How Words Mean: Lexical Concepts, Cognitive Models, and Meaning Construction (Oxford Linguistics)

## Abstract This book is concerned with word meaning, and the role of words in meaning construction. The specific problem addressed concerns how best to account for the inherent variation of word meaning in language use. That is, the books seeks to provide an account for the way in which the meaning associated with any given word form appears to vary each time it is used, in terms of the conceptualization that it, in part, gives rise to. The book develops a new theoretical synthesis building upon developments in cognitive science: in particular cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology. The model proposed is termed the Theory of Lexical Concepts and Cognitive Models, or LCCM Theory for short. The theory is based upon two central theoretical constructs: the lexical concept and the cognitive model. The essential insight of the theory is that meaning construction in language understanding relies upon the interaction between distinct types of knowledge representation — units of semantic structure: lexical concepts, and units of conceptual structure: cognitive models — which inhere in distinct representational systems that evolved for different purposes: the conceptual system and the linguistic system. The book provides a joined-up account of lexical semantics and semantic compositionality which is at once descriptively adequate and psychologically plausible.
How Words Mean introduces a new approach to the role of words and other linguistic units in the construction of meaning. It does so by addressing the interaction between non-linguistic concepts and the meanings encoded in language. It develops an account of how words are understood when we produce and hear language in situated contexts of use. It proposes two theoretical constructs, the lexical concept and the cognitive model. These are central to the accounts of lexical representation and meaning construction developed, giving rise to the Theory of Lexical Concepts and Cognitive Models (or LCCM Theory).

Vyvyan Evans integrates and advances recent developments in cognitive science, particularly in cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology. He builds a framework for the understanding and analysis of meaning that is at once descriptively adequate and psychologically plausible. In so doing he also addresses current issues in lexical semantics and semantic compositionality, polysemy, figurative language, and the semantics of time and space, and writes in a way that will be accessible to students of linguistics and cognitive science at advanced undergraduate level and above.

"How Words Mean introduces a new approach to the role of words and other linguistic units in the construction of meaning. It does so by addressing the interaction between non-linguistic concepts and the meanings encoded in language. It develops an account of how words are understood when we produce and hear language in situated contexts of use. It proposes two theoretical constructs, the lexical concept and the cognitive model. These are central to the accounts of lexical representation and meaning construction developed, giving rise to the Theory of Lexical Concepts and Cognitive Models (or LCCM Theory)."--Jacket 'How Words Mean' introduces a new approach to the role of words and other linguistic units in the construction of meaning. It addresses the interaction between non-linguistic concepts and the meanings encoded in language, developing an account of how words are understood when we produce and hear language in situated contexts of use In this book, Vyvyan Evans builds a framework for the understanding and analysis of meaning that is at once descriptively adequate and psychologically plausible. In so doing he also addresses current issues in lexical semantics and semantic compositionality, polysemy, figurative language, and the semantics of time and space.