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Cognitive Approaches to Lexical Semantics
Author(s) -
Dingfang Shu
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
language and linguistics compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.619
H-Index - 44
ISSN - 1749-818X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2008.00120.x
Subject(s) - lexical semantics , linguistics , lexicon , embodied cognition , construction grammar , cognition , field (mathematics) , semantics (computer science) , cognitive linguistics , meaning (existential) , lexicology , cognitive semantics , schematic , lexical choice , computer science , psychology , cognitive science , lexical item , artificial intelligence , philosophy , mathematics , neuroscience , electronic engineering , pure mathematics , engineering , psychotherapist , programming language
This article reviews the achievements and recent research programs in the field of cognitive lexical semantics, which has become a full‐fledged field since the early 1980s, when important research findings in cognitive psychology concerning the internal structure of categories (prototype structure and family resemblance structure) were adopted to analyze lexical categories (Taylor et al. 2003). Cognitive linguists have since changed their conceptions about the nature of word meanings, and the interplay between words and their contexts. The traditional dividing lines between lexicon and grammar, and linguistic knowledge and encyclopedic knowledge have been largely blurred, and meaning is seen as a manifestation of conceptual structure, which is embodied and entrenched in the schematic network of structures and is extended on the basis of language usage events.