A Taxonomy of Cognitive Semantics - (Brill Research Perspectives in Humanities and Social Sciences) by Leonard Talmy (Paperback)

About the Book

This book outlines the relatively new field of cognitive semantics, whose central concern is how language structures conceptual content. Its analyses address a range from concept structuring mechanisms, through crosslinguistic contrasts of concepts, to relations across cognitive faculties.

Book Synopsis

Cognitive semantics is a relatively new field whose central concern is how language structures conceptual content. This book aims to approach the field comprehensively and outline its main contours. It both summarizes previous research and presents novel analyses. The main issues it covers range from concept structuring mechanisms, through crosslinguistic contrasts of concepts, to relations across cognitive faculties. Along the way, it examines communication systems, including gesture and signed language; diachronic change from long to short-term; differences between universal, typological, and language-specific features; ten conceptual categories represented by closed-class forms; and tropes as a form of "constructive discrepancy".

About the Author

Leonard Talmy is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Director Emeritus of the Center for Cognitive Science, University at Buffalo. He has authored the Targeting System of Language and the two-volume set Toward a Cognitive Semantics, both with MIT Press, plus numerous articles.