Cognitive Foundations of Grammar

Abstract

Language structure is the product of our interaction wit h the world around us. The way we build discourses and develop linguistic categories can immediately be derived from the way we experience our environment and use that experience in species specific communication. A common human strategy of communication consist s in relating different concepts by describing one in terms of the other. This strategy, it is argued here, can be held responsible for much of why grammar looks the way it does, and perhaps also why grammar exists in the first place. And it also constitutes the foundation of the framework used in this book.