3.1 Form and Meaning

The form-meaning relation is the central concern of different linguistic approaches. In cognitive semantics, it is assumed that it is possible to isolate semantic elements separately within the domain of meaning and linguistic forms within the domain of form, and to study the patterns of meaning-form mapping and the cognitive mechanisms motivating the mapping, thus linking the research to a number of related areas, including typology, iconicity, grammaticalization etc. As a basis of form-meaning study, a series of metalanguage terms for meaning are proposed. Chapter 2 in Talmy (2000b) examines the systematic relations between 35 semantic elements and the verb complex. Dowty (1991) proposes the concepts of PROTO-AGENT and PROTO-PATIENT. Langacker (1978) offers an integrated account of the meaning of the English auxiliary.

3.2 Motion Event Typology

The bifurcation of languages into verb-framed languages and satellite-framed languages is one of the most influential theories in Cognitive Linguistics. This theory, also known as the two-way typology, is developed on the basis of the detailed analysis of the meaning-form mapping in the representation of the motion event. It also represents a major contribution to the study of conceptual structuring and process in the semantic domain of motion and location. Chapter 1 and chapter 3 in Talmy (2000b) represent the most original and the most comprehensive literature on the two-way typology. Beavers et al. (2010) argues that most languages employ more than one strategy to encode motion, which is supported by Ji et al. (2011). Slobin (2004) emphasizes the manner element and extends the theory to equipotently-framed languages. Talmy (2016) specifically aims to refute Slobin’s challenge based on equipollence. Croft et al. (2010) combines the two-way typology with grammaticalization. Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) proposes the term MACRO-EVENT PROPERTY (MEP), which refers to a property of constructions that assesses the event construal they convey—specifically, the ‘tightness of packaging’ of subevents in the construction, according to which languages are classified into three types. Li (2018) proposes a mechanism and motivation for typological shift in Mandarin.

3.3 Attention

Attention is a separate cognitive system proposed by Leonard Talmy. Two key terms related to attention are Figure and Ground. They are borrowed initially from cognitive psychology, now used in cognitive semantic analysis. Using the perspective of cognitive semantics, the windowing of attention is proposed to explain some event frames. Language can place a portion of a coherent referent situation into the foreground of attention by the explicit mention of that portion, while placing the remainder of that situation into the background of attention by omitting mention of it. A comprehensive version of Figure and Ground can be found in Talmy (2000d), which is substantially revised from the original first version of Talmy (1975). Talmy (2007) represents the most comprehensive and original contribution to the relationship between linguistic factors and the strength of attention. A systematic discussion on windowing of attention can be found in Talmy (2000c). De Vega et al. (2007) discusses how to locate Figure and Ground in the temporal domain. Khalil (2005) distinguishes Figure-Ground and foregrounding-backgrounding on the textual level. Included in this larger framework of attention are Figure and Ground, windowing of attention, perspective, construal, etc. The cognitive system of attention is studied from different perspectives and levels.

3.4 Force and Causation

Following the philosophical foundation of Cognitive Linguistics holding that conceptual structure is intrinsically embodied, Talmy explores how the forces in the physical world are reflected in the conceptual structuring system and proposes the theory of force dynamics. Included in the theory is the exertion of force, resistance to such a force, the overcoming of such a resistance, blockage of the expression of force, removal of such blockage, and the like. Force dynamics is studied as a previously neglected semantic domain. It can be found in a range of linguistic domains, modal verbs, aspectual systems, sentence patterns. It is specifically related to causation and causative since it is a generalization over the traditional linguistic notion of causative. Talmy (1988) represents the very early seminal work on force dynamics. De Mulder (2007) provides a comprehensive review on this topic. Wolff (2017) extends force dynamics in explaining a series of causal phenomena. Wolff (2003) concerns direct causation and event individuation in a causal chain. Beebee et al. (2009) represents an important collection on causation. Shipley and Zacks (2008) represents an important handbook on understanding events from a psychological perspective. Koons (2000) is a philosophical work on causation, proposed from the teleological perspective. Copley and Martin (2014) intends to provide a unified account of causation from a psychological, philosophical and linguistic perspective.

3.5 Macro-event

The macro-event is a term proposed by Talmy in his two-way typology, that is, verb-framed languages and satellite-framed languages. It is an offspring of the motion typology, and has recently attracted much attention, establishing itself as a new area of research. Issues of interest concerned are semantic and syntactic features of macro-events, diachronic path of macro-events, and typology of macro-events. Li (2020) proposes the macro-event hypothesis, which claims that language can often represent a complex situation either more analytically in a set of simpler events, or more synthetically as a single integrated complex event, termed a “macro-event.” Diachronically, a language might then progressively change its representation of a privileged relation from having solely a highly analytic one to also having a highly synthetic one. On this basis, languages may fall into two major categories: macro-event languages and non-macro-event languages, which then might be further divided into four distinctive types, respectively: steady state macro-event languages versus conflated macro-event languages, and steady state non-macro-event languages versus deconflated non-macro-event languages. Li (2019) studies the diachronic order of 5 types of macro-events, which paved the way for the proposal of the macro-event hypothesis in Li (2020). Goldberg and Jackendoff (2004) may be taken as research on the semantics of subevents as motivating the overall syntactic structure of macro-event. Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2001) offers an alternative approach to the event structure-to-syntax mapping. Aikhenvald (1999) studies the serial verb constructions (SVC s) and verb compounding in Tariana, a North Arawak language from northwest Amazonia. Altakhaineh and Zibin (2018) distinguishes serial verb constructions and V + V compounds.

3.6 Space and Time

Both space and time are basic domains in concept structuring. Cognitive semantics concerns the organizing functions in concept structuring using space and time, and the relationship between the two. In cognitive semantics, much attention has been given to image schemas, the recurring abstract patterns acquired from constant bodily interaction with the world. Image schemas are used to structure more abstract semantic domains. Chapter 3 in Talmy (2000a) analyzes the ways that language structures space. Mandler published a series of articles on image schemas, the most prominent being Mandler (2010) and Mandler and Canovas (2014). Evans (2013) argues about the ways in which how temporal reference is based on space. Levinson (2003) explores the relation between language and spatial cognition.

3.7 Closed-Class Semantics

Linguistic forms are traditionally classified into two classes, open-class and closed-class. A class of morphemes is considered open if it is quite large in number and readily augmentable. Open-class forms mainly include the roots of verbs, of nouns, and of adjectives. Otherwise, a class is considered closed if it is relatively small and fixed in membership. The inflections added to the roots of verbs, nouns and adjectives are closed-class forms, such as the plural form marker “s”, past tense marker “-ed”, and adverbial “-ly”. Closed-class semantics (CCS) can also be called the semantics of grammar. In cognitive semantics, CCS concerns the cognitive basis of the general features of closed-class forms, that is, the overall shape and motivation of closed class. Chapter 1 in Talmy (2000a) discusses some important issues in CCS, including the constraint on grammatical meaning, some characteristics including neutralities, and the idea of a universally available inventory. Research in this area can also be related to some topics in grammaticalization, a path linking the open-class forms to the closed-class ones. Bradley and Garrett (1983) explores the hemisphere difference in recognizing closed and open class, which might lend support to the idea that open-class forms are responsible for conceptual contents, and closed-class forms are responsible for conceptual structure. Haspelmath (1997) discusses the conceptual transfer between space and time, and the universal differences in expressing the basic domains of space and time. Biassou et al. (1997) conducted an experiment on the processing of open-class and closed-class words in dual coding theory.

3.8 Cognitive Mechanisms

Broadly speaking, metaphor, metonymy, and analogy, are widely recognized as cognitive mechanisms. The amount of literature on metaphor and metonymy is large, but research on cognitive mechanism per se is rare. In Talmyan cognitive semantics, some cognitive mechanisms are mentioned, including conceptual splicing, cognitive operations, cognitive processing, etc., but not dealt with in any depth. Grady (2000) discusses the cognitive mechanism that motivates conceptual integration. Ruiz de Mendoza and Galera (2014) extends the idea that idealized cognitive models result from structuring principles working on conceptual material. Chen (2003) examines a cognitive mechanism of incommensurability. Patel (2017) uses music to explore language relevant cognitive mechanism. Xu and Li (2011) explores the common cognitive mechanisms behind abduction and metaphor.

3.9 Diachronic Cognitive Semantics

Diachronic cognitive semantics (DCS) concerns patterns and regularities in semantic change, and how they are motivated by cognitive mechanisms. Du et al. (2020) explores the conceptual boundary shift among break, cut, and open in Mandarin. Geeraerts (1997) studies the relation between prototype and cognitive semantics from a diachronic perspective. Traugott and Dasher (2001) reports recent developments in cross-linguistic research on historical semantics and pragmatics, with special reference to the histories of English and Japanese. Croft (2000) presents a framework for understanding language change as a fundamentally evolutionary phenomenon.

3.10 Neurocognitive Semantics

Cognitive Linguistics has emphasized the study of the neural cognitive basis of language from the very beginning of the enterprise. That is, what the “Cognitive” means in the name of “Cognitive Linguistics”. Lakoff (1990) claims that Cognitive Linguistics is defined by two primary commitments, the Generalization Commitment and the Cognitive Commitment. To study the mechanisms, psychological realities, and most importantly, the neurocognitive basis of language has become a trend in Cognitive Linguistics. Conceptual metaphor theory has become very popular since early 1980s. Recently, this theory has been put under experimental test in psychology, such as Katz and Reid (2020). Gallese and Lakoff (2005) proposes a neural theory of concepts.

3.11 Cognitive Systems

In cognitive semantics, language itself is treated as a cognitive system which parallels other cognitive systems, including attention, perception, motor control, affect, forward simulation, inferencing, culture and so on. Talmy (2015) elucidates the organizing factors of these systems and proposes the overlapping systems model. The cognitive system of language itself consists of several sub-systems, termed schematic systems, including the following five: the schematic system of configurational structure, the schematic system of attention, the schematic system of force dynamics, the schematic system of perspective, and the schematic system of cognitive state. Chapter 1 in Talmy (2000a) has a detailed account of the first four types of schematic systems. Reboul (2015) argues from an evolutionary perspective that language is a cognitive system. Rupert (2019) presents a theory of individuation of cognitive systems.

3.12 Universals of Semantics

A semantic universal is any aspect of meaning that is represented in all languages. Talmy (2011) outlines three basic parameters of a universal, including the level of a universal, the weighting of a universal, and the subject of a universal. Semantic universality concerns basically the closed-class forms, that is, the grammatical forms. The natural semantic metalanguage (NSM), developed by Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard, represents another approach to universalist semantics. The NSM theory posits that a specific small set of fundamental concepts, terms semantic primes, exists in all languages. These semantic primes can represent the basic semantic content of that particular language. Wierzbicka (1996) represents the original and comprehensive account of the NSM theory, though not the earliest one. Goddard (2001) intends to justify the conclusions about some 100 semantic primes proposed by Wierzbicka (1996). The four-volume set by Greenberg (1978) represents the most comprehensive and possibly also the most authoritative work on language universals, even today.

The above are considered to be the core areas of cognitive semantics. Section 4 provides an overview of what is included in this handbook.

4.1 Part I: Conceptual Semantics

The following fundamental cognitive semantic theories are characterized: NSM, Frame Semantics, Conceptual Semantics, and Simulation Semantics.

Chapter 3 (by Cliff Goddard, Anna Wierzbicka, and Zhengdao Ye) introduces the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach. NSM represents a widely accepted cognitive approach to meaning which uses a metalanguage of simple, cross-translatable words and grammar. This chapter illustrates the theory and practice, including concepts such as semantic primes, semantic molecules, and semantic templates.

As Goddard, Wierzbicka, and Ye described in this chapter:

From a theory point of view, the most distinctive feature of the NSM approach is its insistence on the crucial importance of metalanguage, a consideration largely neglected by other approaches to cognitive semantics. From a practice point of view, its most distinctive features are its use of paraphrase as a technique for modelling meanings and concepts, and its “words-first” focus, including words-in-combination and words-in-construction.

Chapter 4 (by Esraʾ M. Abdelzaher) presents an overview of Frame Semantics, the most important theoretical contribution made by Charles Fillmore, one of the earliest founding figures in Cognitive Linguistics. Frame semantics represents a new stage that Fillmore achieved after years of working on Case Grammar, a much-elaborated version of Case Grammar. The basic claim that the existence of a lexical item entails its correspondence to a frame led to the emergence of many conceptions in cognitive semantics. It can also be taken as a prelude to construction grammar.

Chapter 5 (by Ronald W. Langacker) describes a conceptual semantic model on which Langacker based his cognitive grammar. In this model, construal is given an essentially important position. Construal is our ability to conceive and portray the same situation in different ways, including three broad classes: specificity, prominence, and perspective.

Chapter 6 (by Daniel Casasanto) presents a model of Embodied Semantics. This model’s basic claims are that part of a word’s meaning is a simulation of its referent, implemented in neural and cognitive systems that support perception, action, and emotion. The basic concepts of embodied meaning and simulation are characterized. Some empirical tests are introduced.

Chapter 7 (by Nian Liu) discusses more details of the Simulation Semantics hypothesis and highlights results from behavioral and neuroimaging studies to show that people create mental simulations in response to language.

Simulation Semantics is another term for Embodied Semantics. Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 are complementary to each other.

4.2 Part II: Basic Issues

Some basic issues are characterized, including the demarcation between semantics and pragmatics, the continuum of encyclopedic knowledge and linguistic meaning, meaning and intersubjectivity.

Chapter 8 (by Mira Ariel) compares the Gricean proposal for a semantics/pragmatics division of labor and for a Usage-Based approach. It applies the two approaches in analyzing the scalar and, and or, and has demonstrated the advantages of the Usage-Based approach.

Chapter 9 (by Patrick Duffley) surveys various issues pertaining to the cognitive linguistic view that there is no distinction between linguistic and extralinguistic knowledge, that is, there is no distinct boundary between a word’s meaning and world knowledge.

Chapter 10 (by Magdalena Rybarczyk and Michael Stevens Pérez) attempts to incorporate intersubjectivity with meaning, aiming to bring recognition to the broader implications of the findings toward an account of embodied intersubjectivity and a methodology for studying it.

Chapter 11 (by Peter Harder) explicates how cognitive semantics has made important contributions to the understanding of political communication. It explains the role of so-called ‘identity politics’. It is argued that identity politics calls for an analysis that takes into account not only the conceptual (or ideological) models that people identify with, but also addresses the relationship between those models and their grounding in social reality.

4.3 Part III: Essential Concepts

This part contains four chapters on some essentially important concepts in cognitive semantics, including Figure-Ground, Figure-Ground in temporal reference, the closed class and the open class, and conceptualization.

Chapter 12 (by Rong Chen) discusses Figure-Ground, one of the most important theoretical constructs in the study of cognitive semantics.

Chapter 13 (by Kevin Ezra Moore) is devoted to temporal Figure-Ground relationships, an extension of chapter 12.

Chapter 14 (by Ye Yuan) characterizes a universal bifurcation across natural languages, the open class and the closed class.

Chapter 15 (by Baoyi Niu) surveys varied aspects of conceptualization, which is equated with meaning in cognitive semantics.

4.4 Part IV: Semantic Categories

In part IV, we include three chapters on ideophones, degree modifiers, and possession.

Chapter 16 (by Thomas Van Hoey) studies the semantics of ideophones, also known as mimetics or expressives. Ideophones are defined as marked words that depict sensory imagery and belong to an open lexical class.

Chapter 17 (by Tuomas Huumo) surveys research on degree modifiers—words that modify other words, such as adjectives or adverbs, by specifying their scalar meanings—in relation with Figure and Ground, with specific examples from English and Finnish.

Chapter 18 (by Ricardo Maldonado) is on possession, a complex category involving an ample set of meanings and syntactic constructions.

4.5 Part V: Methodology

Part V contains four chapters on methodology, including data collection methods, quantitative methods, and person-oriented methods.

Chapter 19 (by Jürgen Bohnemeyer) surveys data collection methods for the study of linguistic meaning, that is, empirical approaches to semantic research, i.e., approaches that do not rely on the researcher’s first (or “native”) language speaker intuitions.

Chapter 20 (by Sally Rice) “addresses the application of cognitive semantic insights that put meaning and use front and center for linguists aiming for more veridical, situated, and intuitively comprehensible samples and analyses of language patterning in service of those on the front lines in endangered language communities working to support speakers and learners”.

Chapter 21 (by Stefan Th. Gries) is on a range of quantitative methods, including frequencies/probabilities, association measures, hypothesis-testing methods, hypothesis-generating methods, and recent developments involving distributional semantics and deep learning.

Chapter 22 (by John Newman) introduces a ‘person-oriented’ approach to the study of language that focuses attention on the language use of the individual and the role that an individual’s personal experience plays in influencing their language use.

4.6 Part VI: Models and Schemas

Part VI contains three chapters on the most important theoretical models: image schema, theory of prototype, and theory of cognitive domain.

Chapter 23 (by Aleksander Szwedek) defines image schema as “a mental structure with at least one OBJECT image schema conceptually independent and grounded in physical experience”. This definition reveals a cognitive chain from perception through image schemas and their thematic roles to syntactic structures.

Chapter 24 (by Dirk Geeraerts) describes the psycholinguistic origins of prototype theory and illustrates prototype effects.

Chapter 25 (by Zeki Hamawand) reviews the theory of cognitive domains, which structure conceptually related items in the mind.

4.7 Part VII: Space and Time

Space and time are inseparable. Each exists as a pre-condition of the other.

What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know; but, if I want to explain it to a questioner, I do not know. Yet, I say with confidence that I know that, if nothing passed away, there would be no past time; if nothing were coming, there would be no future time; and if nothing were existing, there would be no present time (Augustine, 1953).

Chapter 26 (by Thora Tenbrink) addresses the conceptual frames of reference that are used to locate objects in space or events in time.

Chapter 27 (by Barbara Tversky) reviews literature of gesture and graphics in representing meaning.

Chapter 28 (by Yiting Chen) surveys the motivations behind various linguistic properties in complex words, based on the quasi-spatiotemporal relationship in baseline/elaboration (B/E) organization. According to this theory, word formation can be viewed as an elaboration that operates on a baseline.

Chapter 29 (by Wei-lun Lu) explores the issue of vertical viewpointing constructions in language, and presents an innovative method that helps identify the correspondence and stability of viewpoint representation across languages.

4.8 Part VIII: Event Typology

Event typology represents one of the hot areas in cognitive semantics.

Chapter 30 (by Fuyin Thomas Li) enumerates some major criticisms of the two-way typology, and provides some justifications and rebuttals, at the same time proposing the macro-event hypothesis that language can often represent a complex situation either more analytically in a set of simpler events, or more synthetically as a single integrated complex event, termed a “macro-event”.

Chapter 31 (by Liulin Zhang) analyzes the nature of verbal transitivity, which is posited as residing solely in the likelihood of verbal semantics to relate two or more distinct thematic roles. Semantically complex verbs, involving multiple event structures that can be profiled in diverse ways, tend to be somewhere between prototypical transitive and prototypical intransitive verbs.

4.9 Part IX: Meaning Construction

Part IX contains eight chapters on various aspects of meaning construction, including human scale meaning, metaphor and metonymy in speech acts, fictive motion and cognitive models, conceptual metaphor, lexico-encyclopedic conceptual metaphor, analogy, meaning construction across languages, and metaphoric gesture.

Chapter 32 (by Mark Turner) reviews “the ways in which both meaning and communication systems that would otherwise be intractable become tractable through varieties of compression in conceptual integration networks that achieve human-scale blends.”

Chapter 33 (by Klaus-Uwe Panther) “presents evidence for the thesis that figures of thought and language play an important role in the interpretation of speech acts.”

Chapter 34 (by Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez) “first provides an overview of traditional work on the Talmyan notion of fictive motion, including experimental research by Matlock and her associates, which it then places within the purview of a broader theory of cognition grounded in recent developments of the Lakoffian notion of the cognitive model.”

Chapter 35 (by Javier Valenzuela and Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano) reviews conceptual metaphor theory, a theory which has a profound influence in Cognitive Linguistics. “The postulates of CMT have had an enormous repercussion and have been examined from very diverse disciplines within cognitive science, including linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, psycholinguistics, neuroscience and artificial intelligence, among others.”

Chapter 36 (by Marlene Johansson Falck) presents lexico-encyclopedic conceptual metaphors, which can be taken as the latest extension of Conceptual Metaphor Theory.

Chapter 37 (by Aleksander Gomola) demonstrates the significance of analogy in cognitive semantics and shows how it manifests itself in many linguistic phenomena.

Chapter 38 (by Mikołaj Deckert) aims “to show how cognitive constructs have been employed to talk about translation choices, with the underlying argument that the toolkit of Cognitive Linguistics offers much potential to scholars who wish to systematically and precisely examine translation phenomena in a range of language use contexts including literature and film.”

Chapter 39 (by Yuan Gao and Juan Wang) “probes into the fundamental issues of metaphoric gestures from diverse perspectives.”

4.10 Part X: Force and Causation

Part X contains two chapters on force and causation.

Chapter 40 (by Zoltán Kövecses) outlines an account of the relationship between Talmy’s force dynamics and conceptual metaphor theory and puts together Talmy’s force dynamics with conceptual metaphor theory in a coherent framework of ideas.

Chapter 41 (by Corrine Occhino) discusses the history of research on iconicity and force in signed language linguistics. It explains the importance of image schematic and force dynamic structures in the grammar of American Sign Language (ASL). It shows how force is systematically encoded in motivated meaning-form mappings in ASL.

4.11 Part XI: Attention

Chapter 42 (by Konrad Szczesniak) “looks at the role of attention in memorizing new sensory information, especially in what pertains to language learning. In keeping with cognitive linguistic usage-based models of language learning, it is assumed that the acquisition of language relies heavily on input, whose elements must be memorized.”

Chapter 43 (by Giorgio Marchetti) presents a model of the cognitive architecture necessary to produce conscious experience (CE). The main cognitive systems of the model are attention and the self, which feeds, guides and modulates attention.

4.12 Part XII: The Targeting System of Language

The last three chapters contained in Part XII do not conform to the format of standard handbook chapters, typically review articles. The book The Targeting System of Language (Talmy, 2018a) was only recently published. In this part, we present only Talmy’s theory and two applications.

Chapter 44 (by Leonard Talmy) proposes that a single cognitive system underlies the two domains of linguistic reference traditionally termed anaphora and deixis.

Chapter 45 (by Martina Lampert) probes into an extension of Talmy’s Targeting System to quoting, and scrutinizes the model’s two routes of targeting: algorithmic parsing versus trigger-to-cue-to-target processing.

Chapter 46 (by Günther Lampert) extends the range of targeting to explain evidentiality, sense activation, and discourse deixis.

5.1 Talmy’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Semantics

In chapter 1 of this handbook, Talmy provides a comprehensive and all-inclusive taxonomy of cognitive semantics in ten major categories. Here in this section, I intend to show how these 44 chapters (except chapter 1 and 2) are situated in the taxonomy. Some research gaps are revealed.

5.2 Other Topics in Cognitive Semantics

The central concern in cognitive semantics will be characterized through the chapters in the handbook. Meanwhile we stick to the definition that cognitive semantics is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of meaning and mind. This definition is consistent with the editorial claim made in the inner cover page of Cognitive Semantics, a journal devoted to the enterprise. We hold the position that the Cognitive Linguistics approach to meaning is complementary with the approach taken by Generative Grammar (GG). The two approaches are not opposed to each other.