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R.Langacker
argues that a unified explanation of the syntactic diversity is
possible if the subject-verb-complement pattern is viewed in terms of
schematization and understood as a reflection of the general cognitive principles of
figure/ground segregation, role archetypes and ‘”windowing” of attention.
According to the figure/ground principle the subject in a simple transitive sentence
corresponds to the figure and the complement – to the ground ( with the object
being a more prominent element of the ground and the adverbial as less
prominent), the verb expresses the relationship between figure and ground. So,
linguistically, the way to manifest prominence is to put the preferred element into
subject position. The influence of this principle is most plausible in symmetric
constructions, as illustrated by the sentences:
a)
Susan resembles my sister.
b)
My sister resembles Susan.
The role archetypes principle governs the choice of syntactic figure where the
figure/ground principle alone doesn’t work.
It should be noted that the role archetypes are by no means a novelty, because
role archetypes like “agent”, “patient”, “instrumental”, “experiencer” are very
much the same as “cases” with Ch.Fillmore, “actants”, “participants” with
L.Tesniere, “semantic roles” with P.Quirk, “theta-roles” with A. Radford
(transformational grammar).
In R.Langacker’s conception the roles are not just a linguistic construct, but a
part of cognitive instruments, which we use for both linguistic and mental
processing. The role archetypes emerge from our experience, they appear as
cognitive constituents of any conceived event or situation.
The role of “agent” refers to a person who initiates motion or physical
activity in objects or other persons. The “patient” refers to an object or organism,
affected by physical impact from outside and undergoes a change of state or is
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moved to another location. The “instrument” is an intermediary between agent and
patient, the “experiencer” refers to smn. engaged in mental activities, including
emotions, the “setting” comprises different facets of an event which are present in
our minds as “background”. The “setting” is stable compared to participants
(agent, patient, instrument, experiencer), which are mobile and engaged in physical
contact or mental interaction. In linguistic perspective “setting ” as “space” and
“time” conventionally provides corresponding adverbials, while participants
provide subjects and objects.
The principle which governs the process of putting a particular role in the
subject or in the complement position is that of “windowing “ of attention.
According to this principle any element of an event can be viewed as more or less
prominent and according to the ascribed degree can be raised to the status of
syntactic figure (subject), or syntactic ground (object), or syntactic background
(adverbials of space and time, which also can be of different prominence).
Linguistically, a conceived event can be reflected in a number of syntactic
constructions (1- 2 or 3-element constructions), which represent the event
perspectives. Thus, the 3-element construction provides the overall view of the
event, including the agent, patient and instrument roles as in the sentence “Floyd
broke the glass with a hammer” with the agent viewed as syntactic figure and
placed in the subject position. The 2-element construction, profiling the same
event, expresses only a certain portion
(an intermediary stage) as in “The hammer broke the glass.” with the instrument
as a syntactic figure and the subject. The 1-element construction, describing the
same event, expresses the final stage of the event as in “The glass easily broke.”
with the patient as a syntactic figure and the subject. R.Langacker notes, that the
choice of subject, i.e. syntactic figure is governed by a hierarchy “agent-
instrument-patient”, the hierarchy which repeats/structures the event as an action
“chain” in our mind.
Due to the principle of “windowing” of attention “setting” can be given
different degree of prominence and raised to the status of object or subject.
Compare the following sentences:
a)
Susan swam in the Channel.
b)
Susan swam across the Channel.
c)
Susan swam the Channel.
In (a) sentence the agent initiates an action which takes place in a certain setting
(Channel). Linguistically this is expressed by an intransitive structure with a place
adverbial. In (b) sentence the setting is more tangible, it has two boundaries and it
is fully traversed by the agent/figure, this is implied by the preposition “across”, as
a result, this setting is more prominent than in (a) sentence. In (c) sentence the
preposition is dropped and cognitive interpretation will claim that “the Channel” in
its syntactic prominence has moved further away from being a plain “setting”. It is
treated more like a participant in an interaction with the agent-subject, e.g. an
enemy that has to be overcome and this is reflected in the object-like use of the
noun phrase. Thus, the “setting” is given the status of object. Greater prominence
of “setting” results in the subject position of the latter:
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e.g.: a) The garden is swarming with bees.
b) There was a loud bang.
“There” is used to express a kind of abstract or unspecified setting.
Thus, in cognitive linguistics the use of syntactic structures is largely seen as a
reflection of how a situation is conceptualized by the speaker, and this
conceptualization is governed by the attention principle. Salient participants ,
especially, agents, are rendered as subjects and less salient participants as objects;
verbs are selected as compatible to the choice of subject and object; locative,
temporal and many other types of relations are “windowed “ for attention by
expressing them as adverbials.
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