Limiting the arbitrary : linguistic naturalism and its opposites in Plato's Cratylus and modern theories of language /
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, Pin...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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Philadelphia, PA :
John Benjamins Pub. Co.,
©2000
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| Series: | Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science Studies in the history of the language sciences ;
v. 96. Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Studies in the history of the language sciences ; v. 96. |
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| Summary: | 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 i |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (viii, 224 pages) |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-216) and index |
| ISBN: | 128317460X 9027283729 9781283174602 9789027283726 |
| ISSN: | 0304-0720 ; |