Baseline and Elaboration(Langacker 2013)外文电子书.pdf

1 English Clauses I: Baseline and Elaboration Ronald W. Langacker University of California, San Diego 1. Baseline Cognitive Grammar 2. Elaborations of Cognitive Grammar 3. English Clausal Organization 1. Baseline Cognitive Grammar (1)(a) Language is shaped and constrained by the functions it serves: a semiological function (allowing conceptualizations to be symbolized) and a multifaceted interactive function (involving communication, manipulation, expressiveness, and social communion). (b) The only elements permitted are semantic structures, phonological structures , and their pairing as symbolic structures. These emerge from use , either occurring in actual expressions or arising by the schematization or categorization of permitted structures. (c) A language comprises a vast network of semantic and phonological structures connected by relationships of symbolization, categorization, and composition. An expression resides in a set of such structures constituting a symbolic assembly. (d) Lexicon and grammar form a continuum consisting solely in symbolic assemblies. Like lexicon, therefore, grammar is inherently meaningful. (2)(a) An expression focuses attention on a certain substructure within the conceptual content it invokes. This salient element—the profile —is what it designates (its conceptual referent). (b) An expression profiles either a thing or a relationship (both notions abstractly defined). Its profile determines its grammatical category . (c) A noun profiles a thing. A verb profiles a process , i.e. a relationship scanned through time. Adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and participles profile non-processual relationships . (d) Subj