The Role of Cognitive and Reporting - Verbs in the Organization and Event Mapping of English – Text
Abstract
Semantically, Cognitive and reporting verbs occupy a central position in the thematic structure of Sentences. They are generally defined as the first major constituents of sentences as they cognitively combine the structural and the thematic elements of the Sentences. This becomes salient as theme and subject usually coincide and the that clause which often introduces both categories of verbs ( reporting and thinking ) occupies a fundamental region in most Languages, namely: the declarative clause ( Crystal 1985; 355, Lyons1977 ch.12 ). Semantically too, thinking and reporting verbs relate to an objective level of interpretation as they directly relate to the prepositional clement of the Sentences ( Crystal 1985: 67 ). On the other hand, rarity or absence of the progressive aspect in the reporting and thinking verbs, in particular, testifies to this fact so that we expect to come across those verbs in several grammatical and contextual categories.