From Whorf to Montague : explorations in the theory of language /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Seuren, Pieter A. M.
Edition:	1st ed.
Imprint:	Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2013.
Description:	xviii, 365 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Language:	English
Subject:	Language and languages -- Grammars. Language and languages -- Philosophy. Sociolinguistics. Language and culture. Psycholinguistics. Language and culture. Language and languages -- Grammars. Language and languages -- Philosophy. Psycholinguistics. Sociolinguistics.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/9350918

Hidden Bibliographic Details
Varying Form of Title:	Explorations in the theory of language
ISBN:	9780199682195 0199682194
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 341-355) and index.
Summary:	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. -- Book Jacket.

Table of Contents:

Preface
Abbreviations and symbols
Introduction
1. The settling of a language
1.1. A language as part of social reality
1.2. Languages 'go their own way'
1.2.1. The arbitrary extension of semantic categories
1.2.2. Semantic bleaching
1.2.3. Auxiliation
1.2.4. Perfective auxiliaries: have or be
1.2.5. Subtle near-synonyms: use conditions versus truth conditions
1.3. Creolization: the case of Sranan
1.4. The heteromorphy problem
2. The Whorf hypothesis
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Some history
2.2.1. The Whorf hypothesis in North America
2.2.2. European 'Whorfianism': Leo Weisgerber
2.3. Whorf
2.3.1. The hypothesis analysed
2.3.2. The perennial problem: the direction of causality
2.3.3. Confusing the how and the what
2.3.4. The alleged primacy of language over cognition
2.3.5. Grammar as a formally definable system
2.3.6. Whorf's attitude towards mathematics and the sciences
2.3.7. Levels of thinking
2.3.8. Whorf's arguments: Hopi time and tense, Shawnee sentence types
2.3.9. Language expresses thought: arguments against Whorf
2.4. Experimental testing
2.4.1. Inconclusive experiments
2.4.1.1. Colour
2.4.1.2. Levinson and absolute orientation
2.4.2. Getting closer
2.4.2.1. Bowerman and Choi (2003)
2.4.2.2. Which way does time fly?
2.4.2.3. Handedness
2.4.2.4. Length versus quantity in time measurement expressions
2.5. Conclusion
3. Relativism or a universal theory?
3.1. Some necessary preliminaries
3.1.1. A terminological observation
3.1.2. Some observations regarding scientific methodology
3.2. Some history
3.3. Attitudes
3.4. Further notional clarity
3.5. What are 'universals of language'?
3.6. What to do with counterevidence?
3.7. Modularity, innateness, and the 'no negative evidence' problem
3.7.1. Modularity and innateness
3.7.2. The 'no negative evidence' problem
3.7.2.1. Internal anaphora resolution of definite terms
3.7.2.2. Internal versus external datives
3.7.2.3. English zero-causatives and un-verbs: a universal theory of the lexicon?
3.8. Towards a general theory of human language
3.8.1. A few proposals for universal properties of languages and grammars
3.8.2. How about constituent structure?
3.9. Conclusion
4. What does language have to do with logic and mathematics?
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Language and logic
4.2.1. What is (a) logic?
4.2.2. The tradition
4.2.3. Syntax: the notion of a grammatical algorithm
4.2.4. Semantic syntax: propositions in logic, sentences in language
4.2.5. Semantics: model-theoretic semantic interpretation
4.3. Natural logic and natural set theory
4.4. The importance of scope relations
4.5. Conclusion
5. A test bed for grammatical theories
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Some class A facts
5.2.1. The epithet pronoun test
5.2.2. Topic-comment structure
5.2.2.1. Topic-comment structure and reflexivity
5.2.2.2. Topic-comment structure and anaphoric relations
5.2.2.3. Truth-conditional differences in topic-comment structures
5.2.3. Scope and negation
5.2.3.1. NEG-Raising
5.2.3.2. AUX-Inversion, yes or no?
5.3. Some class B facts
5.3.1. German and Dutch verb clustering
5.3.2. The inflected infinitive in Portuguese
5.4. Conclusion
6. The Chomsky hierarchy in perspective
6.1. Introduction
6.2. What is an algorithm and why is this notion relevant for the study of language?
6.3. The Chomsky hierarchy
6.3.1. The primitive generation of tree structures
6.3.2. Type-3 algorithms
6.3.2.1. Nth-order approximations
6.3.2.2. Entropy as a measure of meaningfulness
6.3.3. Context-free and context-sensitive grammars
6.4. The rise and fall, and then the rise again, of transformational grammar
6.5. Autonomous Syntax and the evolution of language
6.6. Conclusion
7. Reflexivity and identity in language and cognition
7.1. The overall programme
7.2. Semantic reflexivity
7.3. Why do we need the True Binarity Principle?
7.4. The predicate of identity, or rather, identification
7.5. Is identity-be a counterexample to TBP?
7.6. Dynamic sentence meaning: discourse incrementation
7.7. Conclusion
8. The generalized logic hierarchy and its cognitive implications
8.1. Introduction
8.2. The notion of valuation space
8.3. How to construct a VS-model for a logical system
8.4. Valuation spaces and polygons for other logical systems
8.4.1. Aristotelian-Abelardian predicate logic (AAPL)
8.4.2. 'Leaking' the O-corner
8.4.3. Basic-natural predicate logic (BNPL)
8.4.3.1. The inadequacy of the Gricean solution
8.4.3.2. The logical system of BNPL
8.4.3.3. Unilateral and bilateral some: some tentative thoughts
8.4.3.4. The presuppositional solution
8.5. The Blanché hexagon
8.5.1. The logical aspects
8.5.2. Applications to conceptual fields and colours
8.5.3. The bi-triadic nature of the Blanche hexagon and, who knows, of cognition
9. . The intensionalization of extensions
9.1. Introduction
9.2. Some basic notions
9.2.1. Language as a system of conventional signs: what is meaning?
9.2.2. Propositions, intents, and L-propositions
9.2.3. Semantic questionnaires
9.2.4. Grammar, meaning, and cognition
9.2.5. Virtual and actual facts
9.2.6. Truth conditions and use conditions: 'settling' phenomena
9.2.7. Comprehension is part of semantics; interpretation is not
9.2.8. Software realism and weak instrumentalism
9.2.9. Formal explicitation of natural cognitive systems
9.3. Critique of PWS
9.3.1. Foundations and methodology
9.3.2. Empirical inadequacy of PWS
9.3.3. Truth values as extensions and as Boolean 1 and 0
9.4. Intensions and the blocking of substitutivity
9.4.1. Frege's system of extensions and intensions
9.4.2. The cognitive view of intensions
9.5. The Kantian paradox of knowledge and virtual reality
9.6. The new game of extensions and intensions
9.7. The nature of facts
9.8. Valuation spaces
9.9. The truth predicates
9.10. SSV in partiscient contexts
9.10.1. Under surface predicates
9.10.2. Under truth predicates and prepositional operators
9.10.3. Under epistemic modals
9.10.4. Doubtful cases
9.10.5. No happy extensionalist problem
9.11. Quantification
9.12. Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

From Whorf to Montague : explorations in the theory of language /

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