engleski

Introduction: Reflections on motivation

In modern linguistics the question of whether (aspects of) linguistic form and structure are arbitrary or motivated has been discussed controversially. Formal linguists, e.g. generative grammarians, reject or ignore motivation as an explanatory theoretical concept, whereas cognitive and functional linguists tend to subscribe to the view that language is at least partially motivated. For cognitive linguists, motivation thus has explanatory value. Things are, however, more complex than this simple dichotomy suggests. Most linguists will probably agree that elementary linguistic signs (morphemes, monomorphemic words) are mostly arbitrary in the sense that their form is not motivated-let alone, predictable- from their sense. However, recent work in cognitive linguistics has shown that even the lexicon is systematically motivated. For example, the various senses of polysemous words are related by conceptual links that are motivated by experience, pragmatic strengthening, etc. Cognitive linguists concede that not all formal properties of a language are motivated (cf. Croft 1995). The controversialquestion is however whether complex linguistic forms, i.e. phrases, sentences, and discourse, are, at least partially motivated, or whether language is organized into autonomous components (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics) functioning according to their own rules and principles. This is e.g. the view advocated even by "moderate" generative linguists such as Newmeyer (2000) and Jackendoff (2002). In contrast, cognitive linguists assume that linguistic structures above the word level are likely to be motivated to some extent. The contributions collected in this volume elucidate the issue of motivation in language from different perspectives, in particular, language-external factors. The chapters shed new light on the debate of what constitutes valid explanation in linguistics. All contributions provide evidence for what one might call the "motivation hypothesis". The notion of language-external motivation ultimately pertains to basic human experience, cognition, and behavior. To quote from Bernd Heine's chapter in this volume: "Human behavior is not arbitrary but is driven by motivations. Language structure, being one of the products of human behavior, therefore must also be motivated."

cognitive grammar; cognitive semantics; conceptual motivation; metonymic motivation; motivation; motivation in grammar; motivation in lexicon; pragmatic strengthening

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