ABSTRACT
This chapter explains a broad sense of the nature of cognitive semantics as an approach to conceptual structure and linguistic meaning. It considers four central assumptions of cognitive semantics. First, a fundamental concern for cognitive semanticists is the nature of the relationship between conceptual structure and the external world of sensory experience. The second principle asserts that language refers to concepts in the mind of the speaker rather than to objects in the external world. In other words, semantic structure can be equated with concepts. The third central principle of cognitive semantics holds that semantic structure is encyclopaedic in nature. The fourth principle associated with cognitive semantics is that language itself does not encode meaning. According to this view, meaning is constructed at the conceptual level: meaning construction is equated with conceptualisation, a dynamic process whereby linguistic units serve as prompts for an array of conceptual operations and the recruitment of background knowledge.
