Lexicon, Grammar and Knowledge Representation: Cognitive-Pragmatic Approach

Abstract

The article aims at reviewing the assumption that cognition as a whole is based on our bodies contribution to our mental representations resting on sensory input. Such representation is at play, first through forms-meanings mapping, based on lexical and grammatical schematization. Second, the representation is activated by means of perceptual mechanisms an individual can get, or what is called the conceptual and perceptual systems that connect lexical and pragmatic meanings to access the required overall meaning. As long as the lexical meaning does not determine the entities referred to by words, but determines the conceptualization of relevant cognitive models, this leads us to assume that there is a difference between the pragmatically perceived knowledge and the lexical knowledge coded in linguistic items. The goal of the first is to use a word as a symbol to imagine an entity, whereas the second aims at repressing the properties an individual might imagine about the thing subject to representation. In accounting for these differences between lexical, grammatical and pragmatic aspects, we make use of Conceptual Semantics as a theoretical framework for discussing the contents of such a problem.

      The article falls into three sections. In the first section, an account for the improvement of individuals' knowledge is provided. The second section pinpoints the functioning of grammatical rules and lexicon in achieving linguistic knowledge and its interaction with extra-linguistic data. The third section explains the nature of interface of grammar, lexicon and pragmatic aspects through the concept of coercion and its role in achieving linguistic knowledge and formulating realistic data in order to encode the world and communicate about it.