{"id":1638,"date":"2011-07-01T10:00:51","date_gmt":"2011-07-01T08:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=1638"},"modified":"2011-06-28T09:34:14","modified_gmt":"2011-06-28T07:34:14","slug":"investigations-in-cognitive-grammar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=1638","title":{"rendered":"Investigations in cognitive grammar"},"content":{"rendered":"
Investigations in cognitive grammar<\/strong>. By Ronald W. Langacker<\/strong>. (Mouton select.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2010. Pp. xiv, 396. ISBN 9783110214352<\/a>. $39.95.<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Adam G\u0142az<\/strong><\/a>, Maria Curie-Sk\u0142odowska University, Lublin, Poland<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the third volume on cognitive grammar by Ronald W. Langacker, the previous two having appeared in 1990 and 1999, consisting of articles either published or submitted for publication in various sources. (A notable exception in the present case is Ch. 8, written especially for the collection.) It is also L\u2019s second book-length publication within the span of two years, following Cognitive grammar: A basic introduction<\/em> (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).<\/p>\n

The need for such works is hardly surprising, as cognitive grammar has been widely recognized and practiced throughout the globe since its beginnings in the early 1980\u2019s. Coherent collections of articles by L are welcome to both practitioners and critics of the theory, if only to permit easier access to otherwise scattered pieces. The coherence of the present volume is achieved through slightly re-editing the individual contributions, omitting redundancies, and providing a single reference section, but above all through the treatment of \u2018a number of overlapping topics\u2019 viewed \u2018from different perspectives and in relation to one another\u2019 (v).<\/p>\n

The volume includes: Ch. 1 \u2018Constructions in cognitive grammar\u2019 (1\u201339), Ch. 2 \u2018Metonymy in grammar\u2019 (40\u201359), Ch. 3 \u2018A constructional approach to grammaticization\u2019 (60\u201380), Ch. 4 \u2018Possession, location, and existence\u2019 (81\u2013108), Ch. 5 \u2018On the subject of impersonals\u2019 (109\u201347), Ch. 6 \u2018Enunciating the parallelism of nominal and clausal grounding\u2019 (148\u201384), Ch. 7 \u2018The English present: Temporal coincidence vs. epistemic immediacy\u2019 (185\u2013218), Ch. 8 \u2018A functional account of the English auxiliary\u2019 (219\u201358), Ch. 9 \u2018Aspects of the grammar of finite clauses\u2019 (259\u201389), \u00a0Ch. 10 \u2018Finite complements in English\u2019 (290\u2013326), Ch. 11 \u2018Subordination in cognitive grammar\u2019 (327\u201340), and Ch. 12 \u2018The conceptual basis of coordination\u2019 (341\u201374). A recurrent motif applicable to several of these topics is that of \u2018control\u2019 or the \u2018control cycle\u2019, discussed in Chs. 5, \u00a06, 7, 9, and 10.<\/p>\n

The volume is a treat for cognitive grammar advocates. It presents in a succinct yet profound manner the theory\u2019s present-day state of the art and sketches possible future developments. In doing so, it may be viewed as a continuation of the 2008 volume. If that volume systematically introduces L\u2019s model to a new generation of linguists, then this collection builds upon it and traces a selection of topics in greater depth. Cognitive grammar continues to be one of the most fully developed models of language, if not the most fully developed, within the realm of cognitive linguistics. With the appearance of the present volume, one cannot help but be impressed by the model\u2019s solid foundations, which remain basically unchanged since the launch of the project, and by its proven ability to account for ever new aspects of language use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Investigations in cognitive grammar. By Ronald W. Langacker. (Mouton select.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2010. Pp. xiv, 396. ISBN 9783110214352. $39.95. Reviewed by Adam G\u0142az, Maria Curie-Sk\u0142odowska University, Lublin, Poland This is the third volume on cognitive grammar by Ronald W. Langacker, the previous two having appeared in 1990 and 1999, consisting of articles either […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1639,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions\/1639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}