Chapter Outline of Byzantine history: the political context This chapter goes no further than an attempt at a sketch of the history of the Byzantine ...

In this book, the author analyses the nature of the science of grammar.

_Peirce’s Speculative Grammar: Logic as Semiotics _offers a comprehensive, philologically accurate, and exegetically ambitious developmental account of Peirce’s theory of speculative grammar. The book traces the evolution of Peirce’s grammatical writings from his early research on the classification of arguments in the 1860s up to the complex semiotic taxonomies elaborated in the first decade of the twentieth century. It will be of interest to academic specialists working on Peirce, the history of American philosophy and pragmatism, the philosophy of language, (...) the history of logic, and semiotics. (shrink)

A study of the relation of metaphysics to grammar, placing the central topics of philosophy in an entirely new light.

This is a history of modern linguistics which focuses on the spread and dominance of linguistic theory originating in North America. It concentrates on the theories and influence of Bloomfield and Chomsky, and offers systematic coverage of their enormous contributions to grammatical theory over their lifespan. As well as tracing the intellectual histories of these great figures, and of others in the field, Professor Matthews follows the development and continuity of three dominant grammatical ideas in linguistics. First, the idea (...) that the study of formal relations can and should be separated from that of meaning. Second, that sentences are composed of linear configurations of morphemes. Third, that many aspects of grammar are defined generically. His biographical and theoretical survey will be invaluable to all linguists wishing to trace the origins of their discipline. (shrink)

The object of this work is the interdisciplinary dialogue between natural sciences and Christian theology. The objective is to study the theological, epistemological and semantic conditions that make possible an articulation between scientific worldviews and theological discourses. In this study "to articulate" means that scientific theories and theological discourses do not share the same semantic horizon. At the same time, the verb "to articulate" implies that there is a possible mediation between scientific worldviews and systematic theology. The main thesis of (...) this study is that an articulation between scientific worldviews and systematic theology is possible through the mediation of philosophy. Natural sciences and philosophy refer to the order of manifestation where real things appear as phenomena. Christian theology refers to the order of revelation where God communicates Himself to the human person. The relationship between these two orders can be expressed with the maxim: neither confusion nor separation. Furthermore, there is a positive formulation of that relation: revelation assumes and transfigures what is manifested. This model of relation is the fundamental theological condition that makes possible an articulation between natural sciences and theology. In addition, there is an epistemological condition: the homologous rational structure of each rational field (sciences, philosophy and theology). Based on these theological and epistemological conditions, this research work proposes a theological method that articulates scientific worldviews into systematic theology through the mediation of philosophy. The method seeks two objectives: (a) that theology remains in ist epistemological boundaries and (b) to respect symmetrically the autonomy of natural sciences' procedures. Finally, the proposed method is applied to three examples: the elaboration of theological discourses, in dialogue with natural sciences, about (i) creation, (ii) human action and (iii) a spiritual contemplation of God's presence in the world. This research follows the contributions of two major scholars of the twentieth century: Jean Ladriere and Xavier Zubiri. Our considerations are based on the scholars' analyses of the plurality of epistemologies and their analyses of the intellectual act. (shrink)

This book offers a unique synthesis of past and current work on the structure, meaning, and use of negation and negative expressions, a topic that has engaged thinkers from Aristotle and the Buddha to Freud and Chomsky. Horn's masterful study melds a review of scholarship in philosophy, psychology, and linguistics with original research, providing a full picture of negation in natural language and thought; this new edition adds a comprehensive preface and bibliography, surveying research since the book's original publication.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:New Comparative Grammar of Greek and LatinMichael WeissAndrew L. Sihler. New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. xxiv + 686 pp. Cloth, $60.00.Exactly one hundred years ago the seventeenth volume of AJP contained, besides articles about Avestan, Sanskrit, Propertius, and Pliny, an article by Carl Darling Buck called Some General Problems of Greek Ablaut. In later years (...) C.D. Buck went on to become the English–speaking classical linguist's great and trusty friend producing a string of invaluable handbooks and textbooks. Finest among these, to my mind, is his Grammar of Oscan and Umbrian, which remains unsurpassed in its combinations of firm linguistic judgment and sound pedagogical method. The same excellent virtues are also found in abundance in Buck's Greek Dialects. But undoubtedly Buck's best–known book is A Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, which has introduced generations of classicists to the field of comparative grammar. In addition to Buck's other virtues this book was also characterized by a wholesome conservativism. By this I mean 1) that Buck did not present what in 1933 was the "cutting edge" line, but instead what the majority of linguists could then have agreed to be generally well–established and 2) that Buck did not burden the beginner with long discussions of his own views on certain controversial points. The end result was a book of long–lasting value. But as time passed the gap between what was generally accepted by the majority of linguists and what was presented in Buck's book widened. The pages on ablaut, for example, are now hopelessly outdated. A replacement of Buck has for many years now been an urgent desideratum. In my own teaching I have foregone the use of Buck entirely relying instead on handouts and the blackboard.It was with great eagerness, therefore, that I looked forward to the publication of Andrew L. Sihler's New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin (NCGGL) and I should state at the outset that Professor Sihler deserves the gratitude of all classical linguists for having undertaken the daunting task of rewriting and expanding Buck. Sihler's NCGGL does follow Buck's format very closely. Part I, an introduction (1–34), covers the Indo–European family of languages, the external history of Greek and Latin, and the Greek and Latin writing systems. Part II (35–242) covers the historical phonology in the order made traditional by Buck. Part III (243–368) deals with nominal morphology. Part IV [End Page 670] (369–401) discusses the pronouns in much greater detail than Buck. Part V (402– 441) is about the numerals and prepositions. Part VI (442–629) discusses verbal morphology. I will use this book the next time I teach comparative grammar. That said, I cannot wholeheartedly endorse Sihler's book. For it suffers from many serious flaws both pedagogical and scientific.In general terms, the absence of a single bibliographical reference is unfortunate. This makes NCGGL a dead end for the self–teaching student. Even when it would have cost Sihler little space, he avoids mentioning scholars by name and sticks to formulations like "some see evidence..." (38) or "one view holds..." (45). In contrast, Buck's book, although not generous with footnotes, did at least have a basic bibliography. Would five pages or so of bibliography have added too much bulk to a book that is already almost 700 pages long?Another overarching problem is the great deal of space spent on Sihler's personal views (and on those of Warren Cowgill, Sihler's acknowledged master). For example, most of 176 is devoted to a discussion of Edgerton's Law and the converse of Siever's Law, which S. himself has elsewhere shown to be without basis (Language 45 [1969] 248–73).Why even mention these outmoded opinions in an introductory textbook? Sihler's discussion of Lindeman's Law (177) involves a rather more detailed analysis of Vedic metrical evidence than the average classicist needs to know. In order to accommodate these views, and also, more justifiably, to include a fuller discussion of the evidence, Sihler has eliminated Buck's sections... (shrink)

This paper is devoted to theoretical and methodical considerations on our study and understanding of macroscopic transitions in the world of Sanskrit intellectuals from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century (cf. Pollock, Indian Economic and Social History Review 38(1):3–31, 2001). It is argued that compared to his immediate predecessors Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita’s contribution to Prakriyā grammars was modest. It was to a large extent on account of changed circumstances—over the centuries mainly a slow but steady decline—in the position of Sanskrit (...) and the general public’s need for a simple definition of authoritatively correct Sanskrit that Bhaṭṭoji’s grammar met with success so quickly, so widely, and so solidly. I once knew a little boy in England who asked his father, “Do fathers always know more than sons?” and the father said “Yes.” The next question was, “Daddy, who invented the steam engine?” and the father said “James Watt.” And then the son came back with “But why didn’t James Watt’s father invent it?” Gregory Bateson (1972, p. 21). (shrink)

This new and important study of semantic change examines how new meanings arise through language use, especially the various ways in which speakers and writers experiment with uses of words and constructions in the flow of strategic interaction with addressees. In the last few decades there has been growing interest in exploring systemicities in semantic change from a number of perspectives including theories of metaphor, pragmatic inferencing, and grammaticalization. Like earlier studies, these have for the most part been based on (...) data taken out of context. This book is the first detailed examination of semantic change from the perspective of historical pragmatics and discourse analysis. Drawing on extensive corpus data from over a thousand years of English and Japanese textual history, Traugott and Dasher show that most changes in meaning originate in and are motivated by the associative flow of speech and conceptual metonymy. (shrink)

In Being Another Way, Dustin Klinger recounts the history of how medieval Arabic philosophers in the Islamic East grappled with the logical role of the copula 'to be,' an ambiguity that has bedeviled Western philosophy from Parmenides to the analytic philosophers of today. Working from within a language that has no copula, a group of increasingly independent Arabic philosophers began to critically investigate the semantic role that Aristotle, for many centuries their philosophical authority, invested in the copula as the (...) basis of his logic. Drawing on extensive manuscript research, Klinger breaks through the thicket of unstudied philosophical works to demonstrate the creativity of postclassical Islamic scholarship as it explored the consequences of its intellectual break with the past. Against the still widespread view that intellectual ferment all but disappeared during the period, Klinger shows how these intellectuals over the centuries developed and refined a sophisticated philosophy of language that speaks to core concerns of contemporary linguistics and philosophy. (shrink)

Frege's invention of the predicate calculus has been the most influential event in the history of modern logic. The calculus’ place in logic is so central that many philosophers think, in fact, of it when they think of logic. This book challenges the position in contemporary logic and philosophy of language of the predicate calculus claiming that it is based on mistaken assumptions. Ben-Yami shows that the predicate calculus is different from natural language in its fundamental semantic charac.

This volumes aim is to provide an introduction to Carnaps book from a historical and philosophical perspective, each chapter focusing on one specific issue. The book will be of interest not only to Carnap scholars but to all those interested in the history of analytical philosophy.

Collecting, comparing, and computing molecular sequences are among the most prevalent practices in contemporary biological research. They represent a specific way of producing knowledge. This paper explores the historical development of these practices, focusing on the work of Margaret O. Dayhoff, Richard V. Eck, and Robert S. Ledley, who produced the first computer-based collection of protein sequences, published in book format in 1965 as the Atlas of Protein Sequence and Structure. While these practices are generally associated with the rise of (...) molecular evolution in the 1960s, this paper shows that they grew out of research agendas from the previous decade, including the biochemical investigation of the relations between the structures and function of proteins and the theoretical attempt to decipher the genetic code. It also shows how computers became essential for the handling and analysis of sequence data. Finally, this paper reflects on the relationships between experimenting and collecting as two distinct “ways of knowing” that were essential for the transformation of the life sciences in the twentieth century. (shrink)

i How can one talk about 'understanding' and 'not understanding' a proposition? Surely it is not a proposition until it's understood ? ...

This volume covers a broad spectrum of research into the role of events in grammar. It addresses event arguments and thematic argument structure, the role of events in verbal aspectual distinctions, events and the distinction between stage and individual level predicates, and the role of events in the analysis of plurality and scope relations. It is of interest to scholars and students of theoretical linguistics, philosophers of language, computational linguists, and computer scientists.

The contributions to this volume are concerned with questions of form, function, and genesis of canonical switch-reference systems.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 122.3 (2001) 405-413 [Access article in PDF] Boxers and Generals At Mount Eryx David A. Traill The boxing match between Dares and Entellus gives rise to one of the most unusual similes in the Aeneid. Entellus, the older man, stands his ground, warily watching his opponent and dodging the blows, while Dares, the younger man, dances around him, looking for an opening. Dares' restless probing (...) is compared to the efforts of a general to find a weak spot in the defenses of a besieged mountain stronghold (5.437-42):stat gravis Entellus nisuque immotus eodemcorpore tela modo atque oculis vigilantibus exit.ille, velut celsam oppugnat qui molibus urbem440aut montana sedet circum castella sub armis,nunc hos, nunc illos aditus, omnemque pererratarte locum et variis adsultibus inritus urget. Stolidly, Entellus stands his ground and, poised in the same stance, dodges the blows with body movements only and with watchful eyes. Dares, like one who attacks a city towering high with massive walls or invests a mountain stronghold with armed troops, looks for a way in, now here, now there, and skillfully ranges over the whole terrain, pressing the attack with varied but futile assaults. Like the famous opening simile of the Aeneid (1.148-53), in which Neptune's quelling of the storm is compared to the calming effect of an honored statesman's eloquence on a disorderly crowd, the comparison of the boxer to the besieging general is distinctly Roman and quite unexpected. Both similes are unexpected in that they are, in a sense, inverted. 1 Comparing the hush that spreads over an unruly crowd to the sudden calming of a storm would have been straightforward and traditional, but the reverse is striking. Similarly, comparing two well-matched [End Page 405] generals to opponents in a boxing match was rather trite by Virgil's day. Inverted, however, the simile is fresh and arresting. 2 John Conington (1884, 373) assures us that "the comparison is Vergil's own." This is certainly true in the strict sense, but the whole truth is considerably more complex.The intrusion of a Roman ethos into the scene and the reference to siege warfare invite us to wonder if Virgil may be making an allusion here to later Roman history. Heinze, however, maintains that in the boxing match, in contrast to the boat race, Virgil "strongly emphasizes the mythical aspect" and "is careful to avoid making any historical implications." 3 Perhaps taking their cue from Heinze, scholars have tended to eschew any consideration of historical implications and to focus on how Virgil has shaped for his own purposes the material he has borrowed from earlier authors. 4 In this article I will argue that historical implications were very much on Virgil's mind and that he used the boxing match to link the Trojan present to the Roman future.First, let us consider where the boxing match takes place. Aeneas and his followers are forced ashore by a storm in the vicinity of Drepana--the inlaetabilis ora (3.707) where Anchises died a year earlier. While they are still at sea, Palinurus indicates that the litora... fida of Eryx and the Sicanian harbor (Drepana, though the name is used only in bk. 3) are not far off (5.23-24). Acestes sees them "procul ex celso... vertice montis" (5.35). This can only mean the summit of Mount Eryx itself or the top of [End Page 406] one of its spurs, as Trápani (Drepana) itself is so low-lying that the buildings "seem to float upon the waters" (Freeman 1891, 199). Once ashore, presumably at the harbor of Drepana, Aeneas delivers a speech, in which he points out that one year after his father's death the gods have brought him "ad cineres ipsius et ossa parentis" (5.55). He then leads a procession to the tomb, where ritual offerings are made (5.75-103). These rites are followed after an eight-day interval by the games. The first of these, the boat race (5.114-285), naturally takes place... (shrink)

What is the nature of a conceptual scheme? Are there alternative conceptual schemes? If so, are some more justifiable or correct than others? The later Wittgenstein already addresses these fundamental philosophical questions under the general rubric of "grammar" and the question of its "arbitrariness"--and does so with great subtlety. This book explores Wittgenstein's views on these questions. Part I interprets his conception of grammar as a generalized version of Kant's transcendental idealist solution to a puzzle about necessity. It also (...) seeks to reconcile Wittgenstein's seemingly inconsistent answers to the question of whether or not grammar is arbitrary by showing that he believed grammar to be arbitrary in one sense and non-arbitrary in another. Part II focuses on an especially central and contested feature of Wittgenstein's account: a thesis of the diversity of grammars. The author discusses this thesis in connection with the nature of formal logic, the limits of language, and the conditions of semantic understanding or access. Strongly argued and cleary written, this book will appeal not only to philosophers but also to students of the human sciences, for whom Wittgenstein's work holds great relevance. (shrink)

Ethics and the History of Indian Philosophy (Motilal Banarsidass 2007). Regretfully, it is not an uncommon view in orthodox Indology that Indian philosophers were not interested in ethics. This claim belies the fact that Indian philosophical schools were generally interested in the practical consequences of beliefs and actions. The most popular symptom of this concern is the doctrine of karma, according to which the consequences of actions have an evaluative valence. Ethics and the History of Indian Philosophy argues (...) that the orthodox view in Indology concerning Indian ethics is false. The first half the book deals with theoretical issues in studying ethics: defining moral terms, understanding the subject matter of ethics so as to transcend culturally specific substantive commitments and touches upon issues of cross-cultural hermeneutics and translation. The second half consists of a systematic explication of the moral philosophical aspects of nine major Indian philosophical schools. I argue that “dharma” in its various uses in Indian philosophy is always rationally treated as a moral term—even in so called “ontological” employments of the term as seen in Buddhism and Jainism. In understanding “dharma” in this manner, the Indian philosophical tradition is replete with different versions of moral realism that fit tidily with other philosophical commitments of Indian philosophers. Pains are taken to show the breath of moral philosophical disagreement in this tradition. On a comparative note, some Indian moral philosophy resembles realist approaches of the Western tradition (such as the Non-natural realism of Neo-Platonism, or the Naturalism of Utilitarianism). Out of the major Indian philosophical schools, a slim minority are shown to be committed to moral irrealism while some are shown to regard their entire philosophical orientation as firmly planted within moral philosophy (such as Jainism, Buddhism, Purva Mimamsa and Yoga). In response to those who would argue that what Indian philosophers meant by “dharma” is very different from what moral philosophers in the West have meant by “ethical” or “good,” I argue that this is as vacuous as noting that Utilitarians have a different conception of the good from Deontologists. If philosophy is concerned with theoretical debate, as I argue it is, philosophical terms function to articulate such disagreements. The various seemingly desperate uses of “dharma” in the Indian tradition are no longer confusing or disorderly when we understand the theoretico-philosophical function of this term in Indian philosophical disputes. -/- The second edition contains an additional chapter that addresses the colonial and political context of the study of Indian Ethics. (shrink)

It is the aim of INDICES to document recent explorations in the various fields of philosophical logic and formal linguistics and their applications in other disciplines. The main emphasis of this series is on self-contained monographs covering particular areas of recent research and surveys of methods, problems, and results in all fields of inquiry where recourse to logical analysis and logical methods has been fruitful. INDICES will contain monographs dealing with the central areas of philosophical logic (extensional and intensional systems, (...) indexical logics, non-classical logics, philosophy of logic, etc.) as well as studies in which these systems are applied to specific issues in philosophy, in the formal semantics of natural languages, the foundations of linguistic theory, in computational linguistics, and in theoretical computer science. Constructive type theory was first presented in 1970, by the Swedish logician Per Martin-Lof. It has become one of the main approaches used in the foundations of mathematics and computer science. But it has remained relatively unknown among linguists and philosophers, although it provides a considerable extension of the concepts and techniques of logic. The book first gives an introduction to type theory from the point of view of linguistics and the philosophy of language. Type theory is then applied in the areas of quantification, anaphora, temporal reference, and the structure of text and discourse. By virtue of the type-theoretical concepts of proof object and context, various phenomena of dependence and progression in language can be discussed in precise terms, and several well-known problems can be solved. A categorial grammar is presented togenerate formally a fragment of English, together with an example of a computer implementation. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION WERNER ABRAHAM, LACI MARÁCZ, SJAAK DE MEY & WIM SCHERPENISSE University of Groningen The Groningen Conference on Topic, ...

Because of the ease of their implementation, attribute-value based theories of grammar are becoming increasingly popular in theoretical linguistics as an alternative to transformational accounts and in computational linguistics. This book provides a formal analysis of attribute-value structures, their use in a theory of grammar and the representation of grammatical relations in such theories of grammar. It provides a classical treatment of disjunction and negation, and explores the linguistic implications of different representations of grammatical relations. Mark Johnson is assistant professor (...) in cognitive and linguistic sciences at Brown University. He was a Fairchild postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the 1987-88 academic year. (shrink)

Barry Schein proposes combining a second-order treatment of plurals with DonaldDavidson's suggestion that there are positions for reference to events in ordinary predicates inorder to account for several of the more puzzling features of ...

This volume gathers papers, which were read at the congress held at the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Toledo (Spain), in September 2007, under the general subject of phenomenology. The book is devoted to Wittgenstein s thoughts on phenomenology. One of its aims is to consider and examine the lasting importance of phenomenology for philosophic discussion. For E. Husserl phenomenology was a discipline that endeavoured to describe how the world is constituted and experienced through a series of conscious acts. (...) His fundamental concept was that of intentional consciousness. What did drag Wittgenstein into working on phenomenology? In his 'middle period' work, Wittgenstein used the headline 'Phenomenology is Grammar'. These cornerstones can be signalled by notions like language, grammar, rule, visual space versus Euclidean space, minima visibilia and colours. L. Wittgenstein s main interest takes the form of a research on language.". (shrink)

Bursill-Hall, writing as a linguist, has produced a book of interest and use to all students of philosophy who are intrigued either by medieval or by modern theories of language, or by both. Bursill-Hall’s book is the first full-length presentation of this material in English. After a brief, not to say, desultory, survey of the history of linguistic theory from the Greeks until the appearance of the so-called Modistae, the author discusses the descriptive technique and the terminology of the (...) speculative grammarians. The third chapter, "Metalanguage," offers a valuable analysis of the basic "elements" and "categories" of modistic grammar. One especially striking feature of this chapter is the author’s account of the sequence of operations through which a vox, or meaningless sound, becomes, first, a dictio, or sound capable of signifying, and, then, a pars orationis, a part of speech or word-class, capable of entering into syntactic relations with other partes orationis so as to produce a meaningful and well-formed sentence. The next four chapters form the core of the work. Taking as his primary sources the Belgian Siger of Courtrai, the German Thomas of Erfurt, and the Dane Martin of Dacia, Bursill-Hall expounds in detail the modistic treatments of the essential, specific and accidental features of the declinable and indeclinable word-classes and the modistic theories of syntax. An evaluative conclusion comparing modistic and modern linguistic theory is followed by a series of appendices in which detailed diagrams make visible the definitions and interrelations of the various modes and partes orationis in the texts of Siger, Thomas and Martin. The work includes a useful bibliography, a table of passages cited from medieval authors, an index of examples cited in the main text, an index of names and an index of subjects. The exposition and the apparatus combine to yield a volume of quickly apparent value for both reference and research. This said, and with due regard for the fact that the author is writing as a professional linguist, it must be said that a certain sense of philosophical disappointment cannot be suppressed. Looked at linguistically, speculative grammar is an attempt to inventory and describe those features of word-classes in virtue of which an element of language is potentially expressive of meaning and capable of entering into syntactic relations with other significant elements. Looked at philosophically, speculative grammar is a theory of the intelligibility of linguistic expressions—cp. Thomas of Erfurt, #225: the end served by a complete expression is "to express a composite mental concept and to generate a perfect understanding in the mind of the hearer." Intelligibility is seen in this theory as the product of the concurrence or interpenetration of the ontological constitution of extramental realities, the apprehensive powers of the intellect and the manners of signifying conferred by the intellect on the linguistic medium in accordance with its appreciation of extramental reality. The author is certainly aware of the philosophical matrix of the grammatical theories he rehearses. At the same time, he seems to give these underlying philosophical considerations rather short shrift. To say, as he does, that the Modistae "seem to have been unaware of... the fact that their theories were in fact a projection into reality of the basic patterns of the language in which they were expressed," is surely not to do justice to the complex ontological, epistemological and semantic issues informing their work. Similarly, a statement that comparison between modistic and modern theories faces the difficulty that "the medieval vision of man in his environment and the metaphysical theories of the world are entirely different from those of today" is, at best, uninformative and, at worst, a piece of vaporous historicism. At other times, it is not entirely clear what interpretation the author is recommending. This is especially true of his remarks about the inactive character of the modus intelligendi. While the Modistae were, after all, doing grammar and not epistemology or, should one say, rational psychology, still, their grammatical theory rests on their insistence that the forms of language are linked appropriately to the forms of being and it is the modus intelligendi activus that is responsible both for the possibility and the success of this linkage. This volume is well-produced and almost completely free of misprints. However, the obnoxiously high price asked by the publisher is not justified either by the quality of production or by the inclusion of numerous Latin citations; it only serves, I fear, as a barrier to the wide circulation the book deserves.—D. L. (shrink)

Interesting observations and problems emerge as the author pursues a complete calculus of an adverbial logic. Author Bartsch establishes a total of 18 adverbial subcategories and proposes an equal number of logico-semantic basic constructions in a predicate logical notation to explain them. The logico-semantic basic constructions bring out certain aspects of adverbial semantics, insofar as they can be specified by predicate logical means. However, for a logical and linguistic analysis of adverbials to be complete, sentence semantic analysis - provided it (...) is carried out in a clear-cut manner with clear paraphrasing criteria, unambiguous notation and complete interpretation rules - must be supplemented by and combined with 'word semantics' and syntax in a more elaborate way. The topic of adverbial semantics is a complicated and rewarding field, and this book contains enough suggestions, challenging hypotheses and stimulating observations, so that anybody directly concerned with the study of adverbials will want to have a look. (shrink)

An analysis of the structural properties of collections or pluralities, homogeneous objects like water, and the semantics and philosophy of events.

In this book, ten essays examine the contributions made to the issue of the philosophical significance of grammar by Frege, Russell, Bradley, Husserl, Wittgenstein, Carnap and Heidegger.

This unusual book takes the form of a dialogue between a linguist and another scientist. This unusual book takes the form of a dialogue between a linguist and another scientist. The dialogue takes place over six days, with each day devoted to a particular topic--and the ensuing digressions. The role of the linguist is to present the fundamentals of the minimalist program of contemporary generative grammar. Although the linguist serves essentially as a voice for Noam Chomsky's ideas, he is not (...) intended to be a portrait of Chomsky himself. The other scientist functions as a kind of devil's advocate, making the arguments that linguists tend to face from those in the "harder" sciences. The author does far more than simply present the minimalist program. He conducts a running argument over the status of theoretical linguistics as a natural science. He raises the general issues of how we conceive words, phrases, and transformations, and what these processes tell us about the human mind. He also attempts to reconcile generative grammar with the punctuated equilibrium version of evolutionary theory. In his foreword, Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini says, "The vast number of readers who have been enthralled by Goedel, Escher, Bach may well like also this syntactic companion, a sort of 'Chomsky, Fibonacci, Bach.'". (shrink)

In recent years, the study of formal semantics and formal pragmatics has grown tremendously showing that core aspects of language meaning can be explained by a few principles. These principles are grounded in the logic that is behind - and tightly intertwined with - the grammar of human language. In this book, some of the most prominent figures in linguistics, including Noam Chomsky and Barbara H. Partee, offer new insights into the nature of linguistic meaning and pave the way for (...) the further development of formal semantics and formal pragmatics. Each chapter investigates various dimensions in which the logical nature of human language manifests itself within a language and/or across languages. Phenomena like bare plurals, free choice items, scalar implicatures, intervention effects, and logical operators are investigated in depth and at times cross-linguistically and/or experimentally. This volume will be of interest to scholars working within the fields of semantics, pragmatics, language acquisition and psycholinguistics. (shrink)

This article examines the English scholar James Cowles Prichard's attention to language and comparative philology within his wider project on the natural history of man. It reveals that linguistic evidence was among the most important elements for Prichard in his overarching scientific aim of investigating human physical diversity, and served as the evidential foundation for his ethnology. His work on Celtic comparative philology made him not only one of the earliest British adopters of German comparative grammar, (...) but a comparative philologist of European stature in his own right. More generally, linguistic evidence helped Prichard to keep his magnum opus, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, as logically ordered as possible, and therefore to turn ethnology into a discipline with analytical aspirations on a global scale. (shrink)

In this book, a new theory of grammar based on word order is proposed: a deep word order as the multipartioned communicative-information structure of the ...

This handbook provides a critical guide to the most central proposition in modern linguistics: the notion, generally known as Universal Grammar, that a universal set of structural principles underlies the grammatical diversity of the world's languages. Part I considers the implications of Universal Grammar for philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language, and examines the history of the theory. Part II focuses on linguistic theory, looking at topics such as explanatory adequacy and how phonology and semantics fit into (...) Universal Grammar. Parts III and IV look respectively at the insights derived from UG-inspired research on language acquisition, and at comparative syntax and language typology, while part V considers the evidence for Universal Grammar in phenomena such as creoles, language pathology, and sign language. The book will be a vital reference for linguists, philosophers, and cognitive scientists. (shrink)