic manifestation. Universal aspects of language structure reflect a more basic level of apprehension. Space and time have a foundational role in grammar. Objects and events, the prototypes for nouns and verbs, are primarily conceived, respectively, as spatial and temporal entities. The extensive noun-verb parallelism suggests that space and time merit unified…
Elliptic coordination
Proposals are made to expand and refine previous analyses of coordination in Cognitive Grammar. The account presupposes a number of general notions established independently: (i) flexible symbolic assemblies (rather than constituency) as the basis for describing grammar; (ii) a dynamic view of structure (as patterns of activity occurring in windows of attention on different time scales); (iii) a metaphor involving access , activation , and concep…
Investigations in Cognitive Grammar
This volume makes accessible a substantial range of recent research in Cognitive Grammar. From disparate sources, it brings together a dozen innovative papers, revised and integrated to form a coherent whole. This work continues the ongoing program of progressively articulating the theoretical framework and showing its descriptive application to varied grammatical phenomena. A number of major topics are examined in depth through multiple chapters…
A dynamic view of usage and language acquisition
A general framework is sketched for thinking about problems of usage and acquisition from a cognitive linguistic perspective. It is a dynamic, usage-based approach emphasizing the temporal dimension of language structure as an aspect of cognitive processing. A variety of topics are discussed involving the abstraction of linguistic units, their mental representation, and their activation in usage events
Cognitive (Construction) Grammar
Goldberg overstates the differences between Cognitive Grammar and Cognitive Construction Grammar. The former does not claim that a clause invariably inherits its profile from the verb; it has merely been suggested that the latter's preference for monosemy may have been pushed too far. The matter can only be addressed given a specific definition of what is meant in saying that a verb "has" a certain sense. Also, the schematic meanings proposed in …
Cognitive Grammar
Cognitive Grammar is a radical alternative to the formalist theories that have dominated linguistic theory during the last half century. Instead of an objectivist semantics based on truth conditions or logical deduction, it adopts a conceptualist semantics based on human experience, our capacity to construe situations in alternate ways, and processes of imagination and mental construction. A conceptualist semantics makes possible an account of gr…
Sequential and summary scanning
It is quite legitimate for Broccias and Hollmann (2007) to question the characterization of verbs in terms of sequential scanning. However, they have not advanced any cogent arguments against it. Although experimental evidence is certainly to be desired, there is no doubt about the psychological status of sequential scanning: it amounts to nothing more than the sequentiality inherent in the real-time experience of events. Its sequentiality should…
On the continuous debate about discreteness
The issue of discreteness vs. continuity comes into play in all domains of linguistic analysis and at multiple levels. The distinction’s experiential basis is discussed, as well as various means of discretization and continuization. Most phenomena are sufficiently complex that treatments emphasizing discreteness and continuity both have some validity—it is not a matter of choosing between them, but of determining what each contributes and how the…
Remarks on nominal grounding
The problems posed by nominal structure and nominal reference are notoriously subtle and complex. Though fairly extensive, their treatment in Cognitive Grammar (CG) has thus far been partial, preliminary, and scattered in numerous publications. The synthesis attempted here can hardly overcome the first two limitations. It may however provide a useful way of framing the issues and suggest some promising lines of attack
Double-subject and complex-predicate constructions
Concept, Image, and Symbol
This classic research monograph develops and illustrates the theory of linguistic structure known as Cognitive Grammar, and applies it to representative phenomena in English and other languages. Cognitive grammar views language as an integral facet of cognition and claims that grammatical structure cannot be understood or revealingly described independently of semantic considerations.
Discourse in Cognitive Grammar
Cognitive Grammar presupposes an inherent and intimate relation between linguistic structures and discourse. Linguistic units are abstracted from usage events, retaining as part of their value any recurring facet of the interactive and discourse context. Linguistic structures thus incorporate discourse expectations and are interpretable as instructions to modify the current discourse state. There are multiple channels of conceptualization and voc…
Grammar and Conceptualization
Grammar and Conceptualization documents some major developments in the theory of cognitive grammar during the last decade. By further articulating the framework and showing its application to numerous domains of linguistic structure, this book substantiates the claim that lexicon, morphology, and syntax form a gradation consisting of assemblies of symbolic structures (form-meaning pairings).
Correspondences, Compositionality, and Grammar
Language and Space
The fifteen original contributions in Language and Space bring together the major lines of research and the most important theoretical viewpoints in the areas of psychology, linguistics, anthropology, and neuroscience, providing a much needed synthesis across these diverse domains. The study of the relationship between natural language and spatial cognition has the potential to yield answers to vexing questions about the nature of the mind, langu…
Constituency, dependency, and conceptual grouping
Raising and Transparency
The phenomena that classic transformational syntax handled by means of ‘raising’ rules pose an interesting challenge to theories that do not posit movement or derivation from underlying structures. An account of these phenomena is formulated in the context of cognitive grammar. Raising is analyzed as a special case of the metonymy that virtually all relational expressions exhibit in regard to their choice of overtly coded arguments. The transpare…
Universals of Construal
Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on Semantic Typology and Semantic Universals (1993)
Reference-point constructions
Grammatical traces of some 'invisible' semantic constructs
Subjectification
Reference-point constructions
Nouns and Verbs
The universal grammatical categories noun and verb are held susceptible to notional characterization. The traditional objections to this claim are overcome by an appropriate view of linguistic semantics, one based on cognitive processing and the structuring of conceptual content. Reasonably precise semantic descriptions of the noun and verb categories are proposed in the context of the cognitive grammar framework. The distinction between count an…
Discourse in Cognitive Grammar
Cognitive Grammar presupposes an inherent and intimate relation between linguistic structures and discourse. Linguistic units are abstracted from usage events, retaining as part of their value any recurring facet of the interactive and discourse context. Linguistic structures thus incorporate discourse expectations and are interpretable as instructions to modify the current discourse state. There are multiple channels of conceptualization and voc…
Raising and Transparency
The phenomena that classic transformational syntax handled by means of ‘raising’ rules pose an interesting challenge to theories that do not posit movement or derivation from underlying structures. An account of these phenomena is formulated in the context of cognitive grammar. Raising is analyzed as a special case of the metonymy that virtually all relational expressions exhibit in regard to their choice of overtly coded arguments. The transpare…
Proto-Aztecan Vowels
Space Grammar, Analysability, and the English Passive
Alternatives are discussed for a number of assumptions fundamental to established linguistic theories. These alternatives lead to a coherent view of linguistic structure that treats grammar as a symbolic phenomenon, and emphasizes the importance of analys-ability to grammatical structure. A descriptive framework called space grammar is outlined, in particular its approach to semantic structure and grammatical valence relations. The concepts are a…
Passives and Their Meaning
This paper proposes an underlying representation for passive sentences in Mojave and in Uto-Aztecan, and explores the broader issues that arise in extending the analysis to other languages and incorporating it in linguistic theory as a substantive language universal. In the introduction, this underlying representation is presented and discussed in relation to previous analyses of the passive. It is claimed specifically that passive sentences in M…
Movement Rules in Functional Perspective
This paper offers a functional explanation for the existence and for the special properties of movement rules in natural languages. A survey of reasonably well-established movement transformations in English reveals certain asymmetries in the classes of such rules encountered empirically and in their formal properties. It is argued that the special formal properties of backing rules correlate with their function, which is different from the funct…
Constituency, dependency, and conceptual grouping
Inside' and 'Outside' in Cora Grammar
The Form and Meaning of the English Auxiliary
This paper introduces selected concepts from a theory of linguistic structure called space grammar, and employs these concepts to seek an integrated account of the form and meaning of the English auxiliary. It is argued that the form of the auxiliary, apart from certain morphological adjustments, reflects each step of the conceptual path leading from the speaker to the objective situation described by the main verb. Observations are made on the n…
Cognitive (Construction) Grammar
Goldberg overstates the differences between Cognitive Grammar and Cognitive Construction Grammar. The former does not claim that a clause invariably inherits its profile from the verb; it has merely been suggested that the latter's preference for monosemy may have been pushed too far. The matter can only be addressed given a specific definition of what is meant in saying that a verb "has" a certain sense. Also, the schematic meanings proposed in …
On the continuous debate about discreteness
The issue of discreteness vs. continuity comes into play in all domains of linguistic analysis and at multiple levels. The distinction’s experiential basis is discussed, as well as various means of discretization and continuization. Most phenomena are sufficiently complex that treatments emphasizing discreteness and continuity both have some validity—it is not a matter of choosing between them, but of determining what each contributes and how the…
Spanish Case and Function
Baseline and elaboration
Many aspects of language and cognition involve an asymmetry describable in terms of a baseline (B) and various dimensions and levels of elaboration (E). The baseline has some kind of priority – being already established, in place, or under control – and is generally more substantive than elaborating elements. B/E organization is reflected in the control cycle , a very general cognitive model with many manifestations in everyday experience. Since …
Sequential and summary scanning
It is quite legitimate for Broccias and Hollmann (2007) to question the characterization of verbs in terms of sequential scanning. However, they have not advanced any cogent arguments against it. Although experimental evidence is certainly to be desired, there is no doubt about the psychological status of sequential scanning: it amounts to nothing more than the sequentiality inherent in the real-time experience of events. Its sequentiality should…
Proto-Aztecan Vowels
Proto-Aztecan Vowels
The Vowels of Proto Uto-Aztecan
Levels of Reality
Two fundamental aspects of conceptual and linguistic structure are examined in relation to one another: organization into strata, each a baseline giving rise to the next by elaboration; and the conceptions of reality implicated at successive levels of English clause structure. A clause profiles an occurrence (event or state) and grounds it by assessing its epistemic status (location vis-à-vis reality). Three levels are distinguished in which diff…
Working toward a synthesis
Although Cognitive Linguistics represents a recontextualization with respect to prior tradition, internally it has been diverse and grounded from the outset. In design and principle, this holds for Cognitive Grammar, which seeks a comprehensive yet unified account of structure and use. It foreshadowed the “social turn” by claiming that the speaker-hearer interaction is inherent in linguistic units, which are abstracted from usage events; and also…
Elliptic coordination
Proposals are made to expand and refine previous analyses of coordination in Cognitive Grammar. The account presupposes a number of general notions established independently: (i) flexible symbolic assemblies (rather than constituency) as the basis for describing grammar; (ii) a dynamic view of structure (as patterns of activity occurring in windows of attention on different time scales); (iii) a metaphor involving access , activation , and concep…
A dynamic view of usage and language acquisition
A general framework is sketched for thinking about problems of usage and acquisition from a cognitive linguistic perspective. It is a dynamic, usage-based approach emphasizing the temporal dimension of language structure as an aspect of cognitive processing. A variety of topics are discussed involving the abstraction of linguistic units, their mental representation, and their activation in usage events
Noms et verbes
Langacker Ron W., Vandeloise Claude. Noms et verbes. In: Communications, 53, 1991. Sémantique cognitive, sous la direction de Claude Vandeloise. pp. 103-153
French Interrogatives
This paper examines the processes of question formation in French. My purpose is to propose a generative analysis to account for these processes for which one can make a reasonable claim of descriptive adequacy. Attention will first be focused on simple yes-no and ‘wh’ questions. Then, the analysis being expanded to accommodate the est-ce que series, a close relationship will be demonstrated between these and certain embedding mechanisms. Finally…
Les verbes faire, laisser, voir, etc
Langacker Ronald W. Les verbes faire, laisser, voir, etc. In: Langages, 1e année, n°3, 1966. Linguistique française. Le verbe et la phrase, sous la direction de Algirdas Julien Greimas et Jean Dubois. pp. 72-89
Writing Transformational Grammars
Observations on French Possessives
A brief introduction presents the data to be accounted for. In §1, a transformational derivation is proposed for the possessive adjective construction of modern French, for example ma maison ‘my house’. All of the rules involved are seen to have independent motivation. Several other possessive constructions are examined in §2, and are shown to be surface reflexes of the intermediate stages required by the proposed derivation of possessive adjecti…
Introduction a la grammaire generative
Mirror Image Rules I
The thesis of this paper is that a ‘mirror image’ convention should be incorporated into linguistic metatheory. This convention may be interpreted as a notational device; it serves to collapse rules that are significantly similar in that they are mirror images of one another, in a sense that can be made fairly precise. Part I gives a preliminary formulation of the convention and discusses syntactic evidence; Part II, to be published in Lg. 45:4, …
Language and Its Structure
Mirror Image Rules II
In Part I (§§1-2) of this paper, previously published, it was argued that a ‘mirror image’ convention must be incorporated into linguistic metatheory in order to account for various syntactic phenomena in the most insightful way. This convention may be interpreted as a notational device serving to collapse rules that are, in a special sense, mirror images of one another. Here, in Part II, it is shown that there is also lexical and phonological mo…
The Vowels of Proto Uto-Aztecan
Spanish Case and Function
Syntaxe transformationnelle des propositions hypothétiques du français parlé
Grammaire transformationnelle du français, syntaxe du verbe
Meaning and the Structure of Language
Linguistics
Possessives in Classical Nahuatl
Fundamentals of Linguistic Analysis
Movement Rules in Functional Perspective
This paper offers a functional explanation for the existence and for the special properties of movement rules in natural languages. A survey of reasonably well-established movement transformations in English reveals certain asymmetries in the classes of such rules encountered empirically and in their formal properties. It is argued that the special formal properties of backing rules correlate with their function, which is different from the funct…
Relative Clauses in Classical Nahuatl
Passives and Their Meaning
This paper proposes an underlying representation for passive sentences in Mojave and in Uto-Aztecan, and explores the broader issues that arise in extending the analysis to other languages and incorporating it in linguistic theory as a substantive language universal. In the introduction, this underlying representation is presented and discussed in relation to previous analyses of the passive. It is claimed specifically that passive sentences in M…
A Note on Uto-Aztecan Consonant Gradation
Yaqui Syntax. Jacqueline Lindenfeld
Syntactic Reanalysis
Reconstruction of pronominal elements in Takic
Beyond the Codices
Non-Distinct Arguments in Uto-Aztecan
Linguistics (66 works) · Philosophy (66 works) · Computer Science (45 works) · Psychology (38 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (27 works) · Philosophy (23 works) · Grammar (20 works) · History (18 works) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (18 works) · Cognition (15 works)