Table of Contents Acknowledgements ix Chapter 1. Introduction 1 -- 15 Chapter 2. Theoretical pre-requisites 17 -- 57 Chapter 3. Cognitive models 59 -- 84 Chapter 4. Cognitive operations 85 -- 145 Chapter 5. Content operations across levels of representation 147 -- 221 Chapter 6. Conclusions 223 -- 226 References 227 -- 244 Name index 245 -- 247 Subject index 249 -- 250;This monograph studies cognitive operations on cognitive models across levels and domains of meaning construction. It explores in what way the same set of cognitive operations, either in isolation or in combination, account for meaning representation whether obtained on the basis of inferential activity or through constructional composition. As a consequence, it makes explicit links between constructional and figurative meaning. The pervasiveness of cognitive operations is explored across the levels of meaning construction (argument, implicational, illocutionary, and discourse structure) distinguished by the Lexical Constructional Model. This model is a usage-based approach to language that reconciles insights from functional and cognitive linguistics and offers a unified account of the principles and constraints that regulate both inferential activity and the constructional composition of meaning. This book is of value to scholars with an interest in linguistic evidence of cognitive activity in meaning construction. The contents relate to the fields of Cognitive Grammar, Cognitive Semantics, Construction Grammar, Functional Linguistics, and Inferential Pragmatics.