Table of content: Introduction · Cognate object constructions: past and present · Basic tenets of cognitive linguistics · A cognitive linguistic description of COCs: general issues · Consulting the corpus: Towards a usage-based network of COCs · The transitivity of COCs · 'Packaged' events: Aspectual characteristics of COCs · Mid-level schemas: determiners and modifiers · COCs vs. AVCs - Putting alternations to the test · Don't have a run, run a run! -light verb constructions and COCs compared · Lower-level schemas: collocations, idioms, register · I have a tale to tell: conclusion and outlook