Abstraction, schematisation and language use
In Cognitive Grammar, the units that make up the grammar are derived from language use. This takes place by processes of abstraction and schematisation. Abstraction is the process whereby structure emerges as the result of the generalisation of patterns across instances of language use. For example, a speaker acquiring English will, as the result of frequent exposure, ‘discover’ recurring words, phrases and sentences in the utterances they hear, together with the range of meanings associated with those units. Schematisation is a special kind of abstraction, which results in representations that are much less detailed than the actual utterances that give rise to them. Instead, schematisation results in schemas. These are achieved by setting aside points of difference between actual structures, leaving just the points they have in common. For instance, in example (2), we saw that the three distinct utterances containing the lexical item in have slightly different meanings associated with them. These distinct meanings are situated, arising from context. We established that what is common to each of these utterances is the rather abstract notion of enclosure; it is this commonality that establishes the schema for in. Moreover, the schema for in says very little about the nature of the figure and reference object, only that they must exist, and that they must have the basic properties that enable enclosure. Crucially, symbolic assemblies, the units of the grammar, are nothing more than schemas.
As we saw in Chapter 1, there are various kinds of linguistic units or symbolic assemblies. They can be words like cat, consisting of the three sound segments [k], [ ] and [t] that are represented as a unit [k t], idioms like [He/she kick-TENSE the bucket], bound morphemes like the plural marker [-s] or the agentive suffix [-er] in teacher, and syntactic constructions like the ditransitive construction that we met in Chapter 2.
In sum, abstraction and schematisation, fundamental cognitive processes, produce schemas based on usage events or utterances. In this way, Cognitive Grammar makes two claims: (1) general cognitive processes are fundamental to grammar; and (2) the emergence of grammar as a system of linguistic knowledge is grounded in language use.
