Languages

A Certain Gesture: Evnine's Batman Meme Project and Its Parerga! is an entirely original kind of work. It takes the form of commentaries on memes made with the image of Batman slapping Robin. The commentaries are written as if they were not authored by the same person who made the memes, allowing the author to consider himself and his work from the outside. The book defies genre by mixing discussions of philosophy, psychoanalysis, Judaism, language, and representation with self-writing and autotheory. (...) These are juxtaposed like the items in a cabinet of curiosities or topics in an analytic patient’s free association. Both pre-modern and post-modern in its inspiration, it is cerebral, playful, social, and intensely personal. It contains philosophy, including original philosophical research, but also explores new ways of doing and thinking about philosophy. (shrink)

English is essential as an effective communication tool in both local and international contexts. In addition to being used in schools, it is also a teaching tool in colleges and universities. ESL (English as a Second Language) classes are now required in all educational institutions and can't be skipped. When learning a second language, anyone must be physically, mentally, and emotionally involved to communicate and understand what is being said. This systematic review employed qualitative documentary research and adopted content analysis. (...) Following a random selection of reliable and legitimate sources, purposive sampling was used to conduct a content analysis of the selected papers. For this systematic review, sources from EBSCO, Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, and ScienceDirect were used. The findings reveal that English-language obstacles in this article include English learners' writing, speaking, listening, reading, translation, and interpretation skills. The conclusion focuses on English learning obstacles and their improvement through teaching methods and educational technology adoption. The recommendation is to look into quantitative and qualitative research for further study. (shrink)

This survey explores interactions between syntax and discourse, through a case study of patterns of extraction from coordinate structures. The theoretical breadth of the volume makes it the most complete account of extraction from coordinate structures to date: at first glance, it appears to be a syntactic matter, but the survey raises theoretical and empirical questions not just for syntax, but also across semantics, pragmatics, and discourse structure. Rather than promoting a single analysis, Daniel Altshuler and Robert Truswell outline reasonable (...) hypotheses that allow theoretical conclusions to be deducted from empirical facts. The theoretical conclusions show that coordinate structures have the potential to discriminate between current syntactic theories, and to inform work on the interfaces between syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse. In many cases, however, the necessary empirical work has not yet been carried out, and too much of the literature revolves around the same handful of primarily English examples. The volume offers a starting point for further research on extraction from coordinate structures, particularly in understudied languages, and provides a guide to how to tease out the theoretical implications of empirical findings. (shrink)

Numerous difficulties arising in connection with developing an ontology for linguistic entities can be thought of as manifestations of a more general problem, aptly characterized by David Lewis (1975) as a tension between two conflicting conceptions of language. On the one hand, our best theories model languages as abstract semantic systems—roughly, functions assigning meanings to expressions. On the other hand, we think of languages as contingent and changing social constructs—both grounded in, and grounding, various social relations and institutions of human (...) beings. There are various ways in which these conceptions appear to be in conflict. For instance, if languages are set-theoretical entities—as our best logical and linguistic theories would have it—how do we account for the fact that they change? Or that they could have been different in various respects? And how do we provide principled and noncircular conditions for set-membership, when there appears to be nothing in common to all tokens of the same expression other than belonging to the same type? This paper aims to develop an ontology of linguistic entities—specifically, of languages and linguistic communities—that can resolve these apparent tensions. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss the conceptualization of space as a dimension relevant to personal identity and the central role that is attributed to language with respect to its constitution. It is argued that the identification with a certain geographical space and the use of certain language or linguistic variety can be regarded as crucial for the self-definition of individuals and also groups. We pursue a threefold goal: to highlight the contribution of geographical research to our understanding of the self (...) as a phenomenon situated in space; to discern merits, but also problems related to the recent strong emphasis of the role of language with respect to identity constitution, especially in constructivist and poststructuralist approaches; and on the basis of these findings, to draw conclusions concerning the given and constructed elements of identity, with a particular focus on space and language. In addition to a survey of relevant theoretical positions, empirical examples are presented with the aim to illustrate how geographically marked identity is constituted. (shrink)

This paper is a pastiche of the Lacanian philosopher Renata Salecl, my fourth attempt, combined with a note. In it I present a response I anticipate from analytic philosophy to the thesis that the signifier has priority over the signified: that this thesis is either trivially true or obviously false.

This paper focuses on several morphosyntactic properties of qualitative binominal constructions (QBCs) in a Southern Italo-Romance language spoken in the Apulian town of San Marco in Lamis (Foggia). QBCs are complex noun phrases such as ‘a jewelN1 of a villageN2’. In this language, QBCs appear in two ways: prepositionally (using the preposition də, ‘of’, and allowing definites, indefinites, and demonstratives) and non-prepositionally (only allowing definite nouns with definite articles and not proper names). We propose that in the latter type, N1 (...) and N2 are related by a categorical match in their determiner layer, which we refer to as ‘match D’. N1, a property-denoting element, is embedded as a noun, which allows for two things: 1) the recursive DP strategy found in non-prepositional genitives, and 2) the extension of this mechanism to qualitative phrases, where N1 functions like an adjective. This leads to the impossibility of syntactic operations such as extraction, which we connect to the concept of phase. With non-denominal N1s, the article of N1 is treated as a head-agreeing adjectival linker, which forms a constituent with the modifier but agrees with the head. We argue that a phrase is interpreted as a qualitative binominal if N1 and N2 share the same number features and if the features of N1 do not allow it to be interpreted as the head/possessum of N2. We also discuss external agreement with either noun of the construction, and present data that support the relevance of the [+HUMAN] feature for agreement relations. (forthcoming, Italian Journal of Linguistics). (shrink)

Esta entrevista realizada al primer vicepresidente de la Academia Nacional de Letras de Uruguay, Gerardo Caetano, tiene como propósito debatir sobre la situación política que atraviesa Latinoamérica, a partir de los cuestionamientos que se han hecho acerca de algunos conceptos fundamentales, como el que se entiende por democracia. Las respuestas que brinda el doctor son esenciales, puesto que efectúa un recuento de la historia de los dos últimos siglos para confrontar el panorama que se aprecia en las coyunturas nacionales actuales (...) y el rol que ejercen otras instituciones u organismos, como la prensa. (shrink)

English is spoken all around the world as it is chosen as the second language to speak within most of the countries. However, from the ancient history of the British to come into this South Asian region, the entrance of English as a speaking language happened. Though, after some centuries, the British went out of the mainland of India, it remains the second-largest spoken language there. Here comes another fact; many words in Standard English changed its form. So, this made (...) the dialects as much as changed that many ones refer to English in India as Indian English. In this present time, though, there are hundreds of languages chosen to speak Indian English that differ in many ways. The characters playing English roles also have a dialect changing of English in somewhat ways. Though the grammars and principal terms of English are still the same for Indian English, deviations came across the spoken language in many attributes. This paper identifies the entrance of English in India, the deviation of dialect change in Indian English with examples of characters still making way to English (Both British and Hollywood) movies with the dialects of Indian English many ways. The paper studies those ways and deviations of words in English in India that they use and call it Indian English. (shrink)

Eine Untersuchung der Präpositionen bei Leibniz kann aufgrund ihrer synkatego-rematischen Natur zeigen, in welchem Sinne die Sprache - als strukturiertes, bedeutendes Zeichensystem – das logische Verhältnis unter den Notionen ausdrü-cken kann, und damit der Zusammenhang zwischen Grammatik und Semantik einerseits, und Logik anderseits, erhellen. Meiner Ansicht nach bekommt auch Leibniz' Versuch des Aufbaus einer characteristica universalis dank dieser Per-spektive ein neues Forschungsinteresse. Um das Interesse für diese Redeteile zu wecken, werde ich zuvor in einem kurzen Exkurs die vorgängige Tradition dar-stellen. (...) Das Ziel ist, zu zeigen, was die Unterscheidung zwischen Kategoremen und Synkategoremen innerhalb der Tradition der sogenannten Mentalsprache im-pliziert; welche Fragen ihre Analyse erhoben hat und was diese Unterscheidung bei einem für Leibniz wichtigen Denker, wie Joachim Jungius, bedeutet. Beson-ders zeige ich, wie die Unterscheidung Kategoreme – Synkategoreme der zwi-schen Begriff und modi des Begreifens entspricht. Danach analysiere ich die viel-fältige Betrachtung dieser Redeteile bei Leibniz in Bezug auf seine Zurückfüh-rung der Präpositionen auf eine räumliche Grundbedeutung. Zum Schluss versu-che ich zu zeigen, warum diese Redeteile als cogitationes caecae bei Leibniz interpretiert werden können und welche Schlüsse man aus dieser Bestimmung im Rahmen von Leibniz‟ Sprachphilosophie ziehen darf. (shrink)

Detendo-se na questão do simbólico, que, precedendo e excedendo a razão, se impõe como fundamento da condição de uma existência que não tende a dialogar senão com a possibilidade, o artigo em questão investiga a sua emergência através das formas que se inter-relacionam na constitutividade da realidade (a saber, a linguagem, o mito, a religião), recorrendo à noção do sistema proposto pela leitura de Ernst Cassirer, que instaura um processo que do pertencimento à espécie animal à fala, do mythos ao (...) lógos, acena com a experiência da autoconstrução humana, convergindo para possibilitar, em suma, antes do que o conhecimento do Ser, a sua criação. (shrink)

"O pensamento, dócil à voz do ser, procura encontrar-lhe a palavra através da qual a verdade do ser chegue à linguagem. Apenas quando a linguagem do homem historial emana da palavra, está ela inserida no destino que lhe foi traçado. Atingido, porém, este equilíbrio em seu destino, então lhe acena a garantia da voz silenciosa de ocultas fontes. O pensamento do ser protege a palavra e cumpre nesta solicitude seu destino. Este é o cuidado pelo uso da linguagem. O dizer (...) do pensamento vem do silêncio longamente guardado e da cuidadosa clarificação do âmbito nele aberto. De igual origem é o nomear do poeta. Mas, pelo fato de o igual somente ser igual enquanto é distinto, e o poetar e o pensar terem a mais pura igualdade no cuidado da palavra, estão ambos, ao mesmo tempo, maximamente separados em sua essência. O pensador diz o ser. O poeta nomeia o sagrado.” (Martin Heidegger). Deixando “transparecer” um mistério do Ser, a poesia fenomenológica e neo-simbolista de Quase Sagrado converge para uma mediação entre existência e transcendência através de um conteúdo que desnuda o diálogo entre a finitude e a infinitude que se impõe à experiência do homem como um ser em devir, remetendo à dimensão metafísica da realidade vivida e à linguagem como possibilidade de revelação do Absoluto em uma relação que atribui ao poético a condição originária, qual seja, um lugar de escuta e de resposta que mais do que a representação das coisas, se lhes confere ser e presença. Propondo uma viagem interior ao Ser através de uma abordagem meditativa que possibilita a emergência do essencial em sua condição oculta, Quase Sagrado desvela a riqueza do mistério inesgotável que envolve a Sua manifestação que, escapando ao exercício de fundamentação atrelado ao pensamento, mantém-se sob o abrigo da linguagem que, longe de consistir em um mero instrumento de comunicação ou exteriorização, encerra o pertencimento do homem em sua individualidade concreta e subjetividade empírica às fronteiras da linguagem e implica que a relação do sujeito com a linguagem acena com a sua própria relação com o Ser. Dessa forma, convergindo para o mítico abismo da origem, Quase Sagrado escapa à concepção humanista que atribui ao homem o poder de autoconstituição do eu transcendental e a capacidade de autossuficiência, na medida em que pretende conservar a precariedade da condição que caracteriza a relação do sujeito com o Ser através do simbólico e da linguagem da metáfora que, dialogando com o horizonte pobre e fragmentário do claro-escuro, encerra a possibilidade de revelação que o atalho lógico-racional nega, tendo em vista guardar o sentido que somente emerge na errância e no jogo sem cálculo e destituído de objetivo de um pensamento que não impõe à verdade uma noção baseada na certeza das representações do sujeito em sua ilusória soberania mas vislumbra na sua constituição a ocultação e a dissimulação em um movimento que implica o desvelamento do Ser e o retorno ao seu fundamento. (shrink)

"E como suportaria eu ser homem se o homem não fosse também poeta e decifrador de enigmas e redentor do acaso?" (Friedrich Nietzsche). Destituída de pretérito enquanto dimensão em cujas fronteiras supostamente guarda raízes, emergindo então como tal, a imagem poética, segundo Gaston Bachelard, consiste em uma súbita erupção do psiquismo em um movimento que se sobrepõe à noção de princípio e à relação de causalidade que caracterizam a reflexão filosófica e o pensamento científico no processo de construção lógico-racional, na (...) medida em que escapa ao caráter de um impulso propriamente dito e à condição de eco de um passado, a despeito de sua correspondência com um arquétipo, tendo em vista que, como êxtase, por intermédio da explosão do seu conteúdo imagístico, da sua irrupção, alcança os recônditos do outrora e, dessa forma, desnuda os códigos ético-lógicos e histórico-culturais que interagem no devir da memória e na constituição do seu arcabouço identitário na experiência existencial de transformação de si que repercute sem cessar no instante poético. Carregando uma sonoridade do ser, a imagem que germina do exercício poético e da experiência existencial que a encerra como relação do ente humano enquanto existente singular com o próprio Ser converge para uma fala que envolve o âmago mesmo do ser em uma construção que pressupõe a dialética entre forma e matéria na dimensão da imaginação, na medida em que o verbo que corporifica a criação poética na linguagem guarda correspondência com uma causa formal em um movimento que traz como princípio uma causa sentimental neste esforço cuja instauração conjuga forças imaginantes que, em suma, tendem, ou a se deter nas fronteiras do acontecimento inesperado, ou a se deter nas fronteiras do ser em uma aspiração irreprimível de encontrar em suas profundezas o primitivo e o eterno. Princípio de excitação imediata do devir psíquico, a imaginação institui a ruptura diante do estável que caracteriza o existente singular na ocupação consigo próprio em relação ao processo de produção dos meios de sua existência tanto quanto, dessa forma, de si mesmo, na medida em que converge para as fronteiras que encerram hipóteses de vida através de um movimento que implica a formação de um mundo que, guardando raízes na dimensão onírica, envolve infinitas possibilidades de superação de si em uma construção poética que emerge no ímpeto de devir humano e se torna o ápice de uma inspiração que expõe a palavra em sua condição originária, a saber, nova. Se a imaginação carrega a capacidade de produzir o que se impõe à visão, tornando o homem em sua individualidade concreta criador, na medida em que possibilita trazer à luz o que está para além da apreensão lógico-racional das fronteiras da dimensão do ver em um exercício que se sobrepõe ao modo do ser em sua disposição fática na imanência por intermédio de um processo de derivação que encerra um mundus contra mundum (contra-mundo) e consiste em um movimento que guarda correspondência com o mistério original e originário da formação da forma, diante do qual o criador humano se opõe em virtude do conhecimento da sua condição de “secundaridade” que converge para uma relação que implica a apropriação de um conteúdo através de um horizonte de Revelação e Verdade que tende a torná-lo próprio em uma construção que mantém raízes na translatio ou transposição de uma inexplicabilidade sistemática (verdade) na fusão ou interação do religioso e do mítico que eleva ao topos (ou ou-topos) o poeta na eclosão dialética do pré-texto de transcendência. (shrink)

Near the end of 'Naming the Colours', Lewis (1997) makes an interesting claim about the relationship between linguistic and mental content; we are typically unable to read the content of a belief off the content of a sentence used to express that belief or vice versa. I call this view autonomism. I motivate and defend autonomism and discuss its importance in the philosophy of mind and language. In a nutshell, I argue that the different theoretical roles that mental and linguistic (...) content play suggest these kinds of content should be understood as sensitive to different things. (shrink)

Language defines human existence. Yet defining language is a fraught project. I use the term "language" to refer to a specific mode of information transfer. First, it is a communicative mode. By communication I mean the information transfer serves a function, that is, an activity that occurs because it has increased the evolutionary fitness of ancestors. Secondly, while all communication is governed by norms, human communication, as opposed to biological communication, is governed by norms that have evolved within the learned (...) traditions of individual cultures. The meaning of an assertion in a culture’s language is the set of commitments to which that culture holds its speakers when they utter that assertion. Syntax has appeared in recent evolution to facilitate and enrich the communicative function, but it is a secondary aspect of language. The defining characteristic of human communication, of "language," -- is its capacity to constitute meaning. (shrink)

Throughout most of the 20th century, analytical and reductionist approaches have dominated in biological, social, and humanistic sciences, including linguistics and communication. We generally believed we could account for fundamental phenomena in invoking basic elemental units. Although the amount of knowledge generated was certainly impressive, we have also seen limitations of this approach. Discovering the sound formants of human languages, for example, has allowed us to know vital aspects of the ‘material’ plane of verbal codes, but it tells us little (...) about significant aspects of their social functions. I firmly believe, therefore, that alongside a linguistics that looks ‘inward’ there should also be a linguistics that looks ‘outward’, or one even that is constructed ‘from the outside’, a linguistics that I refer to elsewhere as ‘holistic’ though it could be identified by a different name. My current vision is to promote simultaneously the perspective that goes from the part to the whole and that which goes from the whole to the parts, i.e., both from the top down and from the bottom up. This goal is shared with other disciplines which recognize that many phenomena related to life are interwoven, self-organising, emergent and processual. Thus, we need to re-examine how we have conceived of reality, both the way we have looked at it and the images we have used to talk about it. Several approaches now grouped under the label of complexity have been elaborated towards this objective of finding new concepts and ways of thinking that better fit the complex organisation of facts and events. (shrink)

With reference to Polish logical-philosophical tradition two formal theories of language syntax have been sketched and then compared with each other. The first theory is based on the assumption that the basic linguistic stratum is constituted by object-tokens (concrete objects perceived through the senses) and that the types of such objects (ideal objects) are derivative constructs. The other is founded on an opposite philosophical orientation. The two theories are equivalent. The main conclusion is that in syntactic researches it is redundant (...) to postulate the existence of abstract linguistic entities. Earlier, in a slightly different form, the idea was presented in paper "Logiczne podstawy ontologii składni języka" (1988). (shrink)

Higginbotham argued that certain linguistic items of English, when used in indirect discourse, necessarily trigger first-personal interpretations. They are: the emphatic reflexive pronoun and the controlled understood subject, represented as PRO. PRO is special, in this respect, due to its imposing obligatory control effects between the main clause and its subordinates ). Folescu & Higginbotham, in addition, argued that in Romanian, a language whose grammar doesn’t assign a prominent role to PRO, de se triggers are correlated with the subjunctive mood (...) of certain verbs. That paper, however, didn’t account for the grammatical diversity of the reports that display immunity to error through misidentification in Romanian: some of these reports are expressed by using de se triggers; others are not. Their IEM, moreover, is not systematically lexically controlled by the verbs, via their theta-roles; it is, rather, determined by the meaning of the verbs in question. Given the data from Romanian, I will argue, the phenomenon of IEM cannot be fully explained starting either from the syntactical or the lexical structure of a language. (shrink)

This article introduces a special issue on mechanisms in language evolution research. It describes processes relevant for the emergence of protolanguage and the transition thereof to modern language. Protolanguage is one of the key terms in the field of language evolution, used to designate a hypothesised intermediate stage in the emergence of language present in extinct hominins: qualitatively different from non-human primate communication in possessing some, but not all, of the features that characterise modern language. Much debate in language evolution (...) focuses on the exact delineation of these features, as well as the means whereby the transitions occurred: first from non-human primate communication systems to protolanguage, and then from protolanguage to modern language. In what follows, we first propose a comprehensive typology of protolanguage debates, taking into account the postulated structural organisation of protolanguage, its functions, and its communicative modality. This makes it possible to show how a specific focus on mechanisms and processes deemed relevant for the emergence of these features allows us to assess the explanatory scope of the existing theories of protolanguage. (shrink)

In Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein proposed the notion of meaning that accounts for the large variety of contexts in which we apply the term “meaning”. This paper agreement with the manner in which Wittgenstein enhance his conception of meaning emphasizing his methodology of observation and description of particular cases. By applying a descriptive approach, Wittgenstein demonstrated that meaning of the term does not reside in physical or mental objects as well as in its correlations. As a result of contrasting denotative theory (...) as well as the correspondence theory of meaning and recognizing the inadequacy of the accounts of meaning, he has proposed earlier in his Tractatus. But in later work, he has suggested that only one conception of meaning which could not be invalidated, at least for a large class of cases. This is none other than the notion of meaning which is regarded as public in nature. Consequently, the meaning of a term is not its denotation but its “use” in the language. Hence, by upholding the slogan i.e., “meaning is use” here I want to illustrate the supremacy of use over “naming” concerning to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations. (shrink)

Described as a ‘sort of Human Genome Project for historical linguistics’, the Evolution of Human Languages Project is dedicated to promoting long-range genealogical research into linguistic prehistory. Toward that end, its architects have sought to collect and coordinate evidence of every known human language, roughly 6000 in all, fostering an interdisciplinary and internationally accessible environment for the study of historical universals and contemporary diversity. This article investigates the roots and branches of the Global Lexicostatistical Database – a component project of (...) the EHL. It pays special attention to strategies for encoding epistemological pluralism in a web-based archive of global proportions. (shrink)

How did social communication evolve in primates? In this volume, primatologists, linguists, anthropologists, cognitive scientists and philosophers of science systematically analyze how their specific disciplines demarcate the research questions and methodologies involved in the study of the evolutionary origins of social communication in primates in general, and in humans in particular. In the first part of the book, historians and philosophers of science address how the epistemological frameworks associated with primate communication and language evolution studies have changed over time, and (...) how these conceptual changes affect our current studies on the subject matter. In the second part, scholars provide cutting-edge insights into the various means through which primates communicate socially in both natural and experimental settings. They examine the behavioral building blocks by which primates communicate, and they analyze what the cognitive requirements are for displaying communicative acts. Chapters highlight cross-fostering and language experiments with primates, primate mother-infant communication, the display of emotions and expressions, manual gestures and vocal signals, joint attention, intentionality and theory of mind. The primary focus of the third part is on how these various types of communicative behavior possibly evolved, and how they can be understood as evolutionary precursors to human language. Leading scholars analyze how both manual and vocal gestures gave way to mimetic and imitational protolanguage, and how the latter possibly transitioned into human language. In the final part, we turn to the hominin lineage, and anthropologists, archeologists and linguists investigate what the necessary neurocognitive, anatomical and behavioral features are in order for human language to evolve, and how language differs from other forms of primate communication. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene el objetivo de explorar algunas funciones semióticas que constituyen el espacio urbano. Se revisarán algunas categorías y operaciones semióticas relevantes en la comprensión del espacio para que, desde ahí, se pueda explorar el sentido de la noción Centro Histórico como un concepto fundamental en la construcción del imaginario social en las ciudades de occidente.

Recensione del testo di M. FOUCAULT, Il bel rischio. Conversazione con Claude Bonnefoy.

Do metaphorical sentences express facts or represent states of affairs in the world? Can a metaphorical statement tell us ‘what there is’? These questions raise the issue of whether metaphors can be used to make truth-claims; that is, whether metaphors can be regarded as assertions that can be evaluated as true or false. Some theorists on metaphor have argued for a negative answer to the above-mentioned questions. They have claimed, among others, that metaphorical utterances are non-descriptive uses of language (Blackburn (...) 1998); truth is not the constitutive aim of metaphors (Lamarque and Olsen 1994); metaphorical sentences do not have propositional contents (Davidson 1979; Cooper 1986; Rorty 1987, 1989; Lepore and Stone 2010, 2015); metaphorical utterances are neither assertions nor expressions of beliefs (Loewenberg 1973, 1975; Davies 1982; Davies 1984; Blackburn, 1984). I discuss a particular view, Metaphorical Expressivism, which exploits the relationship between truth, belief and assertion, and argues for the irrelevancy of truth to metaphors on the premise that metaphorical utterances do not count as assertions and that they do not count as the expression of beliefs. The denial of the truth-evaluability of metaphors on this view, I argue, is a product of an unmotivated tendency to see truth and meaning in terms of the portrayal of facts and a commitment to two untenable principles: literalism and representationalism. (shrink)

Mandarin focus particles systematically have heterogeneous uses. By examining details of two focus particles jiu ‘only’ and dou ‘even’, this paper explores the hypothesis that varieties of alternatives give rise to systematic ‘ambiguities’. Specifically, by positing sum-based alternative sets and atom-based ones, it maintains unambiguous semantics of jiu as onlyweak and dou as even, while deriving their variability through interaction with alternatives. Independently motivated analyses of distributive/collective readings and contrastive topics, combined with varieties of alternatives, deliver the full range of (...) facts concerning jiu and dou. Theoretically, the paper illustrates an integration of Link, Landman’s theory of pluralites into Rooth’s alternative semantics. (shrink)

This paper proposes a model for the analysis of emotions in which each emotion word in each language is made up of a universal component and a language-specific component; the universal component is drawn from a set of universal human emotions which underlie all emotion words in all languages, and the language-specific component involves a language-particular thought pattern which is expressed as part of the meanings of a variety of different words in the language. The meanings of a variety of (...) emotion words of Biblical Hebrew are discussed and compared with the meanings of English words with the same general meaning; it is shown that a number of the Biblical Hebrew words directly represent the biblical conception of God and the role of God combined with one or another of the proposed universal emotions. (shrink)

The present article analyzes the foreign language teaching approaches in the studying process of social and cultural sciences such as social philosophy, political science, cultural studies, psychology, sociology, history and others that possess a number of units and structural elements of the social and humanitarian sciences; The article defines the importance of facing to the cultural and geocultural values during the foreign languages studying and reveals its significance. Each of the above sciences studies the specific features of geoculture which can (...) extend our knowledge by the means of foreign language on the one hand and to master the foreign language with the help of the mentioned subjects from the other hand. (shrink)

One of the earliest Italian printed references to John Dee’s Monas hieroglyphica is generally considered to be in Giulio Cesare Capaccio’s Delle imprese, published in Naples in 1592. In the same year, however, another work was published, this time in Cosenza, in which the Monas featured prominently. Paolo Antonio Foscarini’s Scientiarum et artium omnium ferme anacephalaeosis theoretica, a previously unknown work, is a booklet containing 344 theses that the Carmelite friar and theologian Foscarini prepared for a disputation in honour of (...) the new head of his order. Foscarini devoted eleven of those theses to hieroglyphs, taking several of them almost verbatim from the Monas. This essay examines each of the eleven theses in turn to explore Foscarini’s use of the Monas and his attempt to integrate Dee’s work with material from other sources, such as Johann Trithemius’s De septem secundeis. It then briefly looks at Foscarini’s interest in hieroglyphs after the Anacephalaeosis. (shrink)

This is the third edition of Chomsky's outstanding collection of essays on language and mind, first published in 2006. The first six chapters, originally published in the 1960s, made a groundbreaking contribution to linguistic theory. This edition complements them with an additional chapter and a new preface, bringing Chomsky's influential approach into the twenty-first century. Chapters 1-6 present Chomsky's early work on the nature and acquisition of language as a genetically endowed, biological system, through the rules and principles of which (...) we acquire an internalized knowledge. Over the past fifty years, this framework has sparked an explosion of inquiry into a wide range of languages, and has yielded some major theoretical questions. The final chapter revisits the key issues, reviewing the 'biolinguistic' approach that has guided Chomsky's work from its origins to the present day, and raising some novel and exciting challenges for the study of language and mind. (shrink)