Linguistic Categorization

This book provides a readable and clearly articulated introduction to an important area in the broader field of Cognitive Linguistics. Taking as its starting point the categorization of colour it explores the far reaching implications of Eleanor Rosch's seminal work on prototype categorization extending it's application of prototype theory from lexical semantics to the study of morphology, syntax, and phonology. First published in 1989 the third edition of this populat text has been fully revised and updated to include recent developments in Cognitive Linguistics. It introduces basic issues in the study of word meaning, and demonstrates the viability of the prototype approach to the study of phonology, syntax and acquistion. The new edition expands the treatment of polysemy, meaning relatedness, idioms and grammatical constructions The book presupposes no prior knowledge of linguistics and will therefore be particulary suited to undergraduate courses.

This book provides a readable and clearly articulated introduction to the field of Cognitive Linguistics. It explores the far-reaching implications of Eleanor Rosch's seminal work on categorization and prototype theory, extending the application of prototype theory from lexical semantics to morphology, syntax, and phonology. The third edition is fully revised and updated to include the considerable developments in Cognitive Linguistics since 1987. It covers recent research on polysemy, meaning relatedness and metaphors, as well as expanding the discussion of syntactic categories and the relevance of computer simulations.

This text provides a readable introduction to the field of cognitive linguistics. It explores the far-reaching implications of Eleanor Rosch's seminal work on categorization and prototype theory, extending the application of prototype theory from lexical semantics to morphology, syntax, and phonology.

This volume contains a selection of the papers presented at the 16th International Symposium at the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee. Two central question were addressed: What is the nature of the categories that underlie the structure of human language? What is the nature of extralinguistic categories that are reflected in language? These questions are addressed from the perspective of a variety of disciplines, using many different methodologies and focusing on many different aspects of language including morphology, syntax, semantics, phonology and discourse. The volume is divided into 3 sections: prototype effects in language, categorization processes, and cross-linguistic categorization.

Few issues in the history of the language sciences have been an object of as much discussion and controversy as linguistic categories. The eleven articles included in this volume tackle the issue of categories from a wide range of perspectives and with different foci, in the context of the current debate on the nature and methodology of the research on comparative concepts – particularly, the relation between the categories needed to describe languages and those needed to compare languages. While the first six papers deal with general theoretical questions, the following five confront specific issues in the domain of language analysis arising from the application of categories. The volume will appeal to a very broad readership: advanced students and scholars in any field of linguistics, but also specialists in the philosophy of language, and scholars interested in the cognitive aspects of language from different subfields (neurolinguistics, cognitive sciences, psycholinguistics, anthropology).

This book addresses the topic of linguistic categorization from a novel perspective. While most of the early research has focused on how linguistic systems reflect some pre-existing ways of categorizing experience, the contributions included in this volume seek to understand how linguistic resources of various nature (prosodic cues, affixes, constructions, discourse markers, ...) can be ‘put to work’ in order to actively build categories in discourse and in interaction, to achieve social goals. This question is addressed in different ways by researchers from different subfields of linguistics, including psycholinguistics, conversation analysis, linguistic typology and discourse pragmatics, and a major point of innovation is represented in fact by the interdisciplinary nature of the volume and in the systematic search for converging evidence.

This is the first accessible introduction to the "cognitive paradigm" in linguistics. Constrasting cognitive linguistics with the assumptions of Chomskyan linguistics, and drawing examples mainly from English, the book explores the potential of the study of word meaning, syntax, and phonology.

This volume represents a unique collection of chapters on the way in which color is categorized and named in a number of languages. Although color research has been a topic of focus for researchers for decades, the contributions here show that many aspects of color language and categorization are as yet unexplored, and that current theories and methodologies which investigate color language are still evolving. Some core questions addressed here include: How is color conceptualized through language? What kind of linguistic tools do languages use to describe color? Which factors tend to bias color language? What methodologies could be used to understand human color categorization and language better? How do color vocabularies evolve? How does context impact the color cognition? The chapters collected here adopt different theoretical and methodological approaches in describing new empirical research on how the concept of color is represented in a variety of different languages. Researchers in linguistics, psychology, and cognitive science present a set of new explorations and challenges in the area of color language. The book promotes several methodological and disciplinary dimensions to color studies. The color category is given an in-depth and broad-based examination, so a reader interested in color conceptualization for itself will be able to form a solid vision of the subject.