Abstract
In the spirit of NSM accounts that attempt to build up a language's full expressivity from a small set of lexical primitives, we have investigated the usage in English of basic verbs of ideation (think, know) and physical activity (strike, hit, go, run) as they take on new epistemic meanings and functions, all the while calcifying in their inflectional range. It is well known that certain verbs of cognition in English such as remember, forget, and think are grammaticalizing into pragmatic particles of epistemic stance and, consequently, 1st person singular (1sg) forms account for the majority of usages. Likewise, we have carried out systematic queries and hand-tagging of corpus returns and have found that many verbs and phrasal expressions, ideational or not, seem to be associated with rather narrow collocational patterning, argument structure, and inflectional marking in almost idiom-like and constructional fashion. Moreover, we find that expressions associated with 1sg and 2nd person "cognizers" are, to a large extent, in complementary distribution, giving rise to fairly strong semantic differences in how I and you "ideate". In this study, we demonstrate the extent of inflectional and collocational specificity for verbs of cognition and physical activity and discuss implications this lexico-syntactic idiosyncracy has for cognitive linguistics.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 560-580 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Russian Journal of Linguistics |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2018 |
Keywords
- Cognition
- Collocation
- Corpus methods
- Epistemization
- Inflectional categories
- Lexico-syntax
Cite this
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A corpus investigation of english cognition verbs and their effect on the incipient epistemization of physical activity verbs. / Rice, Sally; Newman, John.
In: Russian Journal of Linguistics, Vol. 22, No. 3, 2018, p. 560-580.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
TY - JOUR
T1 - A corpus investigation of english cognition verbs and their effect on the incipient epistemization of physical activity verbs
AU - Rice, Sally
AU - Newman, John
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - In the spirit of NSM accounts that attempt to build up a language's full expressivity from a small set of lexical primitives, we have investigated the usage in English of basic verbs of ideation (think, know) and physical activity (strike, hit, go, run) as they take on new epistemic meanings and functions, all the while calcifying in their inflectional range. It is well known that certain verbs of cognition in English such as remember, forget, and think are grammaticalizing into pragmatic particles of epistemic stance and, consequently, 1st person singular (1sg) forms account for the majority of usages. Likewise, we have carried out systematic queries and hand-tagging of corpus returns and have found that many verbs and phrasal expressions, ideational or not, seem to be associated with rather narrow collocational patterning, argument structure, and inflectional marking in almost idiom-like and constructional fashion. Moreover, we find that expressions associated with 1sg and 2nd person "cognizers" are, to a large extent, in complementary distribution, giving rise to fairly strong semantic differences in how I and you "ideate". In this study, we demonstrate the extent of inflectional and collocational specificity for verbs of cognition and physical activity and discuss implications this lexico-syntactic idiosyncracy has for cognitive linguistics.
AB - In the spirit of NSM accounts that attempt to build up a language's full expressivity from a small set of lexical primitives, we have investigated the usage in English of basic verbs of ideation (think, know) and physical activity (strike, hit, go, run) as they take on new epistemic meanings and functions, all the while calcifying in their inflectional range. It is well known that certain verbs of cognition in English such as remember, forget, and think are grammaticalizing into pragmatic particles of epistemic stance and, consequently, 1st person singular (1sg) forms account for the majority of usages. Likewise, we have carried out systematic queries and hand-tagging of corpus returns and have found that many verbs and phrasal expressions, ideational or not, seem to be associated with rather narrow collocational patterning, argument structure, and inflectional marking in almost idiom-like and constructional fashion. Moreover, we find that expressions associated with 1sg and 2nd person "cognizers" are, to a large extent, in complementary distribution, giving rise to fairly strong semantic differences in how I and you "ideate". In this study, we demonstrate the extent of inflectional and collocational specificity for verbs of cognition and physical activity and discuss implications this lexico-syntactic idiosyncracy has for cognitive linguistics.
KW - Cognition
KW - Collocation
KW - Corpus methods
KW - Epistemization
KW - Inflectional categories
KW - Lexico-syntax
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85054842242&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.22363/2312-9182-2018-22-3-560-580
DO - 10.22363/2312-9182-2018-22-3-560-580
M3 - Article
VL - 22
SP - 560
EP - 580
JO - Russian Journal of Linguistics
JF - Russian Journal of Linguistics
SN - 2312-9182
IS - 3
ER -