This book provides an overview of the basic principles and methods of cognitive linguistics, in particular as they are applied to semantic and syntactic issues. It is intended to be used as a textbook for a course on cognitive linguistics for advanced undergraduates and postgraduate students, as well as functioning as an introduction to this approach to language for linguists and researchers in neighboring disciplines. Parts I and II may also function as a textbook for a course on cognitive semantics, supplemented by case studies from the cognitive linguistic literature. Part III may also function as introductory reading for a course on construction grammar, followed by readings from the literature that delve into the details of particular theories of construction grammar and the analyses of particular constructions.

The chapters of the book were independently written, but jointly discussed. Croft is responsible for chapters 1-3 and 9-12, and Cruse for chapters 4-8 (this fact will no doubt be obvious to the reader). Cruse also contributed to §3.2.1, and Croft to §8.2. Although we have written our chapters independently, the book represents a single coherent perspective on cognitive linguistics. We agree on all of the major points, and most of the minor ones; what minor disagreements remain do not compromise the integrity of the analysis as a whole.

Croft would like to thank members of the linguistics and psychology departments at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany, and Jóhanna Barðdal, Chuck Fillmore, Laura Janda, Paul Kay and Ron Langacker for their comments on earlier versions of Part III, and Liliana Albertazzi and the participants in the Workshop on ‘Which Semantics?