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Nouns and verbs in cognitive grammar: where is the 'sound' evidence?

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Nouns and verbs in cognitive grammar: where is the 'sound' evidence? / Hollmann, Willem.
In: Cognitive Linguistics, Vol. 24, No. 2, 04.2013, p. 275-308.

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Hollmann W. Nouns and verbs in cognitive grammar: where is the 'sound' evidence? Cognitive Linguistics. 2013 Apr;24(2):275-308. Epub 2013 Apr 23. doi: 10.1515/cog-2013-0009

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Hollmann, Willem. / Nouns and verbs in cognitive grammar : where is the 'sound' evidence?. In: Cognitive Linguistics. 2013 ; Vol. 24, No. 2. pp. 275-308.

Bibtex

@article{b13f28e5a9e24a1fa92dc4b477b29898,
title = "Nouns and verbs in cognitive grammar: where is the 'sound' evidence?",
abstract = "Formalist approaches traditionally define word classes in distributional terms. By contrast, Cognitive Grammar advocates a semantic basis: nouns profile THINGS; verbs highlight PROCESSES. There is psycholinguistic support for the importance of semantics in lexical categorisation, but also for (language-particular) distributional and phonological properties. This paper focuses on phonology, whose importance is further underlined by data from language change and typology. Following a review of the psycholinguistic and historical linguistic and typological evidence, a gap in the literature is filled, i.e. an experiment involving the production of nonce nouns and verbs is conducted, providing further converging evidence for phonology. I then show how this evidence, although not currently recognised in Cognitive Grammar, can be straightforwardly accommodated as phonological sub-schemas. These sub-schemas are probably more important than the super-schemas proposed inCognitive Grammar (which may actually be non-existent, and anyway fail to yield clear predictions vis-{\`a}-vis empirical data). I conclude that in developing the model further, a higher degree of responsibility to all the available empirical data is called for.",
keywords = "Cognitive Grammar, psycholinguistics, nouns, verbs, phonology",
author = "Willem Hollmann",
year = "2013",
month = apr,
doi = "10.1515/cog-2013-0009",
language = "English",
volume = "24",
pages = "275--308",
journal = "Cognitive Linguistics",
issn = "0936-5907",
publisher = "Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG",
number = "2",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - Nouns and verbs in cognitive grammar

T2 - where is the 'sound' evidence?

AU - Hollmann, Willem

PY - 2013/4

Y1 - 2013/4

N2 - Formalist approaches traditionally define word classes in distributional terms. By contrast, Cognitive Grammar advocates a semantic basis: nouns profile THINGS; verbs highlight PROCESSES. There is psycholinguistic support for the importance of semantics in lexical categorisation, but also for (language-particular) distributional and phonological properties. This paper focuses on phonology, whose importance is further underlined by data from language change and typology. Following a review of the psycholinguistic and historical linguistic and typological evidence, a gap in the literature is filled, i.e. an experiment involving the production of nonce nouns and verbs is conducted, providing further converging evidence for phonology. I then show how this evidence, although not currently recognised in Cognitive Grammar, can be straightforwardly accommodated as phonological sub-schemas. These sub-schemas are probably more important than the super-schemas proposed inCognitive Grammar (which may actually be non-existent, and anyway fail to yield clear predictions vis-à-vis empirical data). I conclude that in developing the model further, a higher degree of responsibility to all the available empirical data is called for.

AB - Formalist approaches traditionally define word classes in distributional terms. By contrast, Cognitive Grammar advocates a semantic basis: nouns profile THINGS; verbs highlight PROCESSES. There is psycholinguistic support for the importance of semantics in lexical categorisation, but also for (language-particular) distributional and phonological properties. This paper focuses on phonology, whose importance is further underlined by data from language change and typology. Following a review of the psycholinguistic and historical linguistic and typological evidence, a gap in the literature is filled, i.e. an experiment involving the production of nonce nouns and verbs is conducted, providing further converging evidence for phonology. I then show how this evidence, although not currently recognised in Cognitive Grammar, can be straightforwardly accommodated as phonological sub-schemas. These sub-schemas are probably more important than the super-schemas proposed inCognitive Grammar (which may actually be non-existent, and anyway fail to yield clear predictions vis-à-vis empirical data). I conclude that in developing the model further, a higher degree of responsibility to all the available empirical data is called for.

KW - Cognitive Grammar

KW - psycholinguistics

KW - nouns

KW - verbs

KW - phonology

U2 - 10.1515/cog-2013-0009

DO - 10.1515/cog-2013-0009

M3 - Journal article

VL - 24

SP - 275

EP - 308

JO - Cognitive Linguistics

JF - Cognitive Linguistics

SN - 0936-5907

IS - 2

ER -