Current Issues in Linguistic Theory
Latest release: April 15, 2024
Series
361
Books
About this ebook series
This volume reflects the fact that the possibilities in theory construction allow for a much wider spectrum than students of linguistics have perhaps been led to believe. It consists of articles by scholars of differing generations and widely varying academic persuasions: some have received their initiation to the trade within the framework of transformational-generative grammar, some in one or the other structuralist mould, yet others in the philology and linguistics of particular languages and language families. They all share, however, some doubts concerning characteristic attitudes and procedures of present-day mainstream linguistics. All want, not a uniformity of ideological stance, but a union of individualists working towards the advancement of theory and empirical accountability.
The Transformational-Generative Paradigm and Modern Linguistic Theory
Book 1 · Jan 1975 ·
5.0star
This volume reflects the fact that the possibilities in theory construction allow for a much wider spectrum than students of linguistics have perhaps been led to believe. It consists of articles by scholars of differing generations and widely varying academic persuasions: some have received their initiation to the trade within the framework of transformational-generative grammar, some in one or the other structuralist mould, yet others in the philology and linguistics of particular languages and language families. They all share, however, some doubts concerning characteristic attitudes and procedures of present-day mainstream linguistics. All want, not a uniformity of ideological stance, but a union of individualists working towards the advancement of theory and empirical accountability.
Componential Analysis of Lushai Phonology
Book 2 · Jan 1975 ·
4.0star
The aim of this essay is to present a phonological analysis of Lushai, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the Mizoram province of India, in terms of componential features applying as mutation rules to the morphophonological level. An analysis of this nature becomes possible if the concepts of phonological extension systems and redundancy-free representations are introduced. Alongside with the phonemic aspect, a semantic analysis of morpheme structure is required yielding the smallest significant units at different morphological or syntactic levels. Though based on criteria implying concepts like rule, underlying representation, and so forth, of the standard theory of generative phonology, this essay tries to implement the concepts of phoneme on the phonemic, and of morphophoneme on the morphophonological levels, and to bring about a methodologically sound classification of phonological rules.
Papers on Language Theory and History: Volume I: Creation and Tradition in Language
Book 3 · Jan 1977 ·
0.0star
Interest in word-meaning is on the increase among mainstream linguists again after a half-century of neglect. During this interval progress in phonology and syntax was great, but further progress in these sub-disciplines will remain blocked until it is recognized that the prime functional unit of speech is the word, that the central problem of language theory is lexis. Word-meaning is typically complicated by changes across time; for a theory of language creativity, these effects must be discerned from spontaneous creation. The articles brought together in this volume attempt to illuminate, on the basis of particular lexical studies, the dynamics of perception and word-meaning, of language and mind.
Studies in Descriptive and Historical Linguistics: Festschrift for Winfred P. Lehmann
Book 4 · Jan 1977 ·
0.0star
This volume of articles was prepared in honor of Winfred P. Lehmann on the occasion of his 60th birthday. The papers are presented in two sections: I. Studies in Descriptive Linguistics, and II. Studies in Historical Linguistics. The volume contains contributions by R.M.W. Dixon, Ralph M. Goodman, Maurice Gross, Einar Haugen, David G. Hays, Archibald A. Hill, Mohammad Ali Jazayery, E.F.K. Koerner, D. Terence Langendoen, Don L.F. Nilsen, Arthur L. Palacas, Sol Saporta, Sanford A. Schane, Jacob Mey, Anders Ahlqvist, Simon C. Dik, Robert T. Harms, Saul Levin, Yakov Malkiel, D. Gary Miller, William G. Moulton, Edgar C. Polomé, Gary D. Prideaux, Luigi Romeo, Maria Tsiapera, Krystyna Wachowicz, Mridula Adenwala Durbin, Paul J. Hopper, Aaron Bar-Adon.
Grammatical Theory and Metascience: A critical investigation into the methodological and philosophical foundations of 'autonomous' linguistics
Book 5 · Jan 1978 ·
0.0star
In this book, the author analyses the nature of the science of grammar. After presenting some methodological and historical background, he sets forth a theory of language and of grammar, showing that the science of grammar is not an empirical, but a normative science, comparable to logic and philosophy, characterized by the use of the method of explication.
Historical and Comparative Linguistics
Book 6 · Jan 1989 ·
5.0star
In any course of historical and comparative linguistics there will be students of different language backgrounds, different levels of linguistic training, and different theoretical orientation. This textbook attempts to mitigate the problems raised by this heterogeneity in a number of ways. Since it is impossible to treat the language or language family of special interest to every student, the focus of this book is on English in particular and Indo-European languages in general, with Finnish and its closely related languages for contrast. The tenets of different schools of linguistics, and the controversies among them, are treated eclectically and objectively; the examination of language itself plays the leading role in our efforts to ascertain the comparative value of competing theories. This revised edition (1989) of a standard work for comparative linguists offers an added introduction dealing mainly with a semiotic basis of change, a final chapter on aspects of explanation, particularly in historical and human disciplines, and added sections on comparative syntax and on the semiotic status of the comparative method.
Linear Order and Generative Theory
Book 7 · Jan 1979 ·
0.0star
The term ‘word order studies’ designates an area of syntax which has become an increasingly central theme in linguistic research. Since, in at least a narrow sense, syntax is the study of how meaningful elements are put together to form sentences, a preoccupation with word order would seem inherent in any syntactic study. However, the focus implied by ‘word order studies’ is anything but trivial, going as it does to the heart of two vital areas of linguistic theory: language universals, and the form of linguistic models. The present collection of papers offers the reader an opportunity to examine some of the more recent ideas in this broad area, concentrating on some of the more controversial issues within the generative-transformational model.
Prolegomena to a Grammar of Basque
Book 8 · Jan 1979 ·
0.0star
The purpose of this study is to apply experimentally the principles of recent grammatical theories to the facts of the Basque language. This study aims to test out those principles, and endeavours to discover the best form for a grammar of Basque.
Current Issues in the Phonetic Sciences: Proceedings of the IPS-77 Congress, Miami Beach, Florida, 17–19 December 1977
Book 9 · Jan 1979 ·
0.0star
These papers, from the IPS-77 Congress held in Miami Beach, Florida in 1977, present the state-of-the-art in phonetic science. The volume is subdivided into twelve sections: History of Phonetics, Issues of Method and Theory in Phonetics, Laryngeal Function, Temporal Factors and Intonation, Physiological and Acoustic Phonetics, Speech Production, Neurophonetics and Psychopathology, Speech Perception, Speech and Speaker Recognition, Teaching Phonetics, Children’s Speech and Language Acquisition, and Special Issues in Phonetics.
Perspectives in Experimental Linguistics: Papers from the University of Alberta Conference on Experimental Linguistics, Edmonton, 1–14 Oct. 1978
Book 10 · Jan 1979 ·
0.0star
Over the past few years interest and research in experimental linguistics has shifted more toward centre stage, perhaps because of the growing recognition that purely theoretical formulations and speculations about language must necessarily be tested against the empirical facts of language knowledge, use, and acquisition. To highlight some aspects of empirical linguistics, a conference was organized in 1978 at University of Alberta, at which six prominent scholars were invited to present substantial contributions. These papers are included in this volume, together with an epilogue summing up and discussing the recurrent themes of the conference, and a general bibliography.
Theoretical Issues in Contrastive Linguistics
Book 12 · Jan 1981 ·
0.0star
Contrastive Linguistics, roughly defined as a subdiscipline of linguistics which is concerned with the comparison of two or more (subsystems of) languages, has long been associated primarily with language teaching. Apart from this applied aspect, however, it also has a strong theoretical purpose, contributing to our understanding of language typology and language universals. Issues in theoretical CL, which also feature in this volume, are the choice of model, the notions of equivalence and contrast, and directionality of descriptions. Languages used for illustration in this volume include English, German, Danish, and Polish.
Papers from the Third International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Hamburg, August 2226 1977
Book 13 · Jan 1982 ·
0.0star
The papers in this volume are a selection from those presented at the 3rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL), held in 1977 at the University of Hamburg. These selected papers deal with a wide variety of issues, some from a more general-theoretical perspective, some deriving new theoretical insights from language data ranging from Ojibwa to Old-Saxon.
Papers from the Fourth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Stanford, March 26–30 1979
Book 14 · Jan 1980 ·
0.0star
The studies in this volume are revised versions of a selection from the papers presented at the Fourth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, held at Stanford University on 26–30 March 1979. Papers at this conference, and in this volume, treat aspects of all current topics in historical linguistics, including topics that are only recently considered relevant, such as acquisition, structure, and language use.
Language Form and Linguistic Variation: Papers dedicated to Angus McIntosh
Book 15 · Jan 1982 ·
0.0star
The papers in this volume celebrate the work of Angus McIntosh, who specialized in dialects of Later Middle English, and wrote on other topics in English linguistics as well. Of the papers in this volume most deal with English and a few with other subjects in (historical) dialectology.
Integrational Linguistics: Vol. I: General Outline
Book 17 · Jan 1984 ·
0.0star
This is the first volume of a work envisioned to consist of six volumes, providing a complete overview of the unified approach to basic problems of linguistics, as developed by Hans-Heinrich Lieb. This first volume contains a detailed overview of Integrational Linguistics, and outlines a major fragment of a theory of language systems. The further volumes will discuss: II. A theory of grammars; III. Language universals and language contrast; IV. Syntax and semantics; V. Morphology and morphosemantics; VI. Lexical semantics.
Italic and Romance: Linguistic studies in honor of Ernst Pulgram
Book 18 · Jan 1980 ·
0.0star
The papers in this volume deal with the languages of ancient Italy and the Romance dialects that grew from them. The arrangement of papers in the volume is topical, starting with ancient Italy and moving upward in time and outward in space through general Romance to Italian, French and Provençal, Spanish, Romanian and Sardinian.
Linguistic Reconstruction and Indo-European Syntax: Proceedings of the Colloquium of the 'Indogermanische Gesellschaft'. University of Pavia, 67 September 1979
Book 19 · Jan 1980 ·
0.0star
The aim of the colloquium, from which this volume derives, was to bring together approaches from general linguistics and language reconstruction, to show how these can benefit from eachother. Although the focus was on Indo-European languages, other language families were present in the discussion, as typological insights may provide useful parallels to IE phenomena and problems. At the core of the discussion was the methodological problem of induction vs deduction.
Semiotic Principles in Semantic Theory
Book 20 · Jan 1981 ·
0.0star
This study represents a contribution to the theory of meaning in natural language. It proposes a semantic theory containing a set of regular relational principles. These principles enable semantic theory to describe connections from the lexical reading of a word to its figurative contextual reading, from one variant reading of a polysemous lexical item to another, from the idiomatic to its literal reading or to the literal reading(s) of one or more of its component lexical items. Semiotic theory provides a foundation by supplying principles defining motivated expression-content relations for signs generally. The author argues that regular semantic relational principles must dervive from such semiotic principles, to ensures the psychological reality and generality of the semantic principles.
Papers from the Fifth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Galway, April 610 1981
Book 21 · Jan 1982 ·
0.0star
This volume presents a selection of the best papers from the Fifth International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL), which was held in Galway, April 610 1981. These papers provide an overview of work in the field of historical linguistics, covering a wide variety of topics and languages.
Das Germanische und die Rekonstruktion der Indogermanischen Grundsprache: Akten des Freiburger Kolloquiums der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft, Freiburg, 2627 Februar 1981.. Proceedings of the Colloquium of the Indogermanische Gesellschhaft, Freiburg, 2627 February 1981
Book 22 · Jan 1984 ·
0.0star
Es war kein Zufall, daß das achte Fachkolloquium der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft (1981) in Freiburg im Breisgau stattfand, es war, wie dieser Band, dem Kollegen, Freund und Lehrer Oswald Szemerényi gewidmet, der das letzte Jahr seiner Amtszeit als Hochschullehrer angetreten hatte. Eher zufälliger Art war die Wahl des Themas: es sollte ein Bereich sein, der Szemerényi's Arbeitsgebieten nahestand und ihn besonders interessierte, da hatte nun nahezu jedes Teilgebiet der Indogermanistik eine Chance gewählt zu werden, und wir entschieden uns schließlich für das Germanische: hier waren nicht nur profilierte Forscher zu gewinnen, es war auch lange nicht mehr Gegenstand eines indogermanistischen Gesprächs gewesen, obwohl doch jeder Vertreter unseres Fachs zumindest in seiner Lehrtätigkeit ständig mit den Zusammenhängen zwischen Germanisch und Indogermanisch zu tun hat. Das Ergebnis hat uns recht gegeben: die Fülle von im vollen Sinne indogermanistischen Fragestellungen, die sich aus der Arbeit an der historisch-vergleichenden Beschreibung germanischer Sprachen ergibt, hat die Fachleute und die Gäste unter den Teilnehmern beeindruckt, und eine lebhafte und substanzreiche Diskussion hat den Vortragenden an Ort und Stelle das Interesse bewiesen, das ihren Forschungen entgegengebracht wird.
