ABSTRACT
The goal of this chapter is to mark the distinction between semantic structures and cognitive structures or representations in the context of different theoretical perspectives on language typology and language variation. The perspective in the book is definitely typological. But the goal is not to simply state the similarities and dissimilarities in the cognitive structures and representations encoded in natural languages in terms of certain well-designated semantic specifications because the ultimate result is surely not going to be of great theoretical value. A systematic account of the observed variation in terms of some unifying general principles and constraints seems necessary. The distinction and tensions between phenomenological universals and cognitive universals are discussed and then it is pointed out that an account of semantic variation in terms of certain cognitive generalizations need not be tied to any hypothesis of innate principles. But this does not preclude the possibility that the semantic functions can themselves be defined and characterized over forms in natural language that reflect special properties of general cognitive constraints including psycholinguistic preferences. Then this chapter points to the need for establishing consonance between the logical organization of natural language and the cognitive organization of linguistic structures.
