From Whorf to Montague : explorations in the theory of language / Pieter A.M. Seuren.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed October 6, 2013).

""Cover""; ""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""; ""2.4.2 Getting closer""; ""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""""3.8 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""; ""5.2.3 Scope and negation""; ""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""

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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.

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