John Earl Joseph

The 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.

Linguistic Naturalism and Its Opposites in Plato's Cratylus and the Modern Theories of Language

Limiting the Arbitrary

Talbot J. Taylor

Nigel Love

Landmarks in Linguistic Thought II introduces the major issues and themes that have determined the development of Western thinking about language, meaning and communication in the twentieth century. Each chapter contains an extract from a 'landmark' text followed by a commentary, which places the ideas in their social and intellectual context. The book is written in an accessible and non-technical manner. The book summarizes the contribution of the key thinkers who have shaped modern linguistics. These include Austin, Chomsky, Derrida, Firth, Goffman, Harris, Jakobson, Labov, Orwell, Sapir, Whorf and Wittgenstein. This second volume follows on from Landmarks in Linguistic Thought I, which introduces the key thinkers up to the twentieth century. The series is ideal for anyone with an interest in the history of linguistics or of ideas.

The Western Tradition in the Twentieth Century

Landmarks in Linguistic Thought II

Anna Morpurgo Davies

Steven Ungar

Christian Puech

Stephen C. Hutchings

Julia S. Falk

Rudolf Engler

Terrence W. Gordon

Claudine Normand

The Cambridge Companion to Saussure

E. F. K. Koerner

Sheila M. Embleton

Hans-Josef Niederehe

Alongside considerable continuity, 20th-century diachronic linguistics has seen substantial shifts in outlook and procedure from the 19th-century paradigm. Our understanding of what is really new and what is recycled owes a great debt to E. F. K. Koerner's minutely researched interpretations of the work of the field's founders and key transitional figures. At the cusp of the 21st century, some of the best known scholars in the field explore how these methodological shifts have been and continue to be played out in historical Romance, Germanic and Indo-European linguistics, as well as in work outside these traditional areas. These 22 studies, honouring the founder of "Diachronica" and other publication ventures that have helped revitalize historical enquiry in recent decades, include examinations of Indo-European methodology and the reconstructions carried out by Bloomfield and Sapir; the search for relatives of Indo-European; comparative, structural and sociolinguistic analyses of the history of the Romance languages; regular vs. morpholexical approaches to OHG umlaut; and the synchrony and diachrony of gender affixes in Tsez.

The Emergence of the Modern Language Sciences: Methodological perspectives and applications

Louise G T Cooley Professor of English and Linguistics Talbot J Taylor

Landmarks in Linguistic Thought II introduces the major issues and themes that have determined the development of Western thinking about language, meaning and communication in the twentieth century. Each chapter contains an extract from a 'landmark' text followed by a commentary, which places the ideas in their social and intellectual context. The book is written in an accessible and non-technical manner. The book summarizes the contribution of the key thinkers who have shaped modern linguistics: Austin, Chomsky, Derrida, Firth, Goffman, Harris, Jakobson, Labov, Orwell, Sapir, Whorf and Wittgenstein. This second volume follows on from Landmarks in Linguistic Thought I, which introduces the key thinkers up to the twentieth century. The series is ideal for anyone with an interest in the history of linguistics or of ideas.

John Earl Joseph

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