Limiting the Arbitrary: Linguistic Naturalism and Its Opposites in Plato's Cratylus and the Modern Theories of LanguageThe idea that some aspects of language are 'natural', while others are arbitrary, artificial or derived, runs all through modern linguistics, from Chomsky's GB theory and Minimalist program and his concept of E- and I-language, to Greenberg's search for linguistic universals, Pinker's views on regular and irregular morphology and the brain, and the markedness-based constraints of Optimality Theory. This book traces the heritage of this linguistic naturalism back to its locus classicus, Plato's dialogue Cratylus. The first half of the book is a detailed examination of the linguistic arguments in the Cratylus. The second half follows three of the dialogue's naturalistic themes through subsequent linguistic history - natural grammar and conventional words, from Aristotle to Pinker; natural dialect and artificial language, from Varro to Chomsky; and invisible hierarchies, from Jakobson to Optimality Theory - in search of a way forward beyond these seductive yet spurious and limiting dichotomies. |
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Limiting the Arbitrary: Linguistic naturalism and its opposites in Plato's ... John E. Joseph Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2000 |
Limiting the Arbitrary: Linguistic Naturalism and Its Opposites in Plato's ... John Earl Joseph Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2000 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
abstract according actual answer appears arbitrary argument asks believe called century Chomsky clear common concept concerned connection convention core correctness correlation course CRAT Cratylus derivation determined dialects dialogue discussion distinction earlier elements English essence established etymology example exist expressed fact function further give given grammar Greek HERM Hermogenes human idea Ideal Form imitation individual Italy Jakobson kind knowledge language langue later least less letter limited linguistic logic mark matter meaning mind nature nomos nouns objects opposite original particular passage perhaps person physis Plato political position possible principle question reality reason reference rhetoric rules Saussure seems sense signify signs simply Socrates sounds speaking speech standard structure suggests taken teaching theory things thought tion true truth understanding universal verbs whole words
Beliebte Passagen
Seite 156 - It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug.
Seite 108 - Thus we may conceive how words, which were by nature so well adapted to that purpose, come to be made use of by men as the signs of their ideas ; not by any natural connexion that there is between particular articulate sounds and certain ideas, for then there would be but one language amongst all men ; but by a voluntary imposition, whereby such a word is made arbitrarily the mark of such an idea.
Seite 156 - In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is to surrender to them. When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing, you probably hunt about till you find the exact words that seem to fit it.
Seite 109 - ... every man has so inviolable a liberty to make words stand for what ideas he pleases, that no one hath the power to make others have the same ideas in their minds that he has, when they use the same words that he does.
Seite 157 - Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don't know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism...
Seite 99 - At varios linguae sonitus natura subegit mittere et utilitas expressit nomina rerum, non alia longe ratione atque ipsa videtur protrahere ad gestum pueros infantia linguae, cum facit ut digito quae sint praesentia monstrent. sentit enim vim quisque suam quod possit abuti.
Seite 37 - What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer?
Seite 109 - ... words, in their primary or immediate signification, stand for nothing but the ideas in the mind of him that uses them, how imperfectly soever or carelessly those ideas are collected from the things which they are supposed to represent.
Seite 156 - This invasion of one's mind by ready-made phrases (lay the foundations, achieve a radical transformation) can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one's brain.
Verweise auf dieses Buch
Language in Language Teacher Education H. R. Trappes-Lomax,Gibson Ferguson Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2002 |
History of Linguistics 2005: Selected Papers from the Tenth International ... Douglas A. Kibbee Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2007 |
Bibliografische Informationen
| Titel | Limiting the Arbitrary: Linguistic Naturalism and Its Opposites in Plato's Cratylus and the Modern Theories of Language Band 96 von Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science: Studies in the history of the language sciences Band 96 von Studies in the History of the Language Sciences Series |
| Autor/in | John Earl Joseph |
| Verlag | John Benjamins Publishing, 2000 |
| ISBN | 1556197497, 9781556197499 |
| Länge | 224 Seiten |
| Zitat exportieren | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |