The faculty of language viewed as a genetic and social phenomenon and conceptualisation as its basic component

The volume addresses the issue of the faculty of language as a biocognitive phenomenon dealing with diverse aspects related to the category of prepositions on the basis of examples from selected languages. The choice of this category was determined by the highly polysemous and fuzzy nature of prepositions. Based on the empirical evidence concerning selected prepositions of some Slavic, German and Romance languages, individual chapters discuss (i) the status of the case assigned by a preposition, (ii) learning and processing of prepositions, (iii) prototypes and metaphorical extensions, (iv) axiology and valuation as well as (v) category overlap. The volume brings together the generative and cognitive perspectives, both usually treated as opposing, by demonstrating the central role of conceptualisation seen as a multisensory phenomenon including emotions in the faculty of language highlighting the notion of embodiment.

Autorentext
Prof. US Dr habil. Jolanta Mazurkiewicz-Sokolowska is head of the Institute of Linguistics at the University of Szczecin, Poland, and supervisor of the research group Cognitive Linguistics, Biolinguistics.