Zoom Meeting Presentation

Dear Everyone,

In our last meeting, we discussed the metaphoric projections of [SPACE] onto our conceptualization of [TIME]. I used the term "schematization" quite a number of times to refer to the fact that our conception of "time" (especially grammatical time) inherits much conceptual content from our conception of space; yet, we have not discussed what schematization stands for.

• Schematization is basically generalization.

• Specification is the opposite of schematization.

These two fundamental mechanisms of conceptualization work at astonishing speeds in our minds in real-time to process new information, but they also entrench our most common everyday repetitive cognitive routines.

An example of a schematization-specification continuum is the following:

thing > creature > animal > dog > poodle

Let me explain:

Almost any entity you can think of can be categorized as a "thing" of the world within the framework of Cognitive Grammar (within this paradigm, we do not have a wider term to generalize every single object of conception of the world); we can separate the general category "thing" into 2 separate sub-categories such as "living things" and "non-living things," but if we do such thing we are specifying, not schematizing.

In turn, "creature" is subsumed under the very general conceptual umbrella of "things"; this general category of conceptualization covers many members (but not as many as "thing" does): you know many "things," but not all the "things" you know are "creatures."

In turn, one sub-category of "creature" is "animal," but not all "creatures" are "animals"; consider the following illustration.

In turn, the category "animal" is further sub-divided into many types of animals, one of which is "dog."

And finally, "dogs" can be subdivided into many types of dogs, one of them being "poodles."

So, basically "schematization" is "generalization" and its opposite mental process is "specification": a "poodle" is a far more specific object of conception of the world than "thing" is; in other words, almost anything in the world can be thought of as a "thing," but not anything in the world can be thought of as a "poodle."

Schematization and specification are far more complex than what I have pointed out above, but this is just the beginning.

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Another type of schematization-specification continuum is the following.

do > act > propel > throw > fling

The verb "do" can refer to just about any action. The verb "act" is more specific, but still very general (I can say "I acted," but this phrase does not specify very well what my action was). In turn, the verb "propel" is more specific than "act," but "propel" is more general than "throw" (this latter specifies in more detail how I acted upon an object to make it move, namely by a specific type of movement of my arm and hand). In turn, "fling" is even more specific than "throw."

I will not go into the details here, but this conceptual continuum of categorization is applied not only for nouns and verbs, but also to the "lexical-grammatical continuum." In cognitive grammar, the difference between "lexical items" and "grammatical relations" is a matter of schematization-specification: lexical items are conceptually more specific and grammatical relations are more schematic; in between these two categories there is a whole range of intermediate constructions.

In order to attain a much better understanding of the conceptual continuum of schematization-specification, please read pages 3 to 26 of the following book.

I will enrich this section of our website over the next days; meanwhile, I hope you have a very happy reading :)