Intuition, introspection and observation in linguistic inquiry

This article explores the relationship between intuition, introspection and the observation of naturally occurring utterances in linguistic inquiry. Its focus is on the problems that this relationship poses in cognitive approaches to semantics and case theory within the framework of Cognitive Grammar. Given the increasing commitment of linguistics to providing “usage-based” explanations, the article concentrates on two assumptions that underpin the cognitive theory of language, viz. (i) the proposed definition of meaning and the favoured encyclopaedic conception of linguistic semantics and (ii) the decision not to distinguish between intuition and introspection as different methods of inquiry, in addition to corpus analysis. In the second part of the article, a case study is presented that examines an influential cognitive account of the meaning of the accusative and dative cases with two-way prepositions in German. Its aim is to clarify how problems of semantic analysis at the syntax–semantics interface relate to questions concerning the empiricalness of linguistic inquiry, the role of introspective judgments and the status of linguistic intuition. It shows that the investigation of potentially large sets of corpus data provides indispensable information to reach sufficiently general conclusions, but it is equally important to establish the intersubjective, language-specific semantic values (“signifiés”) of cases on the basis of intuition, as distinguished from introspection.

► The article provides evidence for distinguishing intuition from introspection.
► The complementarity of corpus analyses and intuition-based hypotheses is illustrated.
► The difference between language-specific and encyclopaedic concepts is demonstrated.
► NSM theory and cognitive accounts of morphological cases are discussed.
► The article provides an appreciation of Esa Itkonen’s theory of linguistics.