English verbs of cognitive attitude (e.g. know, think, believe, suppose, guess, assume, doubt, etc.) are one of the means of giving voice to the subject's epistemic-evidential stance. The interest aroused by these verbs is not limited to their semantics: it also lies in their functions in communication and, supposedly, in cognition.

The book investigates the semantic and pragmatic features of this class of English verbs in the light of recent theories of dynamic meaning construal and analyses the class as a good example of a complex dynamical system. The individual verbs are seen as micro-systems embedded within the system and occupying a rich semantic space in which epistemicity and evidentiality interact in intricate ways.

Table of Contents

Introduction Chapter 1 - Theoretical perspectives on meaning and communication Chapter 2 - Previous research on verbs of cognitive attitude Chapter 3 - Data and methodology Chapter 4 - The dimensions of the complex dynamical system Chapter 5 - The forms and principles of the organization Chapter 6 - Corpus-based study of English verbs of cognitive attitude Concluding remarks Notes References