scholarly journals On the original formulation and on the resonance over time of Grassmann’s Law: remarks on a still open issue

2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-130
Author(s):  
Marianna Pozza

Abstract The present article aims to reconsider in detail the original formulation of Grassmann’s law (GL), proposed by Grassmann (1863), since the main handbooks of Indo-European linguistics often repeat an extremely concise and sometimes incomplete formulation of the phenomenon without going into the details of Grassmann’s original reasoning, from which the definition of the phonetic “law” took its shape. In fact, we intend to highlight, on the one hand, the route whereby the scholar arrived at the decisive formulation of the principle which took its name from him, on the other the research ideas already present in the article of 1863 and only partially taken into account by subsequent studies. In addition to offering an overview, as complete as possible, of the resonance and influence of GL among linguists (both within a general and a historical linguistic perspective), over the years, the intent is to show the fruitfulness of ideas that still today could be used for new studies on the topic and to offer a possible, new interpretation of this phonetic change.

Author(s):  
Sascha Salatowsky

In order to attain a deeper understanding of Aristotelian philosophy in the Renaissance, it is necessary to consider the theological implications of given facts. This article discusses a basic problem centring on the reception of Aristotle’s Ethics. The Nicomachean Ethics was widely regarded as the basis for a virtuous ethical life, yet how could a pagan philosophy, with its concepts of happiness, virtue, justice, etc., be the basis of a Christian society? The aim of the present article is to show how Lutheran scholars solved this problem in confrontation with Catholic and Calvinist scholars of the time. The first part deals with the two basic components of Aristotle’s Ethics, namely the doctrines of happiness (Eudaimonologia) and virtue (Aretologia), and attempts to show that Aristotle’s Ethics should not be understood as a system of rules, but rather as a handbook for the cultivation of practical habits in the free human being who strives to live a good life. The second part examines two key ideological confrontations in relation to Aristotle’s philosophy: between Lutherans and Calvinists in respect of definition of theology and philosophical and theological virtues on the one hand, and between Lutherans and ›the Enthusiasts‹ in respect of the concept of virtues on the other.


Author(s):  
Wieteke van Dijk ◽  
Marjan J. Meinders ◽  
Marit A.C. Tanke ◽  
Gert P. Westert ◽  
Patrick P.T. Jeurissen

Background: Medicalization has been a topic of discussion and research for over four decades. It is a known concept to researchers from a broad range of disciplines. Medicalization appears to be a concept that speaks to all, suggesting a shared understanding of what it constitutes. However, conceptually, the definition of medicalization has evolved over time. It is unknown how the concept is applied in empirical research, therefore following research question was answered: How is medicalization defined in empirical research and how do the definitions differ from each other? Methods: We performed a scoping review on the empirical research on medicalization. The 5 steps of a scoping review were followed: (1) Identifying the research question; (2) Identifying relevant studies; (3) Inclusion and exclusion criteria; (4) Charting the data; and (5) Collating, summarizing and reporting the results. The screening of 3027 papers resulted in the inclusion of 50 empirical studies in the review. Results: The application of the concept of medicalization within empirical studies proved quite diverse. The used conceptual definitions could be divided into 10 categories, which differed from each other subtly though importantly. The ten categories could be placed in a framework, containing two axes. The one axe represents a continuum from value neutral definitions to value laden definitions. The other axe represents a continuum from a micro to a macro perspective on medicalization. Conclusion: This review shows that empirical research on medicalization is quite heterogeneous in its definition of the concept. This reveals the richness and complexity of medicalization, once more, but also hinders the comparability of studies. Future empirical research should pay more attention to the choice made with regard to the definition of medialization and its applicability to the context of the study.


1980 ◽  
Vol 7 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 131-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain de Libera

Summary The problem of the variation of the truth-status of the propositions over time is one of the favourite topics of the logicians as soon as the end of the XIIth century. The aim of the present article is to acknowledge the various theories of restriction provided in the 12th and 13th centuries, to solve semantic problems by means of contextual determination. Given the texts presently available, up to seven different doctrines are accounted for, depending on whether or not subjects and predicates, on the one hand, substantial and accidental terms, on the other hand, are actually distinguished. Among those doctrines, particular attention is paid to that of the so-called Dialectica Mona-censis. This anonymous treatise, dating from the last decades of the 12th century, introduces two different theories. The first one suffers from a discrepancy between the content of the rules of restriction through present, past and future tense verbs and that of the various conditions laid down in these rules. Thus, though substantial and accidental terms have theoretically the same supposition, whether they be subjects or predicates, in each different tensed form of the verbs, the author practically draws a line between substantial terms like ‘homo’ and accidental ones, like ‘album’. As a matter of fact, the truth of the proposition “homo curret” at instant S (Reichenbach’s ‘point of speech’) necessarily entails that of “homo currit” at instant E (the ‘point of event’), but this is not the case with ‘album’ in “album curret”, since that which is now white (point S) might very well be no longer white at time E. Those difficulties determine a second theory which offers a more satisfying account of the difference between substantial and accidental terms. Finally, a comparison is made between the first theory in the Dialectica and William of Sherwood’s account of the compounded and divided senses of the propositions, and a parallel is suggested with modern paraphrases using A. N. Prior’s tense operators.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-349
Author(s):  
Mbanefo S. Ogene ◽  
Esther Chikaodi Anyanwu ◽  
Ngini Josephine Ojiaku

Abstract One major problem confronting the definition of Comparative Literature is that of the involvement (on the one hand) of more than one literature under comparison and (on the other hand) that of the consideration of the multidimensional aspects of such literature, such as social, historical, linguistic, religious, economic and cultural aspects of divergent societies. This study is guided by the above factors in analyzing the concept of Racial Discrimination in Southern Africa and African American literatures in the sense that the former’s experiences were on African soil, while the latter’s were on the NewFound land (America). The paper observes that racial discrimination was much severe and oppressive without much resistance in America than in Southern Africa where Africans withstood and fought back against an unjust, wicked and oppressive system.


Elenchos ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-326
Author(s):  
Jie Tian

Abstract Plato's Theaetetus develops an inquiry concerning the definition of knowledge. Famously, after Socrates and Theaetetus have discussed the three candidates for the definition of knowledge, the end of the dialogue seems to leave us in a situation of aporia. The present article focuses on the last hypothesis raised in the dialogue and tries to determine whether this hypothesis can be seen, under appropriate qualification, as acceptable within a Platonic framework. This hypothesis is connected with a dream theory that unfolds two crucial factors for understanding the definition of knowledge, i.e. elements and logos. So the aim of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, to make clear what elements properly are; on the other hand, to find an account of logos suitable to make it a necessary condition for the definition of knowledge. As will emerge from this paper, the first two candidates for the definition of knowledge are indeed not sufficient for gaining an adequate definition, but they nonetheless foreshadow the third hypothesis and are necessary conditions for understanding the third one.


Author(s):  
António Pedro Mesquita ◽  

The present article aims to clear up three different, though connected, questions: 1st. The significance of the double definition of ‘accident’ in the Topics. 2nd. The significance of the distinction be tween two types of accident (‘strict’ accident and per se accident) in the Posterior Analytics and in the Metaphysics, namely in its alleged relationship with the double definition of ‘accident’ in the Topics. 3rd. The meaning of per se accidents within the framework of the predicables, namely from the point of view of its putative identification with propria predicates. In the course of the analysis, the answers given to these three questions are the following (in inverse order to their presentation): 1. By definition, the same predicate can never be a per se accident and a proprium, except incidentally, namely when regarded ‘at a certain moment’ (pote) or ‘in relation to something else’ (pros ti). In fact, despite Aristotle’s silence about the status of per se accidents within the framework of the predicables, they have there its own peculiar logical location, namely under the first definition of ‘accident’. 2. The distinction between ‘strict’ accident and per se accident, on the one hand, and the double definition of ‘accident’, on the other, do not coalesce, though they partially overlap. The second definition of ‘accident’ in the Topics subsumes only ‘strict ’ accidents, while the first definition is generally valid for ‘strict’ accidents and per se accidents. 3. As far as an educated guess can go on historical matters, we can suppose that the second definition of ‘accident’ was conceived by Aristotle to cover the only kind of accidents recognised by him when writing the Topics, while, by that time, the first definition was thought merely as a alternative negative definition. However, it is the schema provided by the first definition that allows a precise technical definition of the two types of accidents, which nowhere can be found in Aristotle texts. In the final part of the article, we try to reconstruct this technical definition.


2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 401-422
Author(s):  
Estelle Variot
Keyword(s):  
The One ◽  

"Etymological, Lexical and Semantic Correspondences in the Process of Feminization of Professional Names, Trades and Activities in French and Romanian Societies. The feminization of thought represented by language and of its varieties in the Roman World has allowed to highlight some convergences that come from a common linguistic heritage, often from Greek and Latin and some hesitation about adapting society to its realities. The feminization of some words which comes from an ancient process illustrates on the one hand the potential of the language and on the other hand some constraints sometimes linked to the society itself, which creates transitional periods, between matching grammatical correction and the evolution of linguistic uses over time. The possibilities of lexical enrichment (internal creation or loan) show the means available in French and Romanian and some convergences in the area of derivation, of lexical units and their etymologies. The grammatical perspective and word constructing methods make it possible to give keys for the feminization of names of trades or professions. Likewise, recording entries in the lexicon, their evolution, their assimilation or sometimes their forgetfulness, for the benefit of new constructions highlight the existence of objective and subjective criteria which teach us a lot about society as a whole. Keywords: feminization of professions, internal and external enrichment, suffixal match, use of words, grammar, lexicon, French and Romanian."


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jingxia Lin

AbstractTypological shift in lexicalizing motion events has hitherto been observed cross-linguistically. While over time, Chinese has shown a shift from a dominantly verb-framed language in Old Chinese to a strongly satellite-framed language in Modern Standard Mandarin, this study presents the Chinese dialect Wenzhou, which has taken a step further than Standard Mandarin and other Chinese dialects in becoming a thoroughly satellite-framed language. On the one hand, Wenzhou strongly disfavors the verb-framed pattern. Wenzhou not only has no prototypical path verbs, but also its path satellites are highly deverbalized. On the other hand, Wenzhou strongly prefers the satellite-framed pattern, to the extent that it very frequently adopts a neutral motion verb to head motion expressions so that path can be expressed via satellites and the satellite-framed pattern can be syntactically maintained. The findings of this study are of interest to intra-linguistic, diachronic and cross-linguistic studies of the variation in encoding motion events.


2021 ◽  
pp. 016344372110227
Author(s):  
Yingzi Wang ◽  
Thoralf Klein

This paper examines the changes and continuities in TV representations of Chinese Communist Party’s revolutionary history and interprets them within the broader context of China’s political, economic and cultural transformations since the 1990s. Drawing on a comparative analysis of three state-sponsored TV dramas produced between the late 1990s and mid-2010s, it traces how the state-sanctioned revolutionary narratives have changed over time in response to the Party’s propaganda imperatives on the one hand, and to the market-oriented production environment on the other. The paper argues that while recent TV productions in the new century have made increasing concessions to audience taste by adopting visually stimulating depictions and introducing fictional characters as points of identification for the audience, the revolutionary narratives were still aligned with the Party’s propaganda agenda at different times. This shows the ongoing competition between ideological and commercial interests in Chinese TV production during the era of market reforms.


Philosophy ◽  
1931 ◽  
Vol 6 (24) ◽  
pp. 472-484
Author(s):  
Hilda D. Oakeley

The treatment of history by philosophers seems to have entered upon a new phase, as regards the questions both what kind of knowledge we are dealing with and what is the relation of the historic experience to reality. As Professor Guido de Ruggiero pointed out in the April number of the Journal, this interest in the problems of history has not received much recognition in English thought at present. It is the purpose of the argument of the present article to maintain that whilst there are two methods of approach to reality, the one through knowledge and speculative thought, the other through history and practical experience, a philosophical interpretation is necessary to the understanding of history, though philosophies of history as usually conceived are not possible. The dualism of experience to which reference is here made is not identical with the dualism with which Professor de Ruggiero is concerned.


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