Leonard Bloomfield


Book Description

This set reprints key journal articles originally published between 1915 and 1995, and covers all of the major assessments of Bloomfield's work.




Dictionary Of Modern American Philosophers


Book Description

The Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers includes both academic and non-academic philosophers, and a large number of female and minority thinkers whose work has been neglected. It includes those intellectuals involved in the development of psychology, pedagogy, sociology, anthropology, education, theology, political science, and several other fields, before these disciplines came to be considered distinct from philosophy in the late nineteenth century. Each entry contains a short biography of the writer, an exposition and analysis of his or her doctrines and ideas, a bibliography of writings, and suggestions for further reading. While all the major post-Civil War philosophers are present, the most valuable feature of this dictionary is its coverage of a huge range of less well-known writers, including hundreds of presently obscure thinkers. In many cases, the Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers offers the first scholarly treatment of the life and work of certain writers. This book will be an indispensable reference work for scholars working on almost any aspect of modern American thought.







The Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics


Book Description

Leading scholars examine the history of linguistics from ancient origins to the present. They consider every aspect of the field from language origins to neurolinguistics, explore the linguistic traditions in different parts of the world, examine how work in linguistics has influenced other fields, and look at how it has been practically applied




Last Papers in Linguistic Historiography


Book Description

This volume brings together — in 8 chapters — what has occupied the author during his many years as editor of Historiographia Linguistica. Namely, how the history of linguistics has developed into a major field of scholarly research, and that the discussion of questions of method and epistemology needs to be continued to avoid stereotypical practice. The author takes up a number of subjects that often had been regarded as settled, but which require a revisit. This is shown in several chapters, whether it appears subjects like ‘analogy’ or the relationships between well-known linguists like Saussure, Hermann Paul, and others.




Linguistics and the Formal Sciences


Book Description

The formal sciences, particularly mathematics, have had a profound influence on the development of linguistics. This insightful overview looks at techniques that were introduced in the fields of mathematics, logic and philosophy during the twentieth century, and explores their effect on the work of various linguists. In particular, it discusses the 'foundations crisis' that destabilised mathematics at the start of the twentieth century, the numerous related movements which sought to respond to this crisis, and how they influenced the development of syntactic theory in the 1950s. The book concludes by discussing the resulting major consequences for syntactic theory, and provides a detailed reassessment of Chomsky's early work at the advent of Generative Grammar. Informative and revealing, this book will be invaluable to all those working in formal linguistics, in particular those interested in its history and development.




The Cambridge History of Linguistics


Book Description

The establishment of language as a focus of study took place over many centuries, and reflection on its nature emerged in relation to very different social and cultural practices. Written by a team of leading scholars, this volume provides an authoritative, chronological account of the history of the study of language from ancient times to the end of the 20th century (i.e., 'recent history', when modern linguistics greatly expanded). Comprised of 29 chapters, it is split into 3 parts, each with an introduction covering the larger context of interest in language, especially the different philosophical, religious, and/or political concerns and socio-cultural practices of the times. At the end of the volume, there is a combined list of all references cited and a comprehensive index of topics, languages, major figures, etc. Comprehensive in its scope, it is an essential reference for researchers, teachers and students alike in linguistics and related disciplines.




Word and Paradigm Morphology


Book Description

This volume provides an introduction to word and paradigm models of morphology and the general perspectives on linguistic morphology that they embody. The recent revitalization of these models is placed in the larger context of the intellectual lineage that extends from classical grammars to current information-theoretic and discriminative learning paradigms. The synthesis of this tradition outlined in the volume highlights leading ideas about the organization of morphological systems that are shared by word and paradigm approaches, along with strategies that have been developed to formalize these ideas, and ways in which the ideas have been validated by experimental methodologies. An extended comparison of contemporary word and paradigm variants isolates the central assumptions about morphological units and relations that distinguish implicational from realizational models and clarifies the relation of these models to morpheme-based accounts. Designed to be accessible to a wide readership, this book will serve both as an introduction to morphology and morphological theory from the word and paradigm perspective for non-specialists, and for morphologists, as a detailed account of the history of the ideas that underlie these models.




A History of Language Philosophies


Book Description

Theory and history combine in this book to form a coherent narrative of the debates on language and languages in the Western world, from ancient classic philosophy to the present, with a final glance at on-going discussions on language as a cognitive tool, on its bodily roots and philogenetic role. An introductory chapter reviews the epistemological areas that converge into, or contribute to, language philosophy, and discusses their methods, relations, and goals. In this context, the status of language philosophy is discussed in its relation to the sciences and the arts of language. Each chapter is followed by a list of suggested readings that refer the reader to the final bibliography. About the author: Lia Formigari, Professor Emeritus at University of Rome, La Sapienza. Her publications include: Language and Experience in XVIIth-century British Philosophy. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 1988; Signs, Science and Politics. Philosophies of Language in Europe 1700–1830. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 1993; La sémiotique empiriste face au kantisme. Liège: Mardaga, 1994.




Battle in the Mind Fields


Book Description

“We frequently see one idea appear in one discipline as if it were new, when it migrated from another discipline, like a mole that had dug under a fence and popped up on the other side.” Taking note of this phenomenon, John Goldsmith and Bernard Laks embark on a uniquely interdisciplinary history of the genesis of linguistics, from nineteenth-century currents of thought in the mind sciences through to the origins of structuralism and the ruptures, both political and intellectual, in the years leading up to World War II. Seeking to explain where contemporary ideas in linguistics come from and how they have been justified, Battle in the Mind Fields investigates the porous interplay of concepts between psychology, philosophy, mathematical logic, and linguistics. Goldsmith and Laks trace theories of thought, self-consciousness, and language from the machine age obsession with mind and matter to the development of analytic philosophy, behaviorism, Gestalt psychology, positivism, and structural linguistics, emphasizing throughout the synthesis and continuity that has brought about progress in our understanding of the human mind. Arguing that it is impossible to understand the history of any of these fields in isolation, Goldsmith and Laks suggest that the ruptures between them arose chiefly from social and institutional circumstances rather than a fundamental disparity of ideas.