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Theory Of Language
Theory of language is a topic from philosophy of language and theoretical linguistics. It has the goal of answering the questions "What is language?"; "Why do languages have the properties they have?"; or "What is the origin of language?". Even though much of the research in linguistics is descriptive or prescriptive, there exists an underlying assumption that terminological and methodological choices reflect the researcher's opinion of language. Linguists are divided into different schools of thinking, with the nature–nurture debate as the main divide. Some linguistics conferences and journals are focussed on a specific theory of language, while others disseminate a variety of views. Like in other human and social sciences, theories in linguistics can be divided into humanistic and sociobiological approaches. Same terms, for example 'rationalism', 'functionalism', 'formalism' and 'constructionism', are used with different meanings in different contexts. Humanistic theories ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophy Of Language
In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, the constitution of sentences, concepts, learning, and thought. Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell were pivotal figures in analytic philosophy's "linguistic turn". These writers were followed by Ludwig Wittgenstein ('' Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus''), the Vienna Circle, logical positivists, and Willard Van Orman Quine. In continental philosophy, language is not studied as a separate discipline. Rather, it is an inextricable part of many other areas of thought, such as phenomenology, structural semiotics, language of mathematics, hermeneutics, existentialism, deconstruction and critical theory. History Ancient philosophy In the West, inquiry into language stretches back to the 5th century BC with Socrates, Plato, Aristotl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Innatism
Innatism is a philosophical and epistemological doctrine that the mind is born with ideas, knowledge, and beliefs. Therefore, the mind is not a ''tabula rasa'' (blank slate) at birth, which contrasts with the views of early empiricists such as John Locke. Innatism asserts that not all knowledge is gained from experience and the senses. Plato and René Descartes were prominent philosophers in the development of innatism. Both philosophers emphasize that experiences are the key to unlocking this knowledge but not the source of the knowledge itself—essentially, no knowledge is derived exclusively from experience.Stich, S. P. (1975). ''Innate ideas''. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Difference from nativism ''Innatism'' and ''nativism'' are generally synonymous terms referring to the notion of preexisting ideas in the mind. However, more specifically, innatism refers to the philosophy of Plato and Descartes, who assumed that God or a similar being or proce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franz Boas
Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical particularism and cultural relativism. Studying in Germany, Boas was awarded a doctorate in 1881 in physics while also studying geography. He then participated in a geographical expedition to northern Canada, where he became fascinated with the culture and language of the Baffin Island Inuit. He went on to do field work with the indigenous cultures and languages of the Pacific Northwest. In 1887 he emigrated to the United States, where he first worked as a museum curator at the Smithsonian, and in 1899 became a professor of anthropology at Columbia University, where he remained for the rest of his career. Through his students, many of whom went on to found anthropology departments and research programmes inspired by their mentor, Boas pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency), agreement, the nature of crosslinguistic variation, and the relationship between form and meaning (semantics). There are numerous approaches to syntax that differ in their central assumptions and goals. Etymology The word ''syntax'' comes from Ancient Greek roots: "coordination", which consists of ''syn'', "together", and ''táxis'', "ordering". Topics The field of syntax contains a number of various topics that a syntactic theory is often designed to handle. The relation between the topics is treated differently in different theories, and some of them may not be considered to be distinct but instead to be derived from one another (i.e. word order can be seen as the result of movement rules derived from grammatical relations). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Branching (linguistics)
In linguistics, branching refers to the shape of the parse trees that represent the structure of sentences. Assuming that the language is being written or transcribed from left to right, parse trees that grow down and to the right are ''right-branching'', and parse trees that grow down and to the left are ''left-branching''. The direction of branching reflects the position of heads in phrases, and in this regard, right-branching structures are '' head-initial'', whereas left-branching structures are ''head-final''. English has both right-branching (head-initial) and left-branching (head-final) structures, although it is more right-branching than left-branching. Some languages such as Japanese and Turkish are almost fully left-branching (head-final). Some languages are mostly right-branching (head-initial). Examples Languages typically construct phrases with a head word (or nucleus) and zero or more ''dependents'' (modifiers). The following phrases show the phrase heads in bold. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syllogism
A syllogism ( grc-gre, συλλογισμός, ''syllogismos'', 'conclusion, inference') is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true. In its earliest form (defined by Aristotle in his 350 BCE book '' Prior Analytics''), a syllogism arises when two true premises (propositions or statements) validly imply a conclusion, or the main point that the argument aims to get across. For example, knowing that all men are mortal (major premise) and that Socrates is a man (minor premise), we may validly conclude that Socrates is mortal. Syllogistic arguments are usually represented in a three-line form: All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.In antiquity, two rival syllogistic theories existed: Aristotelian syllogism and Stoic syllogism. From the Middle Ages onwards, ''categorical syllogism'' and ''syllogism'' were usually used interchangeably. Thi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volksgeist
''Geist'' () is a German noun with a significant degree of importance in German philosophy. Its semantic field corresponds to English ghost, spirit, mind, intellect. Some English translators resort to using "spirit/mind" or "spirit (mind)" to help convey the meaning of the term. ''Geist'' is also a central concept in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's 1807 '' The Phenomenology of Spirit'' (''Phänomenologie des Geistes''). Notable compounds, all associated with Hegel's view of world history of the late 18th century, include ''Weltgeist'' "world-spirit", ''Volksgeist'' "national spirit" and ''Zeitgeist'' "spirit of the age". Etymology and translation German ''Geist'' (masculine gender: ''der Geist'') continues Old High German ''geist'', attested as the translation of Latin ''spiritus''. It is the direct cognate of English ''ghost'', from a West Germanic ''gaistaz''. Its derivation from a PIE root ''g̑heis-'' "to be agitated, frightened" suggests that the Germanic word or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Völkerpsychologie
Völkerpsychologie is a method of psychology that was founded in the nineteenth century by the famous psychologist, Wilhelm Wundt. However, the term was first coined by post-Hegelian social philosophers Heymann Steinthal and Moritz Lazarus. Wundt is widely known for his work with experimental psychology. Up until this time in history, psychology was almost exclusively using psychological experiments as a source of gathering information. Wundt believed that the very structure of psychological experiments leaves them severely lacking in their ability to investigate internal mental processes, such as consciousness and language. In an effort to build a method of psychological study which would allow for investigation of these processes, Wundt argued that science needed a deeper means of accessing the inner minds of its subjects. He cultivated a new branch of psychology known as Völkerpsychologie, which was distinct in its use of historical and comparative methods, rather than simply l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilhelm Wundt
Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (; ; 16 August 1832 – 31 August 1920) was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the fathers of modern psychology. Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and biology, was the first person ever to call himself a psychologist. He is widely regarded as the "father of experimental psychology"."Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt" in ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''. In 1879, at the , Wundt founded the first formal laboratory for psychological research. This marked psychology as an independent field of study. By creating this laboratory he was able to establish psychology as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heymann Steinthal
Heymann or Hermann Steinthal (16 May 1823 – 14 March 1899) was a German philologist and philosopher. He studied philology and philosophy at the University of Berlin, and was in 1850 appointed ''Privatdozent'' of philology and mythology at that institution. He was influenced by Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose ''Sprachwissenschaftliche Werke'' he edited in 1884. From 1852 to 1855 Steinthal resided in Paris, where he devoted himself to the study of Chinese, and in 1863 he was appointed assistant professor at the Berlin University; from 1872 he was also ''privat-dozent'' in critical history of the Old Testament and in religious philosophy at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums. In 1860 he founded, together with his brother-in-law Moritz Lazarus, the ''Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft'', in which was established the new science of comparative ('folk') psychology, the Völkerpsychologie. Steinthal was one of the directors (from 1883) of the , ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moritz Lazarus
Moritz Lazarus (15 September 1824 – 13 April 1903), born at Filehne, in the Grand Duchy of Posen, was a German-Jewish philosopher, psychologist, and a vocal opponent of the antisemitism of his time. Life and education He was born at Filehne, Posen. The son of Aaron Levin Lazarus, a pupil of Akiba Eiger, and himself president of the ''bet din'' and the ''yeshiva'' of Filehne (died there in 1874), he was educated in Hebrew literature and history, and subsequently in law and philosophy at the University of Berlin. In 1850 he obtained his PhD degree; in the same year he married Sarah Lebenheim. From 1860 to 1866 he was professor in the University of Berne, and subsequently returned to Berlin as professor of philosophy in the '' Kriegsakademie'' (1868) and later in the University of Berlin (1873). On the occasion of his seventieth birthday he was honored with the title of '' Geheimrath''. He died in Meran. Philosophy The fundamental principle of his philosophy was th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unconscious Mind
The unconscious mind (or the unconscious) consists of the processes in the mind which occur automatically and are not available to introspection and include thought processes, memories, interests, and motivations. Even though these processes exist well under the surface of conscious awareness, they are theorized to exert an effect on behavior. The term was coined by the German Romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge.Christopher John Murray, ''Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850'' (Taylor & Francis, 2004: ), pp. 1001–1002. Empirical evidence suggests that unconscious phenomena include repressed feelings, automatic skills, subliminal perceptions, and automatic reactions, and possibly also complexes, hidden phobias, and desires. The concept was popularized by the Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. In psychoanalytic theory, unconscious processes are understood to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
