scholarly journals Russian and Polish Grammars of the 18th Century as Textbooks on Language Theory

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-58
Author(s):  
Alla Kozhinowa
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Language Theory ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
Linguistic Typology ◽  
Language Level ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Sign Relations ◽  
Functional Syntax

The article presents Russian and Polish grammarians’ points of view (Vasily Adodurov, Mikhail Lomonosov, Anton Barsov, Walenty Szylarski, Onufry Kopczyński) on considering language theory issues and how they described them in their works written in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The grammars under consideration were aimed not only at a detailed description of the Russian and Polish languages or teaching the correct language usage; in addition, they contained some theoretical information given in a manner that is comparable with modern linguistic knowledge. That information lay in the field of linguistic typology. It was also assumed that a language could acquire communicative, cognitive, nominative, and poetic functions (the appropriate terms were not used at that time). Besides, the issues concerning the forms of language existence – written and oral, as well as the dicho­tomy of language and speech, the nature of a language sign, including the ideas about its arbitrariness, its semantics and pragmatics were raised. Additionally, interesting discussions about sign relations at the phonetic-phonological language level, as well as some ideas of functional syntax were initiated. The results of the study lead to the conclusion that the grammars of the 18th century were a reflection of the historical situation in which this grammatical research was done.

FIXED PHRASE SCHEME AS A SPECIAL LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE FORMAT

2020 ◽  
pp. 43-55
Author(s):  
V.Y. Melikyan ◽  
◽  
A.V. Melikyan ◽  
V.V. Posidelova ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Representation ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Language Level ◽  
Grammatical Variation ◽  
Limited Possibility ◽  
Ontological Aspect ◽  
Logical Semantic

The article focuses on the theoretical and practical aspects of logical-semantic and grammatical-communicative division of the fixed phrase scheme structure. The authors argue that a fixed phrase scheme is dominated by a plan of content over the plan of expression, and therefore generally the gnoseological aspect prevails. The syntactic construction phraseologization expands its possibilities in cognitive and communicative aspects: the number of represented typical objective situations, typical sentence meanings, types of relations, and therefore systems of relations between minimal segments of thought increases. At the same time, the orientation of relations between minimal segments of thought becomes stable, which is due to the limited possibility of a fixed phrase scheme in terms of grammatical variation. The phraseologization degree determines the cognitive and communicative parameters of the fixed phrase scheme: the higher the phraseologization degree, the more significant is the influence of the gnoseological aspect; the lower, the more the influence of the ontological aspect is manifested. The phraseologization phenomenon determines the representation possibility of a wider knowledge format that the fixed phrase scheme possesses in comparison with a free syntactic construction. Thus, in the fixed phrase scheme sphere, there is a different correlation between the linguistic knowledge format and the form of this knowledge representation at the language level. All this allows us to consider the fixed phrase scheme as a particular format of linguistic knowledge.

scholarly journals Taiwan’s Appearance in the 18th Century Travelogue: Taking the Text of Histoire générale des voyages by Prévost

Asian Studies ◽  
2011 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Chao-Ying Lee
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Fujian Province ◽  
Points Of View

There are a total of 15 volumes of Histoire générale des voyages written by Antoine François Prévost (1693–1763), which were published between 1746 and 1759. The 6th volume introduced China, in Section 4 of Chapter 1, the part of Fujian Province specially introduced geographic travelogues of Penghu and Taiwan. This thesis is an attempt to probe and criticize the historical European travelogue literature about China and Taiwan, specifically in terms of this Prévost’s travelogue volumes. What are the points of view presented, based on the reports of Jesuits and Protestants from Holland and England? What aspects of different traditional books did Prévost base his work on? Why? What kind ofoutlook on Taiwan was presented in their reports?

Discording Enlightenment on China

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 157-177
Author(s):  
Selusi Ambrogio ◽  
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Natural Phenomenon ◽  
Intercultural Dialogue ◽  
The Political ◽  
Western Education ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Pierre Bayle

It is usually acknowledged that the core contribution of the Enlightenment is primarily twofold: the first being the introduction of reason and science as judgmental principles, and the second being the belief in the future progress of humankind as a shared destiny for humanity. This ‘modern’ reason—an exclusively human prerogative among creatures—could be applied to create a better society from the political, civil, educational, scientific, and religious points of view. What is usually less known is that for most of the Enlightenment thinkers, this philosophical and cultural step was the prerogative of European or Western-educated thinkers, which implied a gradual exclusion of extra-European civilizations from human progress as a natural phenomenon. Thus, with the exception of a few French libertines, the creation of a better society was due to reason and critical thinking absent in other civilizations, who could, at most, inherit this ‘rational power’ from Western education. This exclusion, which is usually attributed to the violence of the colonialist period, is already implied in the arguments of several Enlightenment thinkers. Our investigation will follow three steps: an exposition of the three Western historical paradigms in which Eastern civilizations were inserted between the 17th and 18th century; a comparison between the attitude toward China and Buddhism of two very distant philosophers of the Enlightenment—i.e. Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) and Johann Jacob Brucker (1696–1770)—and a brief reflection on the Enlightenment from an ‘external/exotic’ point of view that will suggest the necessity of a ‘new skeptical Enlightenment’ for inducing actual intercultural dialogue.

first case of Peter leaning back ostensively to let Mary see William approaching, it is arguable that some of the basic information is made manifest indirectly, through Peter’s intention being made manifest. Someone who engages in any kind of osten-sive behaviour intentionally draws some attention to himself and intentionally makes manifest a few assumptions about himself: for instance, that he is aware of the basic information involved, and that he is trying to be relevant. Peter’s ostension might make it manifest not just that William is approaching, but also that Peter expects Mary to be concerned, and that he is concerned too. Would we want to say, though, that Peter ‘meant something’ by his behav-iour? Like most English speakers, we would be reluctant to do so; but this is irrelevant to our pursuit, which is not to analyse ordinary language usage, but to describe and explain forms of human communication. Our argument at this stage is this: either inferential communication consists in providing evidence for what the communicator means, in the sense of ‘meaning’ which Grice calls ‘non-natural meaning’, and in that case inferential communication is not a well-defined class of phenomena at all; or else showing something should be considered a form of inferential communication, on a par with meaning something by a certain behaviour, and inferential communication and ostension should be equated. There are two questions involved here. One is substantive: which domains of facts are to be described and explained together? Our answer is that ostension is such a domain, and that inferential communication narrowly understood (i.e. under-stood as excluding cases of ostension where talk of ‘meaning’ would be awkward) is not. The second question is terminological (and hence not worth much argu-ment): can the term ‘communication’ be legitimately applied to all cases of osten-sion? Our answer is yes, and from now on we will treat ostensive communication, inferential communication, and ostensive–inferential communication as the same thing. Inferential communication and ostension are one and the same process, but seen from two different points of view: that of the communicator who is involved in ostension and that of the audience who is involved in inference. Ostensive–inferential communication consists in making manifest to an audi-ence one’s intention to make manifest a basic layer of information. It can there-fore be described in terms of an informative and a communicative intention. In the next two sections, we want to reanalyse the notions of informative and com-municative intention in terms of manifestness and mutual manifestness, and to sketch in some of the empirical implications of this reformulation.

2005 ◽  
pp. 159-159
Keyword(s):  
Ordinary Language ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
Basic Information ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
First Case ◽  
Basic Layer ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Ostensive Communication ◽  
Empirical Implications

scholarly journals On the Problems of Periodization and Features of the Russian Enlightenment

2020 ◽  
pp. 64-68
Author(s):  
M.A. Shirokova
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Russian Philosophy ◽  
Science Culture ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Traditional Morality ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Club Of Rome ◽  
The Russian Empire

In connection with the concept of the "new Enlightenment" formulated in the recent anniversary report of the Club of Rome, the author of the article analyzes the phenomenon of the Enlightenment in Russia. The points of view of domestic and foreign researchers on the positive and negative aspects of the Enlightenment, the reasons for the crisis of the "classical" Enlightenment and the need for its renewal are considered. One of the most important problems of the European Enlightenment of the 18th century - the crisis of public morality. The enlighteners borrowed the norms and values of traditional morality from religious consciousness, but sought to combine them with the guidelines for the rationalization and secularization of society and man. In Russia, this trend also took place, but the Russian Enlightenment is characterized by a more expressed axiologism, an orientation towards the mutual complementarity of moral values, scientific knowledge and socio-political progress. The author also refers to the discussion about the chronological framework of the Russian Enlightenment, highlighting its three stages: Christianization of Ancient Rus; Europeanization of the Russian Empire in the 18th century; the formation of an independent science, culture and philosophy since the 1830s. In addition, the article talks about the dialectical unity and struggle of cultural and civilizational paradigms in the Enlightenment of Russia. It is concluded that the Russian philosophy, created in the polemics of Slavophiles and Westernizers, realized Kant's idea of the essence of Enlightenment -the ability to use one's own mind.

scholarly journals La Basilica di San Miniato al Monte di Firenze (1018-2018)

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Ecclesiastical Reform ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
First Time ◽  
The City

Between the 11th and the 20th century, the monastery of San Miniato al Monte in Florence played a leading role in the religious and cultural life of the city. The volume analyses for the first time the historical and documentary evolution of this regular institute, famous almost only from the architectural and artistic points of view. The book focuses the period of the bishop’s patronage in the 11th century, when the monastery and some of its members emerged in the context of the ecclesiastical reform, and continues with the study of the the Olivetan monks community, during the 14th-16th centuries, to arrive at the important structural and functional, but also semantic, transformations of the monument between the 18th century and the contemporary times.

scholarly journals Uzus a praktyka leksykograficzna (na przykładzie czasownika dedykować we współczesnej polszczyźnie)

2016 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Monika Biesaga
Keyword(s):  
Language Usage ◽  
Semantic Description ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Morphological Patterns ◽  
National Corpus

Usage and lexicographical practice (example of the verb dedykować ‘to dedicate’ in modern Polish)The purpose of this paper is to analyze the contemporary usage of the Polish verb dedykować (to dedicate) and its participle dedykowany (dedicated). Dur­ing last few years under the influence of English semantics and pragmatics this verb became one of the most popular words in the Polish marketing and IT jargon. The data provided by the National Corpus of Polish enables to state that the contemporary usage of the verb differs significantly from the semantic description published in the dictionaries of Polish. Therefore the scope of this paper is to promote the corpus driven approach to the lexicography. Since the new meaning of the analyzed verb is an English borrowing the paper deals also with the problem of adjusting English morphological patterns to the rules of Slavic verbal inflexion. As it can be observed in the text this gram­matical divergence leads in the case of new borrowings to the widely diversified and unstable language usage. Uzus a praktyka leksykograficzna (na przykładzie czasownika dedykować we współczesnej polszczyźnie)Celem artykułu jest analiza występujących we współczesnej polszczyźnie użyć czasownika dedykować. Szczególną uwagę językoznawców zwróciły w jego przypadku neologizmy semantyczne typu dedykowany, których nowe znaczenie, znamienne dla języka marketingu oraz profesjolektu informatycznego, zapożyczone zostało z języka angielskiego. Dane korpusowe umożliwiły stwierdzenie, że czasownik ten używany jest również w innych znaczeniach, nieoddanych dotychczas w odpowiedni sposób w słownikach współczesnego języka polskiego, zaś same neosemantyzmy cechuje niezwykle rozchwiany pod względem semantycznym oraz składniowym uzus.

Origin of language and origin of languages

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-23
Author(s):  
Giorgio Graffi
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Origin Of Language ◽  
History Of ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
The One ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Linguistic Problem ◽  
Linguistic Means

Abstract The question of monogenesis vs. polygenesis of human languages was essentially neglected by contemporary linguistics until the appearance of the research on the genetics of human populations by L. L. Cavalli-Sforza and his collaborators, which brought to light very exciting parallels between the distribution of human populations and that of language families. The present paper highlights some aspects of the history of the problem and some points of the contemporary discussion. We first outline the “Biblical paradigm”, which persisted until the 18th century even in scientific milieus. Then, we outline some aspects of the 19th century debate about monogenesis vs. polygenesis of languages and about the relationships between languages and human populations: in particular, we will discuss the views of Darwin on the one hand and of some linguists on the other (Schleicher, M. Müller, Whitney and Trombetti). It will be seen that their positions only partly coincide; at any rate, it will be shown that Darwin was partly inspired by the problems of the genealogy of languages and that the linguists, for their part, took account of Darwin’s views. Turning to today’s debate, we first present the positions of the linguists arguing for monogenesis, namely J. Greenberg and M. Ruhlen, as well as the criticisms raised against their methods by the majority of linguists. Other scholars, such as D. Bickerton or N. Chomsky, essentially argue, from different points of view, that the problem of monogenesis vs. polygenesis of languages is a “pseudo-problem”. We however think that, although the question cannot be reasonably solved by linguistic means, it cannot be discarded as meaningless: it is an anthropological rather than a linguistic problem. We present some reflections and suggestions, in the light of which the monogenetic hypothesis appears as more tenable than the polygenetic one.

Blame the Snobs

2021 ◽  
pp. 147-180
Author(s):  
Arika Okrent ◽  
Sean O’Neill
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
English Language ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Standard English ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
Social Rules ◽  
Advice Books ◽  
The 19Th Century

This chapter highlights the role of the “snobs” in complicating the English language. The whole idea that there was a “correctness” to aim for in English developed slowly, but really took off in the 18th century. It was the age of etiquette and the codification of social rules. Pretty soon there were books on good language too. The first major dictionary of English, Samuel Johnson's dictionary of 1755, was published during this time, and it became a source of authority for spelling. But the advice books and newspaper columns on language usage that followed in the 19th century were more extreme in their pronouncements. In this environment of very public, and intentionally humiliating, language monitoring, a cloud of insecurity developed and perpetuated itself. It is important to note that the Standard English—the “correct,” authorized version—is unsystematic and illogical enough on its own. Some of that is the result of the natural accumulation of historical forces, but some of it comes from intentional meddling.

Form–meaning mappings in the aspectual domain: What about the L1? A response to Bruhn de Garavito and Valenzuela

2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
SILVINA MONTRUL
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Delays ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Linguistic Complexity ◽  
Complementary Distribution ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Different Levels

Any person who has taught Spanish as a second language or who has interacted with a non-native speaker of Spanish can easily tell that mastering the correct use of the copulas ser and estar is very difficult in both spoken and written production. But L2 learners are not alone. The Spanish copulas also present difficulty and frustration for L2 instructors of Spanish, since most pedagogical explanations of the uses of ser and estar provided in textbooks are incomplete and inaccurate. However, the acquisition of copular constructions has not received the attention it deserves in the acquisition literature, making a special issue of Bilingualism: Language and Cognition dedicated to this topic particularly welcome. A reason for the scarcity of research in this area may be related to both the linguistic complexity of Spanish ser and estar and the inadequacy of many available theoretical treatments to explain their complementary distribution. Although constructions with ser and estar are highly frequent in the input, they are grammatically quite intricate, straddling between the levels of morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Accordingly, Bruhn de Garavito and Valenzuela correctly frame their study within the current debate on interface vulnerability in language development in general, and in adult L2 acquisition in particular (Sorace, 2004; White, in press). In a nutshell, grammatical areas which require the integration of different levels of linguistic knowledge (e.g., syntax–discourse, syntax–morphology, morphology–semantics, etc.) for processing, production, or interpretation, show developmental delays and instability in monolingual and bilingual acquisition. In the case of monolingual acquisition, instability or non-target-like behavior is temporary, but in L2 grammars, instability can persist up to very advanced levels of proficiency, eventually leading to fossilization.

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