Kuhnian incommensurability between two paradigms of contemporary linguistics.

This dissertation proposes a theory of reference for the language of scientific theories. This theory of reference looks at the nature of postulation in scientific theories, and shows that mental posits are metaphorical in nature. It is a hybrid of internalist and extensive reference theories. This, allied with the competing epistemological assumptions of competing schools of linguistics, can account for the existence of incommensurability across two paradigms of linguistics. The relationship between transformational generative grammar and socio- linguistics is vexed. Both claim the same object of study, but with radi- cally different methods and aims. This dissertation shows that the meta- phorical nature of the posits used in each leads to incommensurable vo- cabularies. Thomas Kuhn's notions of paradigms and incommensurability are used to elucidate this relationship. Chapter one proposes and explains the theory of reference. Chapter two defines the major areas of the thesis. Chapter three explores the history of linguists claiming that a particular area of linguistics instantiates a Kuhnian paradigm, and looks at arguments concerning the possibilities for studying language scientifically. Chapter four explores the epistemological bases of TGG and sociolinguistics, starting from Chomsky's claims to do 'Cartesian linguistics', and concludes that opposing epistemological commitments lead to incommensurability. Chapter five demonstrates the inc- ornmensurable concepts and vocabulary items, and shows how my theory of reference can account for that incommensurability, while maintaining a certain amount of the traditional natural science - social science distinction. Because postulation is free and metaphorical. terms borrowed from natural languages into scientific theories can end up with overlapping, but incommensurable, references. Incommensurability is shown to be local and surmountable, through 'language-learning' rather than through 'translation'

Historical journey in a linguistic archipelago

This volume offers a selection of papers presented during the 14th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (ICHoLS XIV, Paris, 2017). Part I brings together studies dealing with descriptive concepts. First examined is the notion of “accidens” in Latin grammar and its Greek counterparts. Other papers address questions with a strong echo in today’s linguistics: localism and its revival in recent semantics and syntax, the origin of the term “polysemy” and its adoption through Bréal, and the difficulties attending the description of prefabs, idioms and other “fixed expressions”. This first part also includes studies dealing with representations of linguistic phenomena, whether these concern the treatment of local varieties (so-called patois) in French research, or the import and epistemological function of spatial representations in descriptions of linguistic time. Or again, now taking the word “representation” literally, the visual display of grammatical relations, in the form of the first syntactic diagrams. Part II presents case studies which involve wider concerns, of a social nature: the “from below” approach to the history of Chinese Pidgin English underlines the social roles of speakers and the diversity of speech situations, while the scrutiny of Lhomond’s Latin and French textbooks demonstrates the interplay of pedagogical practice, cross-linguistic comparison and descriptive innovation. An overview of early descriptions of Central Australian languages reveals a whole spectrum of humanist to positivist and antihumanist stances during the colonial age. An overarching framework is also at play in the anthropological perspective championed by Meillet, whose socially and culturally oriented semantics is shown to live on in Benveniste. The volume ends with a paper on Trần Đức Thảo, whose work is an original synthesis between phenomenology and Marxist semiology, wielded against the “idealistic” doctrine of Saussure

Descriptive concepts and case studies

Synopsis: This volume offers a selection of papers presented during the 14th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (ICHoLS XIV, Paris, 2017). Part I brings together studies dealing with descriptive concepts. First examined is the notion of “accidens” in Latin grammar and its Greek counterparts. Other papers address questions with a strong echo in today’s linguistics: localism and its revival in recent semantics and syntax, the origin of the term “polysemy” and its adoption through Bréal, and the difficulties attending the description of prefabs, idioms and other “fixed expressions”. This first part also includes studies dealing with representations of linguistic phenomena, whether these concern the treatment of local varieties (so-called patois) in French research, or the import and epistemological function of spatial representations in descriptions of linguistic time. Or again, now taking the word “representation” literally, the visual display of grammatical relations, in the form of the first syntactic diagrams. Part II presents case studies which involve wider concerns, of a social nature: the “from below” approach to the history of Chinese Pidgin English underlines the social roles of speakers and the diversity of speech situations, while the scrutiny of Lhomond’s Latin and French textbooks demonstrates the interplay of pedagogical practice, cross-linguistic comparison and descriptive innovation. An overview of early descriptions of Central Australian languages reveals a whole spectrum of humanist to positivist and antihumanist stances during the colonial age. An overarching framework is also at play in the anthropological perspective championed by Meillet, whose socially and culturally oriented semantics is shown to live on in Benveniste. The volume ends with a paper on Trần Đức Thảo, whose work is an original synthesis between phenomenology and Marxist semiology, wielded against the “idealistic” doctrine of Saussure

Historical journey in a linguistic archipelago

This volume offers a selection of papers presented during the 14th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (ICHoLS XIV, Paris, 2017). Part I brings together studies dealing with descriptive concepts. First examined is the notion of “accidens” in Latin grammar and its Greek counterparts. Other papers address questions with a strong echo in today’s linguistics: localism and its revival in recent semantics and syntax, the origin of the term “polysemy” and its adoption through Bréal, and the difficulties attending the description of prefabs, idioms and other “fixed expressions”. This first part also includes studies dealing with representations of linguistic phenomena, whether these concern the treatment of local varieties (so-called patois) in French research, or the import and epistemological function of spatial representations in descriptions of linguistic time. Or again, now taking the word “representation” literally, the visual display of grammatical relations, in the form of the first syntactic diagrams. Part II presents case studies which involve wider concerns, of a social nature: the “from below” approach to the history of Chinese Pidgin English underlines the social roles of speakers and the diversity of speech situations, while the scrutiny of Lhomond’s Latin and French textbooks demonstrates the interplay of pedagogical practice, cross-linguistic comparison and descriptive innovation. An overview of early descriptions of Central Australian languages reveals a whole spectrum of humanist to positivist and antihumanist stances during the colonial age. An overarching framework is also at play in the anthropological perspective championed by Meillet, whose socially and culturally oriented semantics is shown to live on in Benveniste. The volume ends with a paper on Trần Đức Thảo, whose work is an original synthesis between phenomenology and Marxist semiology, wielded against the “idealistic” doctrine of Saussure

The Computer Revolution in Philosophy: Philosophy, Science and Models of Mind

The book presented deep important connections between Artificial Intelligence and Philosophy, based partly on an argument that both philosophy and science are primarily concerned with identifying and explaining possibilities contrary to a common view that science is primarily concerned with laws. The book attempted to show in principle how the construction, testing and debugging of complex computational models, explaining possibilities in a new way, can illuminate a collection of deep philosophical problems, e.g. about the nature of mind, the nature of representation, the nature of mathematical discovery. However it did not claim that this could be done easily or that the problems would be solved soon. 40 years later many of them have still not been solved, including explaining how biological brains made possible the deep mathematical discoveries made millennia ago, long before the development of modern logic, often wrongly assumed to provide foundations for all of mathematics. Later work on these ideas includes the author's Meta-Morphogenesis project, inspired by Alan Turing's work: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/misc/meta-morphogenesis.html Originally published in 1978 by Harvester Press, this went out of print. An electronic version was created from a scanned in copy and then extensively edited with corrections, addtional text, and notes, available online as html or pdf, intermittently updated. This pdf version was created on 2019/07/09

Northeastern Illinois University, Academic Catalog 1997-1998

https://neiudc.neiu.edu/catalogs/1038/thumbnail.jp

Northeastern Illinois University, Academic Catalog 1996-1997

https://neiudc.neiu.edu/catalogs/1037/thumbnail.jp

Northeastern Illinois University, Board of Governors Universities, Academic Catalog 1995-1996

https://neiudc.neiu.edu/catalogs/1036/thumbnail.jp