have little connection to how the brain actually works. On this account, various
scholars do not consider Chomskian grammar to be cognitive (Taylor, 2002).
We also saw in chapter 5 that the question of meaning cannot be addressed ad-
equately in a formalist grammar. Meaning, when considered at all, is understood
to reside in mentalese, the lexicon, or the sentence. Neither T-G grammar nor the
MP take into account that we use language to communicate with other people in a
meaningful context. We might be able to claim that meaning resides in sentences
if we limit our understanding to example sentences that lack a context, but we
cannot do so if we are to consider actual language use. People frequently do not
say what they mean, and they often construe statements in ways that are different
from what was intended. It seems reasonable to propose that any viable study of
language and grammar should take these factors into account.
These issues have troubled some linguists for years, motivating them to seek an
alternative to Chomskian formalism. A significant step forward occurred in the
1980s when Ronald Langacker, a linguist, and David Rumelhart, a cognitive scien-
tist, came into contact at the University of California, San Diego. What emerged in
two important books by Langacker (1987, 1990) wascognitive grammar.
As with the discussion of transformational grammar and the minimalist pro-
gram in the previous chapter, what follows necessarily is an overview rather
than an in-depth analysis. This chapter aims merely to present some of the more
important principles of cognitive grammar. It is crucial to note at the outset that
cognitive grammar does not consist of a new set of grammar rules. Nor does it
involve new sentence diagrams, new classifications, or new grammatical anal-
yses. Instead, cognitive grammar involves a new way of looking at language
and its relation to mind. The sections that follow examine what this means.
Modularity
Transformational-generative grammar and the minimalist program emphasize
formal rules and treat language as a self-contained system that is largely unre-
lated to other cognitive operations and mental capacities. This approach is
based on the idea that the brain ismodular,divided into discrete processing
units that function independently of one another. There is no doubt that the
brain is modular to a significant degree. For example, the senses—sight, hear-
ing, smell, and taste—operate as independent modular systems. Whether lan-
guage also is modular, however, is controversial and uncertain (e.g., Barkow,
Cosmides, & Tooby, 1992; Calabretta, Nolfi, Parisi, & Wagner, 2000;
Carruthers & Chamberlain, 2000; Chomsky, 2000; Fodor, 1983).
Cognitive grammar accepts a limited view of modularity, proposing that
language is intricately connected to other cognitive functions and is an impor-
198 CHAPTER 6