Instruction Grammar: From Perception via Grammar to Action

Description

Bringing together evidence from natural and social sciences, the work introduces the non-reductionist Instruction Grammar programme. Viewed from within the practicalities of the lifeworld, utterances are described as instructions to simulate perceptions and attributions for action. The approach provides solutions to long-standing philosophical problems of cognitive grammar theories and traditionally puzzling syntactic phenomena. Acknowledgments Contents List of Figures List of Tables List of Symbols Abbreviations 1 Introduction: the argument of this book 1.1 Overview: the relationship between syntax and semantics 1.2 Predicate-argument structures 1.3 The metaphysics of thematic roles 1.4 The structure of this book Part I: Research programme Introduction 2 A Culturalistic Pragmatist research programme 2.1 Research programmes 2.1.1 On research programmes in general 2.1.2 The need for a new research programme 2.2 A new research programme 2.2.1 The subject-matter of the programme 2.2.2 The “individual” level in the model 2.2.3 Observable facts, observations, and heuristics 2.2.4 Implementing the data level 2.2.5 Excursus: converging evidence 2.2.6 Multidisciplinarity 2.2.7 Species, community, and sciences 2.3 Excursus: a brief sketch of “Chomskyan Linguistics” 2.4 Action-theory grounded in lifeworld differentiations 2.5 Summary of part I Part II: Grounding the linking competence in subcompetences Introduction 3 Perception, conceptualization, and action 3.1 Perception 3.1.1 Grounding the talk about perception in practicaldifferentiations 3.1.2 The significance of perception for the linking competence 3.1.3 Sensation 3.1.3.1 The eye 3.1.3.2 The lateral geniculate nucleus and the primary visual cortex 3.1.3.3 The integration of basic visual features 3.1.3.4 Two visual pathways 3.1.3.5 Motion/movement perception 3.1.3.6 The embodied nature of the percept 3.1.4 Determinants in identification (I) 3.1.4.1 Salience and the power of the stimulus 3.2 Identification and conceptualization: actional notions and their grounding 3.2.1 Identification in perception and conceptualization for action 3.2.1.1 Determinants in identification (II): pertinence and the power of the perceiver 3.2.1.2 Features, affordances, relations, and the power of frequency 3.2.1.3 Causality as the enhancement of constant conjunctions and stimulus generalization 3.2.1.4 The actor/cognizer as (limited/self-serving) pragmatic 3.2.2 Action competence and intersubjectivity 3.2.2.1 Action competence 3.2.2.2 Intersubjectivity and understanding action 3.2.2.3 Reasons and causes 3.2.3 The significance of attribution for the linking competence 3.2.4 Case study: attribution in precarious events 3.2.4.1 The research project “Syntax of Hessian Dialects (SyHD)” 3.2.4.2 Scenario D 3.2.4.3 Scenario B 3.2.4.4 Scenario F 3.2.4.5 Evaluation 3.3 The conceptualization of spatial relations and their coding in language 3.3.1 The significance of spatial relation conceptualization and coding 3.3.2 Motivation and exploitation in trajector/landmark-syntactic structure mappings 3.3.3 Hypostatization and the relationship between trajector/landmark and thing/circumstance 3.3.3.1 Conceptual metaphor and the status of target domain “concepts” 3.3.3.2 Affordances again 3.3.3.3 Competing motivations, instances, and generalizations 3.3.3.4 How linguistico hypostatization feeds back to conceptualization 3.3.4 The status of spatial schemas: what relational expressions designate 3.3.5 Manner and path in relational expressions 3.3.6 Fixing reference in acquisition 3.3.7 Fixing reference in motivated and exploited language use 3.3.8 Limits of hypostatization 3.3.9 Spatial relations and syntactic constructions 3.4 The grounding of temporal relations and their coding in language 3.4.1 Temporal relations and their significance 3.4.2 Syntactic structures suggesting another adicity than there is conceptually 3.4.3 The temporal organization of circumstances in sensation 3.4.4 The temporal organization of circumstances in identification/ conceptualization 3.4.5 The temporal organization of circumstances in attribution 3.4.6 Coding the temporal organization of circumstances 3.4.7 Transitions and the identity of states, processes, and activities 3.4.8 “Event headedness”, “co-composition”, and “boundedness” 3.5 On the significance of verbs and circumstances 3.6 Summary of part II Part III: The linking competence Introduction 4 Linking syntax and semantics 4.1 The division of labor of the formal constituents 4.1.1 The “bare” construction (irrespective of inflectional morphology) 4.1.2 The “bare” noun in the NP and PP (irrespective of inflectional morphology) 4.1.3 The “bare” verb (plus preposition) (irrespective of inflectional morphology) 4.1.4 Agreement morphology 4.1.5 Phrase order 4.1.6 Case morphology 4.1.6.1 Case in general 4.1.6.2 Case study: the German dative 4.1.7 The multilayered instruction 4.2 Reducing the remaining formal underspecification 4.2.1 The PSC preference as an epiphenomenon of a (responsible) causer preference 4.2.2 Animacy and the RCP 4.2.3 Individuation and the RCP 4.2.4 Person and the RCP 4.2.5 Empathy and the RCP 4.2.6 The RCP and indexical instructions 4.3 Linking in performance 4.3.1 Motivated construction-conceptualization mappings 4.3.2 The utterance as instruction – obeying the instruction 4.3.3 The utterance as instruction – building up the instruction 4.4 Some German linking phenomena 4.4.1 “Unergative” versus “unaccusative” constructions 4.4.2 Auxiliary choice 4.4.3 Conditions on passivization and imperativization 4.4.4 The dative alternation 4.4.5 The locative alternation 4.4.6 The conative alternation 4.4.7 The partitive alternation 4.4.8 Resultative constructions 4.4.9 Weather verbs 4.4.10 A note on coercion 4.5 Future prospects: predictions and consequences 4.6 Summary of part III 5 Conclusion Glossary Appendix: The status of traditional semantic notions in the present theory References Subject index