The relation of grammar to cognition

A sentence (or other portion of discourse) is taken to evoke in the listener a meaning complex, here called a "cognitive representation". The lexical elements of the sentence, to simplify, by and large specify the content of the cognitive representation, while the grammatical elements specify its structure. Thus, looking systematically at the actual notions specified by grammatical elements can give us a handle for ascertaining the very makeup of (linguistic-) cognitive structuring. We accordingly examine a number of grammatically specified notions, observe the categories and systems in which they pattern, and speculate on broader cognitive connections.Some provisional findings have already emerged. Grammatical specifications for structure are preponderantly relativistic or topological, and exclude the fixed or metrically Euclidean. The categories in which grammatical notions pattern include:plexity perspectival modestate of boundedness level of synthesisstate of dividedness level of exemplaritydegree of extensionality axial characteristicspattern of distribution scene-breakup"Grammatical specification of structuring appears to be the same, in certain abstract characteristics, as the structuring of visual perception.