From Whorf to Montague

From Whorf to Montague PDF

Author: Pieter A. M. Seuren

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-09

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0199682194

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book explores the relations between language, the world, and the mind. Pieter Seuren argues that language requires a theory with abstract principles and that grammars are neither autonomous nor independent of meaning but mediate between propositionally structured thoughts and systems, such as speech, for the production of utterances.

From Whorf to Montague

From Whorf to Montague PDF

Author: Pieter A. M. Seuren

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2013-10-03

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0191504734

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book explores the relations between language, the world, the minds of individual speakers, and the collective minds of particular language communities. Pieter Seuren examines the status of abstract rule systems underlying speech and considers how much computational power may be attributed to the human mind. The book opens with chapters on the social reality of language, the ancient question of the primacy of language or thought, and the relation between universal and language-specific features. Professor Seuren then considers links between language, logic, and mathematics: he suggests the facts of language require a theory with abstract principles, and that grammars should be seen as mediating between propositionally structured thoughts and systems, such as speech, for the production of utterances. He argues that grammars are neither autonomous nor independent of meaning. He concludes by considering how a fundamental rephrasing of the basic principles of logic could reconnect it with cognition and language and involve a principled rejection of possible-world semantics.

Discourse Analysis and the Greek New Testament

Discourse Analysis and the Greek New Testament PDF

Author: Stanley E. Porter

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-12-28

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 0567709884

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This volume examines and outlines a Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) model of discourse analysis and its relationship to New Testament Greek. The book reflects upon how SFL has grown as a field since it was first introduced to New Testament Greek studies by Stanley E. Porter in the 1980s. Porter and Matthew Brook O'Donnell first introduce basic concepts regarding discourse analysis and the major approaches towards it within New Testament studies. They then provide a detailed exploration of discourse analysis in terms of the textual metafunction, beginning with an introduction to the architecture of language within SFL, before exploring several individual elements within it. By focusing upon these individual components – in particular, theme and information structure, markedness and prominence, and coherence and cohesive harmony – Porter and O'Donnell introduce and exemplify the major resources of the textual metafunction.

New Testament Theology and the Greek Language

New Testament Theology and the Greek Language PDF

Author: Stanley E. Porter

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-10-20

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 1009239996

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In this book, Stanley E. Porter offers a unique, language-based critique of New Testament theology by comparing it to the development of language study from the Enlightenment to the present. Tracing the histories of two disciplines that are rarely considered together, Porter shows how the study of New Testament theology has followed outmoded conceptual models from previous eras of intellectual discussion. He reconceptualizes the study of New Testament theology via methods that are based upon the categories of modern linguistics, and demonstrates how they have already been applied to New Testament Greek studies. Porter also develops a workable linguistic model that can be applied to other areas of New Testament research. Opening New Testament Greek linguistics to a wider audience, his volume offers numerous examples of the productivity of this linguistic model, especially in his chapter devoted to the case study of the Son of Man.

Linguistic Relativity Today

Linguistic Relativity Today PDF

Author: Marcel Danesi

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-03-15

Total Pages: 155

ISBN-13: 1000318168

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This is the first textbook on the linguistic relativity hypothesis, presenting it in user-friendly language, yet analyzing all its premises in systematic ways. The hypothesis claims that there is an intrinsic interconnection between thought, language, and society. All technical terms are explained and a glossary is provided at the back of the volume. The book looks at the history and different versions of the hypothesis over the centuries, including the research paradigms and critiques that it has generated. It also describes and analyzes the relevant research designed to test its validity in various domains of language structure and use, from grammar and discourse to artificial languages and in nonverbal semiotic systems as well. Overall, this book aims to present a comprehensive overview of the hypothesis and its supporting research in a textbook fashion, with pedagogical activities in each chapter, including questions for discussion and practical exercises on specific notions associated with the hypothesis. The book also discusses the hypothesis as a foundational notion for the establishment of linguistic anthropology as a major branch of linguistics. This essential course text inspires creative, informed dialogue and debate for students of anthropology,linguistics, cultural studies, cognitive science, and psychology.

Linguistic Descriptions of the Greek New Testament

Linguistic Descriptions of the Greek New Testament PDF

Author: Stanley E. Porter

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-08-10

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0567710041

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Stanley E. Porter provides descriptions of various important topics in Greek linguistics from a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) perspective; an approach that has been foundational to Porter's long and influential career in the field of New Testament Greek. Deep insights into Porter's understanding of SFL are displayed throughout, based either upon how he positions SFL in relation to other linguistic models, or how he utilizes it to describe topics within Greek and New Testament studies. Porter reflects on his core approach to the Greek New Testament by exploring subjects such as metaphor, rhetoric, cognition, orality and textuality, as well as studies on linguistic schools of thought and traditional grammar.

Understanding Pragmatics

Understanding Pragmatics PDF

Author: Gunter Senft

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-01-21

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 1134645759

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Understanding Pragmatics takes an interdisciplinary approach to provide an accessible introduction to linguistic pragmatics. This book discusses how the meaning of utterances can only be understood in relation to overall cultural, social and interpersonal contexts, as well as to culture specific conventions and the speech events in which they are embedded. From a cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective, this book: debates the core issues of pragmatics such as speech act theory, conversational implicature, deixis, gesture, interaction strategies, ritual communication, phatic communion, linguistic relativity, ethnography of speaking, ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, languages and social classes, and linguistic ideologies incorporates examples from a broad variety of different languages and cultures takes an innovative and transdisciplinary view of the field showing linguistic pragmatics has its predecessor in other disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, ethology, ethnology, sociology and the political sciences. Written by an experienced teacher and researcher, this introductory textbook is essential reading for all students studying pragmatics.

A Refutation of Positivism in Philosophy of Mind

A Refutation of Positivism in Philosophy of Mind PDF

Author: Pieter A.M. Seuren

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-05-05

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 1000880176

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book argues that positivism, though now the dominant paradigm for both the natural and the human sciences, is intrinsically unfit for the latter. In particular, it is unfit for linguistics and cognitive science, where it is ultimately self-destructive, since it fails to account for causality, while the mind, the primary object of research of the human sciences, cannot be understood unless considered to be an autonomous causal force. Author Pieter Albertus Maria Seuren, who died shortly after this manuscript was finished and after a remarkable career, reviews the history of this issue since the seventeenth century. He focuses on Descartes, Leibniz, British Empiricism and Kant, arguing that neither cognition nor language can be adequately accounted for unless the mind is given its full due. This implies that a distinction must be made—following Alexius Meinong, but against Russell and Quine—between actual and virtual reality. The latter is a product of the causally active mind and a necessary ingredient for the setting up of mental models, without which neither cognition nor language can function. Mental models are coherent sets of propositions, and can be wholly or partially true or false. Positivism rules out mental models, blocking any serious semantics and thereby reducing both language and cognition to caricatures of themselves. Seuren presents a causal theory of meaning, linking up language with cognition and solving the old question of what meaning actually amounts to. Key Features: Provides a fundamental reassessment of the methodology of the humanities Makes a distinctive contribution to the conceptual foundations of linguistics and philosophy of mind Explores the philosophical and historical origins of central developments in the human sciences in the past 100 years Offers a new approach to ontology and epistemology in the scientific study of the creative human mind and its products.

The Oxford Handbook of Event Structure

The Oxford Handbook of Event Structure PDF

Author: Robert Truswell

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 737

ISBN-13: 0199685312

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

First detailed survey of research into event structure; Interdisciplinary approach, with insights from linguistics, philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and computer science; Explores both foundational research and new cutting edge developments -

Saussure and Sechehaye: Myth and Genius

Saussure and Sechehaye: Myth and Genius PDF

Author: Pieter Seuren

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-08-13

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 9004378154

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book questions Saussure as great innovator in linguistics, while his junior colleague Sechehaye is finally given the credit he deserves. Both men’s lives and works are discussed in detail against the backdrop of their day and the issues concerned.