Baseline and elaboration

Langacker, Ronald W.

doi:10.1515/cog-2015-0126

Cited by 22 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 25 publications

(25 reference statements)

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“…Schematicity is not an all or none affair; it is a matter of degree, and the path involves attenuation. If pointing to a physical object in a location is the conceptual baseline, there are various ways in which this baseline can be elaborated (Langacker, 2016a(Langacker, , 2019. One elaboration involves the temporal stability of the object and its location.…”

Section: The Continuum Of Placesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Conceptualization of Space: Places in Signed Language Discourse

Wilcox

Martínez

2020

Front. Psychol.

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We examine the conceptualization of space in signed language discourse within the theory of cognitive grammar. Adopting a Places view, we define Place as a symbolic structure that associates a schematic semantic pole and a schematic phonological pole. Places acquire full contextual meaning and a specific spatial location in the context of a usage event. In the present article, we analyze the referential function of Places in different grammatical constructions throughout a selection of videos produced by deaf Argentine Sign Language signers. Our analysis examines Places, which are associated with entities in the surrounding spatial environment as well as Places that are created or recruited in discourse without reference to surrounding physical entities. We observe that Places are used in pointing, placing, and other grammatical constructions in order to introduce and track referents in ongoing discourse. We also examine the use of conceptual reference points, by which Places afford mental access to new related concepts that are the intended focus of attention. These results allow us to discuss three related issues. First, for signed language discourse, space is both semantically and phonologically loaded. Signers’ semantic and phonological choices for Place symbolic structures are motivated by embodied experience and the abstraction of usage events. Second, Places occur along a continuum from deixis to anaphor, united by the same conceptual system and differing in extent of phonological subjectification. Third, we suggest developmental implications of our Place analysis.

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Section: The Continuum Of Placesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Conceptualization of Space: Places in Signed Language Discourse

Wilcox

Martínez

2020

Front. Psychol.

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“…Baseline and elaboration is the latest theoretical development of CG. The notions baseline and elaboration pertain to asymmetries observable in any facet of language structure or its conceptual and phonological basis [23]. B/E organization is utterly ubiquitous in the broadest sense.…”

Section: (Subject) Verb Direct Object Verb Adverbial Elementmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Cognitive Linguistic Study of Verb-copying Sentences in Mandarin Chinese

Xu¹

2020

ASSRJ

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This study concerns the verb-copying structure “S+V+Object+V+Resultative” in Chinese from the perspective of cognitive grammar. It views the construction as composited from component structure “S+V+Object” and “V+Resultative” and reveals the compositional path and mental representation of this construction. The results indicate that component SVO elaborates the schematic trajector of V in Component VR. This conceptual correspondence lays the foundation for the integration of component SVO and VR, which constitutes the internal motivation of SVOVR construction. Component SVO serves as the cognitive reference point for the conceptualization. The elements in the dominion of action that SVO designates are extracted as conceptualization target. SVOVR construction is organized in the pattern of Baseline and Elaboration. In local terms, each stratum provides the potential for the next and the conceptualization result - the linear structure - is completed in a cumulative fashion. In global terms, component SVO and VR serve as dual baseline whose mutual elaboration yields a composite structure of greater complexity. SVOVR construction imposes some restrictions on the repeated verb. The verb needs to designate the actions that can be repeated and continued. Structure One cannot have any tense or the aspect markers. SVOVR construction does not stand in isolation from other units in linguistic system; it is categorized by the conventionalized SVO structure and predicate-complement VR structure in Chinese language system, which is the external motivation for this construction.

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“…Since it conveys the absence of some entity, it can only be apprehended in relation to a conception where it is present (which serves to indicate what is missing). Negation can thus be thought of as an operation which evokes one conception as the basis for arriving at another by suppressing one of its elements (Langacker 2016). Negation is thus a case of B/E organization (suppression being one kind of elaboration).…”

Section: Dynamic Characterizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I will be examining two fundamental aspects of conceptual and linguistic structure in relation to one another: a general feature of cognition I refer to as B/E organization (Langacker 2016); and a cognitive model representing our conception of reality. Together they allow a cogent description of central features of English clause structure.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Levels of Reality

Langacker

2019

Languages

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Two fundamental aspects of conceptual and linguistic structure are examined in relation to one another: organization into strata, each a baseline giving rise to the next by elaboration; and the conceptions of reality implicated at successive levels of English clause structure. A clause profiles an occurrence (event or state) and grounds it by assessing its epistemic status (location vis-à-vis reality). Three levels are distinguished in which different notions of reality correlate with particular structural features. In baseline clauses, grounded by "tense," the profiled occurrence belongs to baseline reality (the established history of occurrences). Basic clauses incorporate perspective (passive, progressive, and perfect), and since grounding includes the grammaticized modals, as well as negation, basic reality is more elaborate. A basic clause expresses a proposition, comprising the grounded structure and the epistemic status specified by basic grounding. At higher strata, propositions are themselves subject to epistemic assessment, in which conceptualizers negotiate their validity; propositions accepted as valid constitute propositional reality. Propositions are assessed through interactive grounding, in the form of questioning and polarity focusing, and by complementation, in which the matrix clause indicates the status of the complement.Languages 2019, 4, 22 2 of 20 ways conceivable. There has been a certain course of events, whereby certain events and situations have occurred, while countless others have not. Reality (R) is the history of occurrences, up through the present moment. This history cannot be changed; what has happened has happened. Reality is thus the established course of events. Future events are excluded from reality (so defined) because they have not yet occurred and thus have not been either established or fully determined. Moreover, our knowledge of reality is only partial and imperfect. Each of us has our own "take" on it, our own reality conception (RC). For a given conceptualizer (C), RC comprises what C accepts as real-i.e., as having occurred, or having been realized. This conception is always incomplete, and C is bound to be mistaken in many respects. But rightly or wrongly, RC is what C knows."Specific linguistic properties motivate the assignment of clauses to three main strata involving different levels of reality: baseline clauses and reality (e.g., Alice resembles her mother, Sam broke a cup); basic clauses and reality (she may have been followed, he didn't graduate on time); interactive clauses and propositional reality (he did graduate, have they left?). These will be considered in turn. Baseline LevelThe description is based on Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 2008), which holds that grammar is inherently meaningful, residing in assemblies of symbolic structures (form-meaning pairings). For basic universal categories, like noun and verb, the framework posits both a schematic meaning, valid for all members, and a prototype corresponding to central members (Langacker 2015a). The pr...

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Baseline and elaboration

Cited by 22 publications

References 25 publications

The Conceptualization of Space: Places in Signed Language Discourse

The Conceptualization of Space: Places in Signed Language Discourse

A Cognitive Linguistic Study of Verb-copying Sentences in Mandarin Chinese

Levels of Reality

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