Semantics and Cognition
Code
711131065
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Linguística
Credits
6
Teacher in charge
Helena Topa Valentim
Weekly hours
4
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
a) To characterize the activity of language accordingly to different models and theoretical proposals based on a cognitive perspective
b) To acquire the analysis tools that allow, through the observation of linguistic forms, to identify and to describe the language functioning
c) To develop the knowledge about the languages functioning, considering the relation between linguistic markers and the values that result from cognitive abstract operations
d) To manage appropriately the metalinguistic mechanisms that lead to an understanding of the linguistic constructions as the result of a complex relationship involving the linguistic markers of cognitive operations
e) To analyze the functioning of the natural languages accordingly to the description of its different grammatical categories
Prerequisites
None.
Subject matter
Módulo 1
1 Language activity as a cognitive activity
1.1 Brain and language
1.2 Cognitive models for the natural languages analysis: cultural paradigms (Lakoff 1987) spatial paradigms (Talmy 1983)
2 Linguistic representation: notions and cognitive operations
2.1 Linguistic representation model
2.2 The enunciate derivation
3 Linguistic diversity
3.1 Linguistic invariants vs language universals
3.2 Stability and deformability of the linguistic forms
3.2. 1 The concept of schematic form
3.2. 2 The structure in came
Módulo 2
1 Determination operations
1.1 Quantification and qualification in nominal phrases
1.1.1 Typologies and topologies in the nominal representation
1.1.2 The nominal determinants semantic values
1.2 Verbal determination
1.2.1 The grammatical categories of time/aspect and modality
2.2 Aspectual compositionality
1.2.3 Grammatical mode and modality: the delimitation of the subjectivity concept
Bibliography
CORREIA, C. N., Estudos de Determinação: a operação de quantificação/qualificação em sintagmas nominais, Lisboa, FCG/FCT, 2002
FUCHS, C. & S. ROBERT (eds.), Diversité des Langues et Représentations Cognitives, Paris, phrys, 1997
LAKOFF, G., Women, fire and dangerous things, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1987
TALMY, L., How Language structures space, in H. PICK & L. ACREDOLO (eds.), Spatial orientation: theory, research and application, New YorK, Plenum, 1983
VALENTIM, H. T. Um estudo semântico-enunciativo de predicados subjectivos do português. Dissertação de Doutoramento em Linguística, especialidade em Semântica. Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas Universidade Nova de Lisboa (não publicada).
Teaching method
Theoretical classes; workshops autonomous and collective research presentation and discussion.
Evaluation method
Final written test (40%); four written exercises (40%); autonomous research work (20%).