The purpose of this study is to find out how the uses of alternating locative verbs have changed in terms of the order between Figure and Ground. As alternating verbs allow the locative alternation by switching the positions of the two arguments, this study focuses only on the argument order. In order to accomplish the purpose, three corpuses are adopted: COHA, COCA and GloWbE. The findings from the collected data reveal the increased or decreased frequency of their constructions, showing which construction has been more frequently used among English users over time. Talmy (2000a) argues that the Figure has syntactic precedence over the Ground in a basic construction. The changing tendency of their uses in alternating locative verbs supports Figure Precedence Principle proposed by Talmy.

This paper adopts a frame-based analysis on the issue of the typology of Chinese causative verbs 使（shǐ）and 让 (ràng) (shǐ and ràng, afterwards) which puts challenges to several well-established cognitive approaches including force dynamic models and direct/indirect causation theory. In a frame-based analysis, these two polysemous verbs are distributed into different frames according to the pattern of force interaction denoted by the verbs. Therefore, this analysis successfully solves the obscure boundary problem raised by the polysemous property of shǐ and ràng. This study introduces a new way to study verbal semantics and semantic-syntactic interface. Especially, it points out a new direction to studying polysemous words.

This paper introduces structural metaphor which is a type of conceptual metaphor and proposes another type of conceptual metaphor corresponding to the structural metaphor. It is called reverse structural metaphor since it has externally the same structure as structural metaphor but the property of the target and source domain is reversed. The purpose of this paper is to study and compare these two types of metaphor – structural metaphor and reverse structural metaphor - with specific metaphorical linguistic expressions found in political speeches based on conceptual metaphor theory. Especially, this paper shows that the metaphorical linguistic expressions which have not been explained by the existing structural metaphor and therefore ignored are settled by virtue of reverse structural metaphor. In the process, the characteristics of the reverse structural metaphor to be dealt with as an independent type of conceptual metaphor will be provided.

This study aims to find out how Figure and Ground, perspective, and orientation interact with each other and why alternative construals of the same situation are available in the conceptualization of relative spatial locations of objects. It focuses on the availability of alternative construals when one object/two objects have their own inherent orientation. With respect to the objects within a scene, the perspective may be on the speaker or the object, which results in different conceptualizations of relative spatial locations between the two objects. Perspective point can be shifted from the speaker to an object with its own inherent orientation, and that object has the role of a Ground with respect to a Figure. Each object may receive the perspective and an alternative construal is available depending on its orientation. If the principle of Figure and Ground alignment and perspective interact with each other, the former works first: if the reversal of Figure and Ground is allowed, an alternative construal is available. Furthermore, if the perspective point is shifted to an object and the object has its own inherent orientation, an alternative construal of the relative spatial locations is available.

Stationary circumstances are systematically and extensively conceptualized as moving with linguistic expressions used to refer to actual motion. This is called subjective or fictive motion in the literature. Research has been done on subjective/fictive motion expressions but most of them have focused on descriptions of different types of fictive motion. The purpose of this paper is to provide a unified account of conceptualization of different types of fictive motion in terms of Figure and Ground organization. In this study, three representative types of fictive motion are considered : coextensiveness, relative motion, and change of state.