Cognitive grammar is a cognitive approach to language

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

 developed by Ronald Langacker

Ronald Langacker

Ronald Wayne Langacker is an American linguist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego. He is best known as one of the founders of the cognitive linguistics movement and the creator of Cognitive Grammar....

, which considers the basic units of language to be symbol

Symbol

A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...

s or conventional pairings of a semantic structure with a phonological label. Grammar consists of constraints on how these units can be combined to generate larger phrases which are also a pairing of semantics and phonology. The semantic aspects are modeled as image schema

Image schema

An image schema is a recurring structure within our cognitive processes which establishes patterns of understanding and reasoning. Image schemas are formed from our bodily interactions, from linguistic experience, and from historical context...

s rather than proposition

Proposition

In logic and philosophy, the term proposition refers to either the "content" or "meaning" of a meaningful declarative sentence or the pattern of symbols, marks, or sounds that make up a meaningful declarative sentence...

s, and because of the tight binding with the label, each can invoke the other.

Langacker develops the central ideas of cognitive grammar in his seminal, two-volume Foundations of cognitive grammar, which became a major departure point for the emerging field of Cognitive Linguistics

Cognitive linguistics

In linguistics, cognitive linguistics refers to the branch of linguistics that interprets language in terms of the concepts, sometimes universal, sometimes specific to a particular tongue, which underlie its forms...

.

Like construction grammar

Construction grammar

The term construction grammar covers a family of theories, or models, of grammar that are based on the idea that the primary unit of grammar is the grammatical construction rather than the atomic syntactic unit and the rule that combines atomic units, and that the grammar of a language is made up...

 (developed by Langacker's student Adele Goldberg

Adele Goldberg (linguist)

Adele Eva Goldberg is a researcher in the field of linguistics. Since 2004, she has been a Professor in Linguistics, and an associated faculty in Psychology at Princeton University. From 1997-2004, she was an Associate Professor of Linguistics and the Beckman Institute at the University of...

), and unlike many mainstream linguistic theories, cognitive grammar extends the notion of symbolic units to the grammar of languages. Langacker further assumes that linguistic structures are motivated by general cognitive processes. In formulating his theory, he makes extensive use of principles of gestalt psychology

Gestalt psychology

Gestalt psychology or gestaltism is a theory of mind and brain of the Berlin School; the operational principle of gestalt psychology is that the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies...

and draws analogies between linguistic structure and aspects of visual perception.