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The development of cognitive science provides a new way to the study of language. Metaphors as linguistic expressions are possible precisely because the human conceptual system is metaphorically structured and defined. Analogy has been paid much attention to by linguists these days. This book is intended to apply the theory of analogy to the domain of linguistic constructions. It will veer towards the interface and interplay between cognition and communication. The book will present an analogical reasoning theory that satisfies a reasonable criterion for analogy, and at the same time is consistent with the existing theories of linguistics that has intimate relationships with analogical thinking. Besides the argument that analogy is a basis of metaphor understanding and generation on the syntactic level, the rationale behind this book is that analogy finds its way to the major aspects of human cognition, especially to the generation and interpretation of grammatical constructions.

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Yulei Ma is associate professor of linguistics at Shanghai Jiaotong University, China. She received her PhD from Fudan University.

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