Contributions of Cognitive Grammar to the history of the concept of meaning

Abstract

This text intends to systematize the studies in the history of the concepts of meaning in order to understand the evolution of this linguistic topic, over the last decades, within the framework of cognitive linguistics. The meaning of words, sentences and texts is the object of study of semantics, a discipline of linguistics that focuses on the meaning of linguistic expressions, as well as on the relations of meaning that these expressions celebrate among each other and with the world. The semantic properties of natural languages can be studied at all linguistic levels. As a consequence of the growing awareness of the pragmatic dimension of language and of the dissolution of traditional oppositions among syntax, semantics and lexicon in linguistics, we realize that, in the second half of the twentieth century, there was a theoretical and methodological renewal and the creation of new disciplinary areas. In the 1980s, a link was established among linguistics, computer science and cognitive psychology. In this text, we highlight the contribution of all these areas to the concept of “meaning”, especially that of cognitive grammar, which identifies and represents the conceptual structures that are conventionalized in grammatical constructions, transferring our conceptual perception of the world to meaning.