Specificity and (In)tangibility: Nouns as Grounds

This chapter applies the notions of scope and specificity in Cognitive Grammar to analysing the “thingness” of nouns in verbalised memories. Its central argument is that noun phrases are essential to the tangibility of remembered scenes, even when they do not refer to physical objects. To this end, the discussion harks back to the concept of grounding introduced in Chap. 2 , developing the idea that lack of a clearly delineated scope and specificity via nominal grounding leads to a sense of abstractness, which in turn creates distance. As the case studies show, this is particularly relevant to the discourse situations of digital poetry, where interactivity and momentariness complicate the anchoring of words.