Cog Ling in Prague

Kognitivní lingvistika v Praze
David S. Danaher, Associate Professor
Slavic Languages, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Help with English-language readings and/or questions?
Email: pes@mac.com; Phone: 739 900 411
Consultations in the cafe of the Mestská knihovna: Tuesdays 10.45-11.45

Downloadable Publications
(1) D. Danaher, "Kognitivní gramatika", handout for the FFUK Dissertators' Workshop (21.04.06)
Download Czech version
(2) D. Danaher, "Cognitive Poetics and Literariness: Metaphorical Analogy in Anna Karenina" (Forthcoming, 2006)
Download English version
Download Polish version
(3) D. Danaher, "The Semantics of pity and zhalost' in a Literary Context"
Access web version of article
(4) D. Danaher, The Semantics and Discourse Function of Habitual-Iterative Verbs in Contemporary Czech (Lincom 2003)
Download monograph as pdf [950 KB]

Introduction to Cognitive Grammar
Thursdays 10.50-12.20, room 18 in the Filozofickå fakulta

This course serves as an introduction to the theory and practice of a branch of Cognitive Linguistics known as Cognitive Grammar (CG). CG assumes that lexicon and grammar form a continuum of symbolic elements and that when we use a particular construction or grammatical morpheme "we select a particular image to structure the conceived situation for communicative purposes" (R. Langacker). Since languages differ in their grammatical structure, "they differ in the imagery that speakers employ when conforming to linguistic convention" (R. Langacker).

Theoretical readings are necessarily in English. The main texts for the course are Langacker's Concept, Image, and Symbol: The Cognitive Basis of Grammar (1991) and Ungerer & Schmid's An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics (1996). Applications of CG will focus on their relevance to the analysis of Slavic languages, including Czech, and will treat the following topics: verbal prefixation, prepositional semantics, the semantics of case, the category of aspect, and the category of animacy.

The course will consist of lectures and seminar-type discussions in Czech (and English). Students will be required to present readings in small groups to the whole class and to pursue an individualized research project.

Links:
• Laura Janda's publications
• The International Cognitive Linguistics Association (ICLA)
• Research/Bibliographies in Cognitive Linguistics
• The Slavic Cognitive Linguistics Association (SCLA)
• Download the bibliography of the Slavic Cognitive Linguistics Association (5/2005)
• Glossos (the on-line journal of the SCLA)

23.02.06: Introductions of all kinds
• Personal introductions.
• Introduction to the principles of Cognitive Grammar.
• Introduction to the course.
• Handout 1 (click to download as pdf).

To read and/or do for next week's class
• L. Janda, "Kognitivní lingvistika," (9-60) [English version]
• R. Langacker, Concept, Image, and Symbol (CIS) , Introduction (1-32)
• N. Bermel, "Sématické rozdíly..." (handout, 192-8): How is his approach 'cognitive'?
• "Prototypicality and the Concept of Phoneme" [optional]

02.03.06: Categorization & Prototypes
• Finishing up our general introduction: profile and base.
• Categorization from a cognitive perspective: prototyping.
• Cognitive aspects of the Bermel article?
• Specific questions on the readings (Janda, Langacker)?
• Handout 2 (click to download as pdf).

To read and/or do for next week's class
• Ungerer & Schmid, "Prototypes and categories [chapter 1]", 1-55. (And/or: "Kategorizace a význam", Co na srdci, to na jazyku, 67-91)
• R. Langacker, "Inside and Outside in Core", chapter 2 in CIS, 33-57.

09.03.06: Case Studies of Prototyping in Grammar
• A few more words about categorizing by prototype: radial networks of meaning.
• Russian verbs of motion (Nesset) .
• "Inside" and "outside" in Cora (Langacker) .
• Cognitive Grammar vs. Generative Grammar (click to download as pdf).
• Handout 3 (click to download as pdf).

To read and/or do for next week's class
• CG vs. GG: who might be interested in doing a presentation on this at the end of the semester?
• G. Lakoff, 1987, chapters 3 and 6 in Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind (58-68, 91-115).
• Ungerer & Schmid, chapter 2 (60-114).

16.03.06: More on Prototyping and Radial Networks of Meaning
• A few more words on "inside" and "outside" in Cora.
• Lakoff: categorization and radial networks.
• Janda: the radial network of meanings for the Russian genitive.
• Handout 4 (click to download as pdf).

To read and/or do for next week's class
• R. Langacker, "Nouns and Verbs", chapter 3 in CIS.
• For thought (if you don't manage to read Langacker): How to define the concepts "noun" and "verb" in cognitive terms? What do nouns (in contrast to verbs) profile? Which nouns (and verbs) represent prototypical members of each category and how do we think of them as prototypical? What role do conceptual domains play in these definitions?

23.03.06: Nouns from a Cognitive Perspective
• Finishing up the Russian genitive.
• Langacker on a semantic/symbolic definition of nouns.
• Handout 5 (click to download as pdf).

To read and/or do for next week's class
• Ungerer & Schmid, "Figure and Ground", chapter 4, 156-205.

30.03.06: Relational Schemas (Atemporal Relations and Verbs); Trajector (Figure) and Landmark (Ground)
• Langacker on a semantic/symbolic definition of relations (atemporal relations and verbs).
• A few words on the terms trajector and landmark.
• Handout 6 (click to download as pdf).

To read and/or do for next week's class
• A. Cienki, 1993, "Experienciers, Possessors, and Overlap Between Russian Dative and u + Genitive", 76-87. [handout]
• L. Janda, 2002, "Cases in collision, cases in collusion: the semantic space of case in Czech and Russian," 14pp. [<http://www.unc.edu/~lajanda/>; click on "page with downloadable versions of my publications" and find the article to download]
• L. Janda, 2002, "Sémantika pádu v cestine", 29-35. [<http://www.unc.edu/~lajanda/>; click on "page with downloadable versions of my publications" and find the article to download]

06.04.06: Semantics of Case (I)
• By way of introduction: to krásné rozcestí!
• Experiencers and possessors in Russian (Cienki).
• The semantics of case in Czech (Janda).
• The semantic space of case in Russian and Czech (Janda).
• By way of another introduction: cases in Czech.
• Handout 7 (click to download as pdf).

To read and/or do for next week's class
• Prepare your Czech case presentation: see Laura Janda's publications for availability of pdf's.

13.04.06: Semantics of Case (II)
• The genitive in Czech (Janda & Clancy).
• The instrumental in Czech (Janda & Clancy).
• The accusative in Czech (Janda & Clancy).
• The locative in Czech (Janda & Clancy)
• Handout 8 (click to download as pdf).

To read and/or do for next week's class
• L. Janda, 1985, "The Meaning of Russian Verbal Prefixes: Semantics and Grammar", 14pp. [<http://www.unc.edu/~lajanda/>; click on "page with downloadable versions of my publications" and find the article to download]
• L. Janda, 1988, "The Mapping of Elements of Cognitive Space onto Grammatical Relations: An Example from Russian Verbal Prefixation", 16pp. [<http://www.unc.edu/~lajanda/>; click on "page with downloadable versions of my publications" and find the article to download]

20.04.06: Prepositional and Prefixal Semantics
• Some Russian, Polish, and English prepositions (Cienki).
• Selected Russian prefixes (Janda).
• Handout 9 (click to download as pdf).

To read and/or do for next week's class
• L. Janda, 1996, "Figure, Ground, and Animacy in Slavic Declension", 30pp. [handout]

27.04.06: Animacy; Presentation by Lucie Saicová Rímalová
• Animacy in Slavic (Janda).
• Presentation by Lucie Saicová Rímalová.
• Handout 10 (click to download as pdf).

To read and/or do for next week's class
• L. Janda, 1999, "Whence virility? The rise of a new gender distinction in the history of Slavic", 28pp. [handout]
• S. Kresin, 2000, "Aspect, Singularization, and Pluralization in Czech and Russian", 19pp. [handout]

04.05.06: Virility; Aspect (I)
• Virility in Slavic (Janda).
• Aspectual singularization and pluralization in Russian and Czech (Kresin).
• Metaphor and aspect in Slavic (Janda).
• Handout 11 (click to download as pdf).

11.05.06: Aspect (II)
• The Slavic general factual (Dickey).
• Handout 12 (click to download as pdf).

18.05.06: Class is cancelled!

*Please email me in advance about consultation themes and times*

22.05.06 (11.00-13.30): Cafe consultations!
23.05.06 (11.00-13.30): Cafe consultations!

Conceptual Metaphor Theory
Tuesdays 12.30-14.00, room 18 in the Filozofická fakulta

The course introduces students to recent research on metaphor as a conceptual structure. In addition to a review of the theory as presented in Metaphors We Live By (Lakoff & Johnson), specific topics will include: image-schemas and semantics, force dynamics in semantic structure, metaphor and time, metaphor and perception, metaphor and emotion.

The goal of the course is to take concepts introduced in the readings and then apply them to the investigation of metaphor in Czech (and other Slavic languages). Students will be required to make presentations in class and write a paper on a theme of their choice. They will be encouraged to make use of the Czech National Corpus to supply the contextualized data for analysis in their paper.

The course will be taught (mostly) in Czech as a seminar. Many of the readings will necessarily be done in English.

Links:
• The International Cognitive Linguistics Association (ICLA)
• Research/Bibliographies in Cognitive Linguistics
• The Slavic Cognitive Linguistics Association (SCLA)
• Download the bibliography of the Slavic Cognitive Linguistics Association (5/2005)
• Glossos (the on-line journal of the SCLA)
• Neural Theory of Language (Berkeley)
• Lakoff's Liberal Think-Tank: The Rockridge Institute

21.02.06: Introductions
• Personal introductions: our background and expectations.
• Metaphors for TRUTH and FALSEHOOD in English and Russian (and Czech?).
• Introduction to the course.
• Handout 1 (click to download as .pdf)

To read and/or do for next week's class
• Prepare your presentation on Metaphors We Live By

28.02.06: Review of key concepts in Metaphors We Live By
• What does a metaphorical mapping look like? A word about blending.
• Review of a few key concepts in MWLB.
• Introduction to image schemas.
• Handout 2 (click to download as .pdf)

To read and/or do for next week's class
• At a recent summit of young managers, V. Havel urged them to stop mixing up economics and accounting: "Don't confuse economics with accounting. This ought to be the goal of forward-looking managers who will be leading the economies of their countries." What did Havel intend to say here (in other word, how to do you understand his metaphor)? Is it an orientational, structural, or ontological metaphor? What is its experiential base? Identify the source and target domain. What does the mapping consist of? Do images schemas play a role here? What is the emergent meaning of the metaphor in the blended space?
• Reading and presentations:
- V. A. Uspensky. 1979. "O veshchnykh konnotatsiakh abstraktnykh sushchestvitel'nykh" (146-52) [in Russian, handout]
- G. Lakoff. 1986. "The Meaning of Literal" (291-6) [handout]
- A. Wierzbicka. 1986. "Metaphors Linguists Live By: Lakoff & Johnson contra Aristotle (review of MWLB)" (287-313) [handout]

07.03.06: Image Schemas
• Presentations: Uspensky, Wierzbicka, Lakoff.
• Image-schemas.
• Discussion of Havel's metaphor: economics (economist) and accounting (accountant).
• Handout 3 (click to download as .pdf)

To read and/or do for next week's class
• Emanatian, M. 1997. "The Spatialization of Judgment," in Discourse and Perspective in Cognitive Linguistics (131-147) [handout]. What about the situation in Czech?
• Gibbs, R. et al. 1994. "Taking a Stand on the Meanings of Stand: Bodily Experience as Motivation for Polysemy," Journal of Semantics 11 (231-251) [handout]. What about the situation in Czech?
• Rakhilina, E. 1997. "Semantika russkikh 'pozitsionnykh' predikatov" [in Russian; handout].

14.03.06: Image-Schemas, Part II
• More on image-schemas.
• Discussion of our readings with reference to the Czech context: "Judgment", "Stand".
• Handout 4 (click to download as .pdf).

To read and/or do for next week's class
• More on image-schemas: A. Cienki, 1998, "STRAIGHT: An image schema and its metaphorical extensions", 107-149 [handout].
• Metaphor and politics: (a) V. Chrz, 1999, Metafora v politice; (b) G. Lakoff, 1991, "Metaphor and War: The Metaphor System Used to Justify War in the Gulf", 95-111 [handout].

21.03.06: STRAIGHT as Image Schema and Political Metaphors
• A few more words on "stand": expressions in Czech (food for thought).
• E. Rakhilina: "'Positional' Predicates".
• A. Cienki: STRAIGHT as image schema.
• Metaphor in politics and political thought.
• Handout 5 (click to download as pdf).

To read and/or do for next week's class
• A. Cienki. 1998. "Slavic Roots for 'Straight' and 'Bent'", 299-313. [handout]
• J. van Leeuwen-Turnovcová. 1993. "K sémantice a symbolice polarity mezi pravou a levou polovinou sociálního prostoru", 110-137. [handout]

28.03.06: Political Metaphors Continued; STRAIGHT and BENT, RIGHT and LEFT
• Havel on domestic partnership; Lakoff on war and "moral politics" in the American context.
• 'Straight' and 'bent' in the history of Slavic (Cienki).
• 'Right' and 'left' in social space: a cross-linguistic study (Leeuwen-Turnovcová).
• Handout 6 (click to download as pdf).

To read and/or do for next week's class
• A. Cienki. 1998. "Metaphoric Gestures and Some of Their Relations to Verbal Metaphorical Expressions", 189-204. [handout]
• E. Sweetser. 1998. "Regular metaphoricity in gesture: bodily-based models of speech interaction", 1-9. [to be sent by email attachment as pdf]
• S. Taub. 2001. Language from the Body: Iconicity and Metaphor in American Sign Language. [report]

04.04.06: Metaphor and Gesture
• Transition from political metaphors to gesture (Cienki 2005 on Lakoff's Moral Politics).
• Presentation on Taub.
• Metaphor and gesture (Sweetser, Cienki).
• Some videoclips of metaphorical gesture in spoken language.
• Handout 7 (click to download as pdf).

To read and/or do for next week's class
• E. Andrews, "Seeing Is Believing: Visual Categories in Russian", 361-367. [handout]
• E. Sweetser, "English Perception Verbs in an Indo-European Context", chapter 2 in From Etymology to Pragmatics, 23-48.

11.04.06: Metaphor and Vision
• Perception verbs in semantic change (Sweetser).
• Seeing and knowing in Russian (Andrews).
• Handout 8 (click to download as pdf).

To read and/or do for next week's class
• Z. Kövecses, "Language and Emotion Concepts", chapter 1 in Metaphor and Emotion, 1-19. [handout]
• G. Lakoff, "Anger", case study 1 in Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 380-415.
• A. Mikolajczuk, "Perspektivy diachronního...", in Cítanka textu z kognitivní lingvistiky I, 105-116.

18.04.06: Metaphor and Emotion (I)
• Theoretical introduction: Kövecses, Wierzbicka, di Rivera.
• "Anger" (Lakoff).
• "Anger" in Polish (Mikolajczuk).
• Handout 9 (click to download as pdf).

To read and/or do for next week's class
• A. Mostovaja, "On emotions that one can 'immerse into', 'fall into' and 'come to'...", 295-329. [handout]

25.04.06: Metaphor and Emotion (II)
• "Falling into" certain emotional states in Russian (Mostovaja).
• Some English prepositions with emotion terms (Osmond, "The prepositions we use in the construal of emotion")
• Russian "zhalost'" and English "pity" (Danaher).
• Handout 10 (click to download as pdf).

To read and/or do for next week's class
• L. Talmy, "Force Dynamics in Language and Cognition", 49-100. [handout]
• E. Sweetser, "Modality", chapter 3 in From Etymology to Pragmatics, 49-75.

02.05.06: Force
• A naive model of force dynamics (Talmy).
• Must, can, may...: English modals in root and epistemic meanings (Sweetser).
• Handout 11 (click to download as pdf).

To read and/or do for next week's class
• G. Lakoff and M. Turner, "The Metaphoric Structure of a Single Poem", chapter 3 in More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor, 140-159. [handout]

09.05.06: Metaphor and Literature
• Overview of a cognitive approach to literature.
• Analysis of "The Jasmine Lightness of the Moon" (Lakoff/Turner).
• Handout 12 (click to download as pdf).

16.05.06: Class is cancelled!

*Please email me in advance about consultation themes and times*

22.05.06 (11.00-13.30): Cafe consultations!
23.05.06 (11.00-13.30): Cafe consultations!