In this two-volume set Leonard Talmy defines the field of cognitive semantics. He approaches the question of how language organizes conceptual material both at a general level and by analyzing a crucial set of particular conceptual domains: space and time, motion and location, causation and force interaction, and attention and viewpoint. Talmy maintains that these are among the most fundamental parameters by which language structures conception. By combining these conceptual domains into an integrated whole, Talmy shows, we advance our understanding of the overall conceptual and semantic structure of natural language. Volume 1 examines the fundamental systems by which language shapes concepts. Volume 2 sets forth typologies according to which concepts are structured and the processes by which they are structured.

Leonard Talmy is Director of the Center for Cognitive Science and Professor of Linguistics at the State University of New York at Buffalo.