This book explores the cognitive constraints and principles of variation in structures of linguistic meaning across languages. It unifies cognitive-semantic representations with formal-semantic representations to make a unique contribution to the study of typological generalizations and universals in natural language semantics. This unified approach not only helps reveal why semantic structures have the observed variation they have but also sheds light on the compelling cognitive and formal regularities and patterns in the variation of linguistic semantics. The book also advances the general principles of a cognitively oriented semantic typology.
Lucid and topical, the book will be an indispensable resource for students and researchers of language typology, linguistics, cognitive linguistics and semantics. It will also be of interest to theoretical linguists of both cognitivist and formalist schools.
Preface viii
Acknowledgments x
1 Introduction 1
2 Semantic Structures and Linguistic Universals 5
3 Towards a Unified Representation of Linguistic Meanings 29
4 Semantic Variation from Semantic Representations: Negation, Negative Polarity and Negative Concord 67
5 Semantic Variation from Semantic Representations: Modality, Tense and Plurality 94
6 Implications for Language Typology and Cognition 136
7 Concluding Remarks 183
Language Index 187
Subject Index 189
Biography
Prakash Mondal is Associate Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science at the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, India.
