24.32, Review: Cognitive Science; Philosophy of Language: Taylor (2012)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-24-32. Tue Jan 08 2013. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 24.32, Review: Cognitive Science; Philosophy of Language: Taylor (2012)

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Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2013 09:39:37
From: Stefan Hartmann [hartmast at uni-mainz.de]
Subject: The Mental Corpus: How Language is Represented in the Mind

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/23/23-2970.html

AUTHOR: Taylor, John R.
TITLE: The Mental Corpus
SUBTITLE: How Language is Represented in the Mind
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2012

Stefan Hartmann, German Department (Deutsches Institut), University of Mainz

SUMMARY

In this book, John R. Taylor defends the hypothesis that linguistic knowledge
can be conceived of as a repository of memories of exposure to actual usage
events. According to Taylor, language users keep track of the utterances they
encounter, thereby compiling a “mental corpus” of constructions at various
levels of abstraction. This hypothesis is elaborated on and substantiated by a
great number of examples in the thirteen chapters of this book. In line with
his plea to focus linguistic attention on actual language use, most of
Taylor’s examples are derived from corpora (mainly from the British National
Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English).

The first two chapters of the book are concerned with the generative model of
linguistic knowledge, which Taylor rejects. Chapter 1, “Conceptualizing
language”, introduces Chomsky’s (e.g. 1986) distinction between E-language,
i.e. ‘external’ language as encountered in the world, and I-language, i.e. the
‘internal’ system of linguistic knowledge in the speaker’s mind. In contrast
to the generative model, which treats E-language as an “epiphenomenon”
(Chomsky 1986: 25), Taylor argues that I-language emerges from the exposure to
E-language events. He then discusses to what extent E-language can be studied
with the help of corpora, especially focusing on the pivotal question of
representativeness. He also addresses the use of the World Wide Web as a
corpus, reviewing research that shows data obtained from the Internet to
correlate highly both with data from established corpora and with informants’
acceptability judgments.

The title of Chapter 2, “The dictionary and the grammar book”, refers to the
generative model of linguistic knowledge, which sees language as consisting of
the lexicon on the one hand, i.e. “a finite list of structural elements”
(Jackendoff 2002: 39), and the grammar on the other, i.e. “a finite set of
combinatorial principles” (ibid.). While this model accounts neatly for the
phenomenon of linguistic creativity, i.e. the ability of speakers to create a
potentially infinite set of sentences from a finite set of elements, it
entails a rule-based approach to linguistic knowledge that proves problematic
in various respects. In evaluating the model against actual language use as
attested by corpus data, Taylor argues that grammaticality intuitions do not
in all cases reliably reflect the contents of the mental grammar. He
illustrates this with the use of “explain” in the double object construction,
e.g. “explain me this”. While this construction strikes most native speakers
of English as ungrammatical, Taylor’s corpus data suggest that in the mental
grammar of a fair number of language users, “explain” can be used analogically
to semantically related words such as “tell”. The critical assessment of the
generative model leads Taylor to question both the classical definition of the
lexicon as “a list of ‘exceptions’” (Chomsky 1995: 235) and the principle of
compositionality, which “requires that each component of a complex expression
contributes a fixed and stable chunk of semantic [...] material to the
expressions in which it occurs” (p. 41). In sum, he concludes that “[w]e will
need to abandon the model, its assumptions, and all that it entails” (p. 43).

The subsequent chapters deal with various aspects of actual language use.
Chapter 3, “Words and their behaviour”, questions the generative model’s
assumption that all items in the lexicon can be assigned to a small number of
categories and that all members of a (lexical) category behave identically
with respect to syntactic rules. He shows that a number of words -- e.g.
“fun”, “much”, or so-called defective verbs such as “beware”, cf. “*I always
beware of dogs” -- exhibit a unique distribution that cannot be predicted from
their membership in a syntactic category. These findings suggest “that
knowledge of a language can only be attained through exposure to actual usage
events, whose particularities are noted and laid down in memory” (p. 68).

Chapter 4, “Idioms”, and Chapter 5, “Speaking idiomatically”, discuss at
length the pervasiveness of idiomatic language use. While the generative model
treats idioms as peripheral exceptions to the otherwise rule-governed use of
language, “[t]here comes a point [...] when the periphery looms so large that
it may no longer be an option to regard it as peripheral” (p. 43). In Chapter
4, Taylor presents corpus findings on semantic (e.g. “kick the bucket”) as
well as syntactic (e.g. “by and large”), lexical (e.g. the usage range of
“fun”), and phrasal idioms (e.g. “of course”, “in fact”, “under way”). In
Chapter 5, Taylor proposes to understand idiomaticity in terms of conformity
with usage norms. On the one hand, this concerns the appropriateness of
linguistic expressions to the respective context of use (e.g. the formality of
a situation as well as the medium of communication). On the other hand, it
concerns language-internal relations as manifested by preferred collocations
(e.g. “merry Christmas”, but “*merry birthday”). His case study of “X-minded”
then shows that such usage norms, which are governed by “language-internal
statistics” (p. 114), are subject to diachronic change. While this compound
pattern enjoyed a peak of popularity in the middle of the 20th century, its
use declined afterwards. He concludes that the usage norms are not
categorical, but statistical in nature.

Chapter 6 is dedicated to the controversial notion of “constructions”. After a
brief overview of Langacker’s (1987, 1991, 2008a) Cognitive Grammar, he
contrasts two approaches towards defining a construction and then proposes a
third definition incorporating elements from both approaches. On the one hand,
constructions can be conceived of as internally complex entities, i.e. “any
linguistic form which can be analysed into its parts” (p. 124). On the other
hand, constructions can be defined as pairings of form and meaning. In
narrower approaches (e.g. Goldberg 1995), however, only those form-meaning
pairings that have unit status or even only those whose properties cannot be
derived from the properties of any other construction are regarded as
constructions proper. Taylor’s own proposal conceives of constructions as
basically synonymous with the notion of “unit” in Cognitive Grammar, i.e. “any
element of a language that has been learned and that forms part of a speaker’s
linguistic knowledge” (p. 126). He then discusses the differences between
rule-based and construction-based approaches. Crucially, a construction-based
approach tolerates a certain amount of redundancy, predicting that even
regularly formed expressions may be stored in memory rather than being
generated in every single case (cf. Langacker’s discussion of the “rule/list
fallacy”, e.g. Langacker 1987: 29f., 492). This view is substantiated by the
results of experimental studies such as lexical decision tasks. Furthermore,
Taylor contrasts the autonomy of syntax hypothesis with constructional and
collostructional (e.g. Stefanowitsch and Gries 2003) analyses, concluding that
“even the most general syntactic patterns of a language [...] need to be
regarded as constructions” (p. 145).

Chapter 7 deals with the key notion of “Frequency”. Taylor reviews a broad
variety of research indicating that speakers know, at least implicitly, the
relative frequency of all elements of their language. His discussion of
Chomsky’s well-known “Dayton Ohio argument” reveals that the alleged
correspondence between corpus attestations and real-world facts only pertains
to a relatively small number of cases. While the frequency of “I live in New
York” is indeed not only higher than the frequency of “I live in Dayton,
Ohio”, but even corresponds almost exactly to the number of inhabitants of New
York City in relation to Dayton, Ohio (cf. Stefanowitsch 2005), the same is
not true for the relative frequencies of “He lives in New York” and “She lives
in New York”, respectively. While it can reasonably be assumed that the
distribution of both genders should be roughly equal, the former sentence is
about twice as frequent as the latter. Further frequency-related issues that
Taylor discusses include collocation patterns (for example, the word
“unmitigated” is highly probable to be followed by “disaster”, but not vice
versa), prevalent phonological patterns, and ambiguity resolution. His
discussion of these matters leads him to conceive of “Skewed frequencies as a
design feature of language”, which is the title of Chapter 8. Rather than
being a mere side-effect emerging in any language-like system, skewed
frequencies contribute to the learnability of language in that they facilitate
linguistic categorization at all levels of language structure and use.

The question of language acquisition is further elaborated on in Chapter 9,
“Learning from input”. Focusing on phoneme acquisition, Taylor argues that
language learners record the statistical properties of the input, which leads
to the emergence of phonetic categories. He cites the so-called “recency
effect” as evidence that people are registering the properties of the language
they encounter: As both experimental and corpus studies show, the choice
between linguistic alternatives is often determined by the immediately
preceding context. For example, if a speaker uses a comparative construction
with “more”, her interlocutor is likely to do so as well, even if forming the
comparative with “-er” would be the more natural choice in other contexts.

Chapter 10 addresses one of the most widely-discussed topics of Cognitive
Linguistics, namely, polysemy. Contrary to most accounts, Taylor suggests that
each word should not be associated with a fixed number of discrete meanings,
but that word meaning should be thought of in terms of the ways in which a
linguistic form can be used, i.e. seeing words in their respective “contextual
profile”. On this account, the variability and dynamicity of meaning that
constitute polysemy can be seen as a consequence of its embeddedness in
language use. This hypothesis is substantiated by the finding that the
acquisition of prepositions rarely follows the pattern predicted by
traditional network accounts of polysemy: Irrespective of their most central
sense, prepositions are mostly acquired as parts of fixed expressions, which
may vary from individual to individual (cf. Rice 2003). This lends support to
Taylor’s overall hypothesis in that it demonstrates that a word cannot be
conceived of as a fixed entry in the mental lexicon but rather “provides
access, not only to the conceptual domains against which it is understood, but
also to the linguistic contexts in which it has been used” (p. 244).

Chapter 11 deals with the notions of “Creativity and innovation”, which play a
central role in the classic generative model. While creativity, in the
generative sense, refers to the application of grammatical rules to lexical
items, the notion of innovation refers to the coinage of new words or
expressions. Taylor shows this distinction to be problematic in many respects
as it proves to be difficult to apply in many cases. In the case of
reanalysis, for example, language change comes about not through innovation by
an individual speaker, but through the hearer’s interpretation of the
speaker’s utterance. Case studies of progressive “busy” as attested primarily
in South African English (“My essay is busy being typed”), ditransitive
“explain” (“explain me it”), and constructions involving “all over” illustrate
that “innovation is incremental” (p. 262). Patterns that emerge as minor
variants, deemed ungrammatical by most language users, gain acceptance when
they become more frequent.

As a model to account for manifestations of linguistic creativity and
innovation, Taylor proposes “Blending” (cf. Fauconnier and Turner 2002), which
is the topic of Chapter 12. After a brief outline of blending theory, Taylor
addresses the phenomena of word blending and phrasal blending both in speech
errors (e.g. “that’s torrible”) and in creative language use (e.g.
“glitterati”, a blend of “glitter” and “literati”, cf. Kemmer 2003). As the
emergence of the plural form “process[i:]s” (in analogy to the plural forms of
some words of Greek origin such as “thesis”) demonstrates, blending can also
affect inflectional morphology. In the domain of phrasal blending, idioms such
as “time and again” can be analyzed as blends of two (or more) distinct
phrases (e.g. “time after time” + “again and again”). He concludes that
blending not only “is able to do the work traditionally assigned to generative
rules” (p. 279) but also accounts for linguistic creativity and innovation.

The final chapter, “The mental corpus”, summarizes the main hypotheses of the
book: 1) Linguistic knowledge emerges from exposure to actual language use. 2)
Knowing a language means much more than just knowing the words of a language.
Instead, language is organized in terms of constructions: “Knowledge of words
and knowledge of constructions cannot easily be teased apart” (p. 282). A
large part of what constitutes a language has to be considered idiomatic. 3)
Frequency of occurrence is highly important with regard to the emergence of
usage norms in a language. Speakers know, at least implicitly, the frequency
profile of linguistic items; moreover, skewed frequencies can be considered a
design feature of language. 4) The mental corpus does not (only) consist of a
number of fixed words and expressions. Instead, speakers are capable of
generalizing over the data they encounter. This facilitates language
comprehension in that it provides schemas against which utterances can be
understood. Furthermore, it lays the ground for linguistic creativity and
innovation. 5) This has important bearings for a theory of language
acquisition, which has to be conceptualized as an input-driven, bottom-up
process. Considering the dialectic relation between I-language and E-language,
acquisition can also be seen as a life-long process. 6) Importantly, these
hypotheses are substantiated by both corpus studies and experimental findings.

EVALUATION

In the tradition of approaches to language that highlight the importance of
usage frequency (e.g. Langacker 1988, 2000; Bybee 2007), Taylor makes a
convincing case for a radically usage-based account of linguistic knowledge.
While the foundational works of Cognitive Grammar often relied on invented
examples, almost all the examples Taylor presents are derived from corpora.
Furthermore, Taylor takes into account a broad variety of experimental
studies. This makes his book a major step towards an empirically grounded
cognitive-linguistic theory of language.

Taylor maintains the highly readable style that already characterizes his
textbooks on Cognitive Grammar (2002) and linguistic categorization ([1989]
2003) without ever oversimplifying matters. Therefore his book is equally
recommendable to students of linguistics, advanced scholars, and even
interested laypersons.

What is more, his “mental corpus” hypothesis ties in neatly with current
approaches in cognitive linguistics and also has important implications for
some issues that lie outside of the scope of Taylor’s monograph. For example,
his hypothesis is highly compatible with approaches that view language as a
complex adaptive system (CAS, e.g. Beckner et al. 2009), a framework that has
also been proposed for research in historical cognitive linguistics (Frank and
Gontier 2010). As both the “mental corpus” hypothesis and the CAS approach
draw attention to the “intrinsically diachronic aspect of language as a
system” (Frank and Gontier 2010: 48), his work also has implications for
historical linguistics in that it highlights the role of usage and frequency
in language change. Moreover, Taylor’s observations, especially those
concerning the paramount importance of idiomatic knowledge for a speaker’s
language proficiency, can prove fruitful for foreign language teaching (cf.
also Langacker 2008b: 84).

All in all, Taylor’s book is highly recommended for anyone interested in
usage-based theories of language and linguistic knowledge. It offers valuable
insights not only to cognitive linguists and corpus linguists, but also to
historical linguists and second language teachers.

REFERENCES

Beckner, Clay; Blythe, Richard; Bybee, Joan; Christiansen, Morten H.; Croft,
William; Ellis, Nick C.; Holland, John; Ke, Jinyun; Larsen-Freeman, Diane;
Schoenemann, Tom. 2009. Language is a Complex Adaptive System. Position Paper.
Language Learning 59 Suppl. 1, 1–26.

Bybee, Joan. 2007. Frequency of Use and the Organization of Language. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.

Chomsky, Noam. 1986. Knowledge of Language. Its Nature, Origin, and Use. New
York: Praeger.

Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Fauconnier, Gilles; Turner, Mark. 2002. The Way We Think. Conceptual Blending
and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books.

Frank, Roslyn M.; Gontier, Nathalie. 2010. On Constructing a Research Model
for Historical Cognitive Linguistics (HCL). Some Theoretical Considerations.
In: Winters, Margaret E.; Tissari, Heli; Allan, Kathryn (eds.): Historical
Cognitive Linguistics. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter (Cognitive Linguistics
Research, 47), 31–69.

Goldberg, Adele E. 1995. Constructions. A Construction Grammar Approach to
Argument Structure. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press.

Jackendoff, Ray. 2002. Foundations of Language: Brain, Meaning, Grammar,
Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kemmer, Suzanne. 2003. Schemas and Lexical Blends. In: Cuyckens, Hubert; Berg,
Thomas; Dirven, René; Pather, Klaus-Uwe (eds.): Motivation in Language.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 69-97.

Langacker, Ronald W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 1:
Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Langacker, Ronald W. 1988. A Usage-Based Model. In: Rudzka-Ostyn, Brygida
(ed.): Topics in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John
Benjamins (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science,
50), 127–161.

Langacker, Ronald W. 1991. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 2:
Descriptive Application. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Langacker, Ronald W. 2000. A Dynamic Usage-Based Model. In: Barlow, Michael;
Kemmer, Suzanne (eds.): Usage-based models of language. Stanford: CSLI
Publications, 1-63.

Langacker, Ronald W. 2008a. Cognitive Grammar. A Basic Introduction. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.

Langacker, Ronald W. 2008b. Cognitive Grammar as a Basis for Language
Instruction. In: Robinson, Peter; Ellis, Nick C. (eds.): Handbook of Cognitive
Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 66-88.

Rice, Sally. 2003. Growth of a Lexical Network. Nine English Prepositions in
Acquisition. In: Cuyckens, Hubert; Dirven, René; Taylor, John R. (eds.):
Cognitive Approaches to Lexical Semantics. Berlin: De Gruyter, 243-280.

Stefanowitsch, Anatol. 2005. New York, Dayton (Ohio), and the raw frequency
fallacy. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 1, 295-301.

Stefanowitsch, Anatol; Gries, Stephan Th.. 2003. Collostructions:
Investigating the Interaction of Words and Constructions. International
Journal of Corpus Linguistics 8, 209-243.

Taylor, John R. 2002. Cognitive Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Taylor, John R. [1989] 2003. Linguistic Categorization. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Stefan Hartmann is a PhD student in historical linguistics at the University
of Mainz, Germany. He is currently conducting a corpus-based study on the
diachronic change of German nominalization patterns. Apart from historical and
corpus linguistics, his research interests include Cognitive Linguistics,
sociolinguistics, and psycholinguistics.



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