Билет 3 The basic principles and arguments of the cognitive linguistics.

The prototypical principle of category structure argues that any category possesses center-periphery pattern. The center comprises entities which maximally reveal categorial properties, while the periphery is represented by the entities which demonstrate categorial properties only to a certain degree. The principle is used in the study of the syntactic categories. The principles of figure-ground segregation, and “windowing” of attention are viewed as common to the cognitive system of attention and considered to be essential ones in examining “meaning-form” mappings in syntax.

Figure-ground segregation principle implies that our visual and auditory input is organized in terms of prominence of the different parts. The part of the whole which is perceived as more prominent is given the status of figure and the part which is less prominent is given the status of ground. In the system of language the figure – ground principle is believed to work as follows: the properties of the figure are those of concern, the ground functions is a reference entity and is used to characterize the properties of the figure.

The terms “Figure“ and “Ground” are adopted by L.Talmy, R. Langacker for the investigation of conceptualization processes in human mind as they are reflected in syntactic structures. At the same time in cognitive linguistics are widely used terms “Profile” and “Base” for explicating the same cognitive phenomena. Figure-Ground segregation as well as Profiling reflects the essence of the mechanisms of conceptualization. Profiling, in fact, is structuring of any conceptual content by principle of Figure-Ground segregation. It is axiomatic in cognitive grammar that all linguistic expressions profile something or other, and thus determine the conceptualization of any entity or event. A sentence type profiles a particular event type, a verb profiles a process, and a preposition profiles a kind of relation.

The principle of “ windowing ” of attention in the language is discovered in the fact that linguistic forms can differentially direct or withdraw attention from particular portions of a situation, conceptualized by the speaker into a particular utterance (compare the active and passive constructions).

According to cognitive linguistics the fundamental design feature of language is that it has 2 subsystems, which are the grammatical and the lexical ones. All of them share the view that the grammatical means of language (that is morphology and syntax) along with lexicon form a continuum of symbolic units and perform a concept structuring function in language. It means that when we use a particular construction we select a particular image or profile to structure the conceived situation for communicative purposes. Imagery or profiling can be examined in the following sentences, while considering the semantic contrast:

1)Bill sent a walrus to Joyce. 2)Bill sent Joyce a walrus (R.Langacker’ example).

The sentences differ in meaning because they employ subtly different images of the same situation. The semantic contrast is in the prominence of certain parts of this scene. In (a) sent. the preposition “to” brings into focus “the path” followed by the walrus, and thereby rendering this aspect of the situation as more prominent. In (b) sent. the juxtaposition of two nouns (“Joyce” and “walrus”) after the verb renders the idea of possessivity.

The difference in imagery determines the use of “to” and the “double –object construction” for certain types of situations. Consider the following examples:

1)I sent a walrus to Antarctica. – sounds OK;2)I sent the zoo a walrus. – sounds OK; but 3)I sent Antarctica a walrus. - is doubtful.

Thus, the first argument of cognitive approach, concerning syntax, sounds as follows: grammatical constructions, (according to R. Langacker), possess schematic characteristics, i. e. provide alternative imagery (conceptualizations) for the sameeventor situation.

The second argument says that the set of grammatical notions constitutes the fundamental concept structuring system of language. The grammatical forms of a sentence, and its syntactic pattern particularly, determine the structure of the conceptual material represented in the sentence, while the lexical elements specify its content. It is due to this argument that it becomes possible to distinguish different formats of representing knowledge in syntactic forms: configurational format, where linguistic knowledge prevails – the knowledge of syntactic configurations or schemas, such as transitive and intransitive constructions; actualizational format, where extra-linguistic knowledge prevails – the knowledge of event; format of mixed type, where linguistic knowledge and extra-linguistic knowledge are equally represented.

To illustrate the basic function of grammatical forms to determine the structure of the conceptual material represented in the sentence let’s consider the following sentences: He panted up to the school.The car rattled down the road.He dozed into a new cut.

The syntactic construction, containing a prepositional word-group, structures the conceived event as Motion, while the lexical semantics of the verbs “to pant”, “to rattle”, “to doze” evokes the Processual aspect of the event in the listener’s mind.

Within a cognitive approach the sentence as a unit of syntax is viewed in terms of schematization or profiling or imagery. It means, as it has been already discussed, that every grammatical construction possesses schematic characteristics, provides some particular imagery or conceptualization for the same event.

The prototypical transitive construction is built up according to a certain syntactic pattern, which is the subject + the verb-predicate + the direct object. Initially it encodes transitive events: events which involve two participants, an agent and a patient, where an agent consciously acts in such a way as to cause a change in state of a patient, and its concept- structuring pattern or scheme is agent-action-patient. When the speaker uses the transitive construction for naming a particular event or situation he profiles it as a transitive event, that is he conceptualizes this particular event in terms of a agent-action-patient schema, even if this particular event is not inherently transitive. Let’s compare pairs of sentences which describe the same situation: 1)He swam across the Channel;2)He swam the Channel (J.R. Taylor’s ex.).

Sentence (a) denotes the location of swimming. Sentence (b) presents the event as a transitive one and suggests its reading/conceptualization as follows: the Channel is a challenge to the swimmer’s power. In this respect the sentence “He swam our new swimming pool.” seems odd.

A. Wierzbicka analyses the use of two- objects- constructions, one object is a patient, the other is an addressee, e.g.: John offered Mary a rose.

Such like constructions are used to encode events, where the patient is involved into the action but doesn’t undergo any structural changes, for example destruction. It means that this type of semantic-syntactic constructions profiles the event in terms of an agent-action-addressee-patient scheme, where the action is understood as “giving to”, (and in this aspect it becomes clear, why the sentence “Kill me a spider.” is impossible).

 

Билет 5 II. Types of syntactic relation in phrases. Types of phrases.

They termed phrase as any syntactically arranged group of words. Vinogradov introduced another conception of phrase. He termed phrase as a group of notional words which are syntactically unequal that is one dominates the other, e.g.: to make notes, an interesting book. Coordinated words, e.g.: run and jump, sister and brother, were considered as a sequence of separate words in speech. Nowadays the majority of linguists accept the first broad interpretation of phrase as any syntactically arranged group of notional words.

Traditionally coordination and subordination are viewed upon as the basic types of syntactic relations. Coordination is the connection of equal and relatively independent parts, words, sentences, or sentence parts. It can be realized with or without conjunctions, i.e. syndetically and asyndetically respectively, e.g.: 1) desks and chairs (syn), 2) cars, buses, lorries (asyn), 3) The water was warm and the sun was shining (syn). As for subordination it was defined by all linguists as syntactically unequal connection of parts, words, sentences, sentence parts. M.Y. Bloch terms syntactically equal connection of words as equipotent type of syntactical relation and syntactically unequal connection as a dominational type of syntactical relation. Dominational (or subordinational) connection, as different from equipotent connection is effected in such a way that one element of the dominational or subordinational phrase is principal (dominating) and the other is subordinate (dominated). The principal element is also called “kernel” or “head word”, the subordinate element – the “adjunct” or “expansion”. Subordination (or domination) can be of two main types: bilateral (or two-way or reciprocal) and monolateral (or one-way). Two-way subordination is realized in predicative connection of words, uniting the subject and the predicate. The reciprocal nature of this connection is consists in the fact that the subject dominates the predicate, determining the person of predication, while the predicate dominates the subject, determining the event of predication, ascribing to the person of predication some action, or state, or quality. Compare the following sentences: 1)The man ran up to the house (action);2)The man smokes (quality);3)The cup has been broken by the child (action);4)The cups break easily (quality - the use of the decausative construction); 5)The car rattled down the road (action + process); One-way subordination is realized in the attributive, objective and adverbial connections. Objective connection reflects the relation of the object to the process, and subdivided into non-prepositional (actualized by word-order) and prepositional, e.g.:1) He regretted the event; 2) I forget about the event. From the semantico-syntactic point of view objective connections are classed as direct and indirect (or oblique). Direct object constructions reflect immediate transition of the action to the object. Indirect (oblique) object constructions reflect the indirect relation of the object to the process, e.g.:1) Will you give me the book (direct object)? 2) He ran up to the house. Attributive connection unites a substance with its attribute expressed by an adjective or a noun, e.g.: a nice picture, a woman of means, a man of his word. Adverbial connection can be of two types: primary and secondary. Primary connection is established between the verb and its adverbial modifiers, e.g.: to come late; to do (smth.) with enthusiasm.

Secondary adverbial connection is established between the non-verbal head word expressing a quality and its adverbial modifiers, e.g.: no longer attractive (head word), appallingly alike (head word). Subordination is expressed by means of: agreement – e.g.: these books – when the subject agrees with the head word grammatically in the categories of number, person; government – prepositional or non-prepositional – e.g. follow him, listen to him – when the head word determines the grammatical form of the adjunct; adjoining – prepositional or non-prepositional – e.g.: come up to the point, very nice – when words are connected by their meaning, word order and intonation; enclosure – e.g.: at a great reduction, must have been already done – is realized by means of functional words, which together with the head word make up a framing construction. To sum it up, classification of types of phrases can be based upon various principles:

- L.Bloomfield divides all phrases into endocentric (any element of which can substitute for the whole phrase in its function) and exocentric (neither element of which can substitute for the whole group in its function in a major group);

- M.Y. Bloch distinguishes between notional phrases, formative phrases, functional phrases;

- traditional classification is based upon the types of syntactic relations between the phrase components, distinguishing the coordinate and subordinate phrases.