100px|right|thumb|example of a force dynamics diagram  force dynamics is a semantic category that describes the way in which entities interact with reference to force. force dynamics gained a good deal of attention in cognitive linguistics due to its claims of psychological plausibility and the elegance with which it generalizes ideas not usually considered in the same context. the semantic category of force dynamics pervades language on several levels. not only does it apply to expressions in the physical domain like leaning on or dragging, but it also plays an important role in expressions involving psychological forces (e.g. wanting or being urged). furthermore, the concept of force dynamics can be extended to discourse. for example, the situation in which speakers a and b argue, after which speaker a gives in to speaker b, exhibits a force dynamic pattern. ==context== introduced by cognitive linguist leonard talmy in 1981, force dynamics started out as a generalization of the traditional notion of the causative, dividing causation into finer primitives and considering the notions of letting, hindering, and helping. talmy further developed the field in his 1985, 1988 and 2000 works. talmy places force dynamics within the broader context of cognitive semantics. in his view, a general idea underlying this discipline is the existence of a fundamental distinction in language between closed-class (grammatical) and open-class (lexical) categories. this distinction is motivated by the fact that language uses certain categories of notions to structure and organize meaning, while other categories are excluded from this function. for example, talmy remarks that many languages mark the number of nouns in a systematic way, but that nouns are not marked in the same way for color. force dynamics is considered to be one of the closed-class notional categories, together with such generally recognized categories as number, aspect, mood, and evidentiality. aspects of force dynamics have been incorporated into the theoretical frameworks of  mark johnson (1987), steven pinker (1997) and ray jackendoff (1990) (see deane 1996 for a critical review of jackendoffâs version of force dynamics). force dynamics plays an important role in several recent accounts of modal verbs in various languages (including brandt 1992, achard 1996, boye 2001, and vandenberghe 2002). other applications of force dynamics include use in discourse analysis (talmy 1988, 2000), lexical semantics (deane 1992, da silva 2003) and morphosyntactical analysis (chun & zubin 1990, langacker 1999:352-4). ==theoretical outline== ===basic concepts=== [[file:force_dynamics.png|170px|thumb|figure 1 â bas
Semantics