Cognitive Linguistics and Lexical Change

This monograph offers the first in-depth lexical and semantic analysis of motion verbs in their development from Latin to nine Romance languages — Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, Occitan, Sardinian, and Raeto-Romance — demonstrating that the patterns of innovation and continuity attested in the data can be accounted for in cognitive linguistic terms. At the same time, the study illustrates how the insights gained from Latin and Romance historical data have profound implications for the cognitive approaches to language — in particular, for Leonard Talmy’s motion-framing typology and George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory. The book should appeal to scholars interested in historical Romance linguistics, cognitive linguistics, and lexical change.

Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano, University of Zaragoza, in Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 18:1 (2020):
[A] wonderful and unmissable piece of high-quality work. Thanks to Stolova’s expertise in both (Romance) historical linguistics and Cognitive Linguistics, the book brings together two research perspectives that should have never been apart when discussing semantics (both forms and meanings). The book is clearly organised, beautifully written, and well-informed. It contains zillions of (glossed) illustrative examples as well as new explanations and much-needed clarifications on long-standing wrong assumptions about motion event typologies. [...] A any researcher working in these general domains – historical linguistics, Cognitive Linguistics, Romance languages – should read this book. [...] This book is also a ‘must’ for any researcher interested in motion events.