A Review of Cognitive and Construction Grammar Within the Framework of the Second Generation of Cognitive Science

Cognitive linguistics has been a spotlight in today's linguistic research both at home and abroad.However,many researchers in China are still not aware of the facts that cognitive and construction grammar within the framework of the second generation of cognitive science plays an important part in the study of the relationship between language and cognition and has a close inheritance relationship with generative grammar.A good understanding and profound research work in cognitive and construction grammar would be beneficial to clarifying the above two facts.Concerning the background of cognitive linguistics,it is an inherited extension from Chomskyan Syntax and Saussurean Grammar.Its research aim and methodology are consistent with those of natural sciences.Construction(aka.symbolic unit),which is equipped with psychological attributes and compatible with the usage-based model,is the core theoretical construct in cognitive and construction grammar,whose basic tenet is that the system of language knowledge is comprised of constructions of different schematicity and complexity as well as the relationships between them.And the use of language is constrained by constructions.Integrating constructional meaning with lexical meaning may provide an adequate explanation to the flexible uses of language.