In cognitive semantics metaphors are cross-domain mappings in the conceptual system. Thus the notion of domain plays a crucial role in the theory. However, domain is never defined, but taken for granted. By means of data from language acquisition and language production and comprehension I question the cognitive status of the notion of domain. Furthermore, I demonstrate that both linguistic and nonlinguistic evidence indicate that space and time are cognitively linked in a way that makes it problematic to claim that space is mapped onto time in the development of grammatical temporal markers.

The article investigates the meeting between linguistics and literary theory under the auspices of cognitive grammar. First, it places this recent meeting in contrast to the relation between the two under structuralism; second, it sketches the philosophical foundations of cognitive linguistics in a series of related ideal types, such as cognitivism, diagrammatism, gestaltism, phenomenology, etc.; third, it investigates the literary theory of cognitive semantics in Lakoff and Turner's More Than Cool Reason as a background for some critical remarks.

The semantics of the linguistic modals is argued to be determined mainly by the power structure of the participants in the interaction. In the deontic uses of the modals, another determining factor is the expectations of the participants' attitudes towards the relevant action. By viewing the evidence as a power in its own right, our analysis can be generalized to the epistemic uses in a coherent way. The epistemic uses are seen as pragmatic strengthenings of the deontic uses, rather than as metaphorical mappings.

The “local semantics” approach to the analysis of the meaning of locative particles (e.g. spatial prepositions) is examined, criticized and rejected. An alternative, distributed approach to spatial relational semantics and its linguistic expression is argued for. In the first part of the paper, it is argued that spatial relational semantic information is not exclusively carried in languages such as English by the locative particle, and that “item-specific meanings plus selectional restrictions” cannot save the localist approach. In the second part of the paper, the “covertly” distributed spatial relational semantics of languages such as English is contrasted with the “overtly” distributed spatial relational semantics characterizing many other languages. Some common assumptions relating to the universality of the expression of spatial relational meaning by closed syntactic classes are criticized. A change of perspective from “local” to “distributed” semantics permits the re-analysis of polysemy and item-bound “use-type” in terms of the distributed expression of language-specific spatial relational semantic types.

Written Norwegian has two words, the co-ordinating conjunction og and the infinitive marker å, both of which are pronounced [o] in Spoken Norwegian. In this paper, an attempt is made to show that [o] in Spoken Norwegian constitutes a single polysemous word. Furthermore, it is argued that Spoken Norwegian [o], in all its usages and meanings, is a descendant of Old Norse ok “and”, while the Old Norse infinitive marker at has not survived in Spoken Norwegian.