[{"_1":2,"_46":-5,"_47":-5},"loaderData",{"_3":4,"_14":15,"_44":-5,"_45":-5},"root",{"_5":-5,"_6":-5,"_7":-5,"_8":9,"_10":11},"user","shoppingCartId","toast","locale","en","constants",{"_12":13},"paypalClientId","AenrHU49peF-ZUH-Yq7AXLLNZYGUGlml474U16NCjB4ZznmQCEjiliN3whyuVZmkb7VxEzmTALgtKEKE","routes/_store+/_readers+/email_author.$slug/route",{"_16":17,"_43":-5},"book",{"_18":19,"_20":21,"_22":23,"_24":25,"_26":27,"_28":29},"id","Z2lkOi8vbGVhbnB1Yi9TdG9yZTo6Qm9va1Byb2R1Y3QvMjU4MzE","title","Language and its Structures: Chapters 1-4","state","published","contactAuthorMethod","email","aboutText","

This book examines linguistic structures from the perspective of Cognitive Grammar.

The first chapter provides a general perspective: language structures are entrenched patterns of behavior (i.e. habits) that allow humans to communicate. Those patterns overlap massively and sanction (i.e. legitimize) the more specific structures that actually get spoken (or written or otherwise used for communication). This only works because patterns so closely similar as to be effectively the same have been established by usage in the minds of those we communicate with. Very little in a language had to be that way (and so language is not predictable), but very often it makes sense for it to be that way (it is reasonable, motivated, non-arbitrary).

The following chapters describe basic cognitive relations such as association, the use of reference points, subjective vs. objective conceptualization, conceptualization that is engaged with the real world vs. what is virtual or fictive, mental spaces (Ch. 2) and especially similarity relations and the categorial structures that are built on them (Ch. 3).

Chapter 4 gives a general panorama of semantic (meaning) structures from this perspective.

Most of the examples in the book come from English, Spanish, or Nahuatl. The appendices (published separately) include an extensive glossary of technical terms used in the book.

The text of these four chapters covers over 150 8½ x 11 pages and contains dozens of diagrams.

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