Structure And Boundary: A Cognitive Basis For Linguistic Expressions

The present study hypothesizes that the structural boundary defining process in linguistic organization is a cognitive basis for the production of linguistic expressions. Linguistic structure and boundary are a unitary binary opposition. Without boundary there would be no structure,and vice versa. Well-formedness of linguistic structure consists in the integrality of the structure and boundary as a unity. The structure-boundary unity may be impaired by change in the process of organization, which may cause two effects: either the structure is destroyed and fails to function properly, or recovers its integrality through self-adaptability. We term the hypothesis the structure-boundary principle, which is a result of the projection of the objective world onto linguistic organization via human cognition.The research aims to explain the operational mechanism in the organization of linguistic expressions with the assumptions proposed in the structure-boundary principle, and to verify that (1) the structure-boundary principle underlies the production of linguistic expressions;(2) the principle, operating in the organization of linguistic structure in a dynamic way, is a cognitive mode rather than an arbitrary phenomenon; (3) the self–adaptability of linguistic structure motivating linguistic innovation is the effect of the structure-boundary principle; and (4) the law of pragnanz is the psychological basis for this cognitive mode.Since Saussure linguistic structure as a main subject of linguistic study has been studied for a whole century. Different linguistic schools have adopted different attitude to linguistic structure, as is reviewed in Chapter 2. Structural linguists view the linguistic structure as static rather than dynamic constituents of the linguistic system, TG takes it as innate and autonomous in LAD with nothing to do with meaning, FG and...