Cognitive Semantics and Language: Understanding the Basics

Proposition:

Minimal unit of cognitive semantics; it is the equivalent of a statement, a statement being a sentence either affirmative or negative.

Utterance:

Is more a pragmatic form. It is an item of language produced by a real speaker in a real situation. Sometimes proposition and non-propositions are utterance.

Lexical meaning:

The meaning assigned to every word of the sentence.

Natural language:

A language that has developed naturally in use (as contrasted with an artificial language or computer code). The language of every human society.

Conceptualization:

Cognitive process automatically performed to make sense of the world/outer reality.

Categorization:

Basic cognitive function. Performed automatically and unconsciously as we interact with reality/absorb reality. It allows us to organize what we do/see/feel etc. in similar already known instances of the same category.

Classical categorization (=shared features):

Basic cognitive function performed automatically and unconsciously as we interact with reality/absorb reality. It allows us to organize what we do/see/feel etc. around conceptual categories or sets of concepts. Concepts are discrete units, identifiable by a sufficient number of the necessary features which characterize them.

Counterfactuals:

Cognitive operation linked to those discourse constructions in which an imagined situation is involved.

Mental spaces:

Partial cognitive structures which are created when we use language for purposes of local understanding and action.

Mental model:

All the information recollected.

Cognitive categorization:

Basic cognitive function performed automatically and unconsciously as we interact with reality/absorb reality. It allows us to organize what we do/see/feel etc. around prototypes.

Prototypes:

Are similar already known central instances of the same category which are the best examples of that category for us.

The container schema:

Abstract concepts or events are conceptualized as if they were containers.

The link schema:

Relations between concepts or events are conceptualized as if they were physically connected.

The path or linear order schema:

Abstract concepts or events may be conceptualized as moving along a physical path.

We use metaphor to conceptualize abstract reality in terms of physical reality. Metaphor is a cognitive operation. Metaphor is a question of the mind, a mental process.

Mental image:

Associated with prototype and basic level concept.

Superordinate:

More general class of things.

Subordinate:

It is more difficult to distinguish between members.

Basic level concept:

Differentiates members of a category. It is the level from which people start to operate for the conceptualization and classification of experience.

Image schema:

Experiential structures which help us to understand the more abstract or complex areas of experience. They have a non-finitary external structure and do not correspond to significant discontinuities in the outer world. They are based on our own perception of the body/reality/experience.

Conceptual integration:

Cognitive operation involving complex multiple interrelated conceptual projections.