Basic Verbs in English

John Newman FRSC FAHA holds the position of Professor Emeritus in the Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta and is an Affiliate in the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures & Linguistics, Monash University. He has taught at Monash University, Tsinghua University (Taiwan), Massey University (New Zealand), National Chengchi University (Taiwan), and Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and has served as Chair, Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta (2002-2011). His research interests include cognitive linguistics, corpus linguistics, and typology and he is the author of Give: A Cognitive Linguistic Study (Mouton de Gruyter, 1996). His publications cover English and German historical linguistics, Mandarin and Chinese dialects (Cantonese, Hokkien, Wenzhou), Austronesian, and Papuan. He has carried out fieldwork in Sarawak (Malaysia), Manus Island (Papua New Guinea) and Alberta (Canada). He served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Cognitive Linguistics (2014-2018).

• 1: Introduction 2: Sit, Stand, Lie 3: Come, Go 4: See, Hear 5: Eat, Drink 6: Give, Take

“In this brief monograph, Newman offers a succinct and revelatory introduction to fundamental aspects of the nature and use of linguistic structure from the standpoint of cognitive linguistics. His careful and detailed analysis of the meaning and grammar of a small set of basic verbs convincingly demonstrates that language, far from being an autonomous mental faculty, is directly grounded in human experience. His descriptions are rigorous, insightful, and readily understood without prior training in linguistics. By combining them with statistical methods and the use of corpora, his treatment provides a useful model for the conceptual characterization of language structure.”Ronald W. Langacker, University of California at San Diego“This fundamental study of how our embodied existence fashions thought, abstract reasoning and our social world is a treasure trove of information and ideas. It offers a tour de force view of human action and its meanings, while opening a well-situated discussion of the embodied and social underpinnings of figuration, sociality, and cultural evolution. The study is an indispensable reading for a broad community of scholars in linguistics, anthropology and cognitive science.”Barbara Dancygier, University of British Columbia