"[Ruwet] raises fundamental questions about the place of grammar in the study of language and provides several studies which suggest the possibility that some core data are outside the realm of grammatical explanation. A very remarkable book, in which the breadth of Ruwet's reflection is both challenging and deeply rewarding."—Denis Bouchard, University of Quebec, Montreal
What can music teach a novelist, autobiographer, or playwright about the art of telling stories? The musical play of forms and sounds seems initially to have little to do with the representational function of the traditional narrative genres. Yet throughout the modernist era, music has been invoked as a model for narrative in its specifically mimetic dimension. Although modernist writers may conceive of musical communication in widely divergent ways, they have tended to agree on one crucial point: that music can help transform narrative into a medium better adapted to the representation of consciousness. Eric Prieto studies the twentieth-century evolution of this use of music, with particular emphasis on the postwar Parisian avant-garde. For such writers as Samuel Beckett, Michel Leiris, and Robert Pinget, music provides a number of guiding metaphors for the inwardly directed mode of mimesis that Prieto calls "listening in," where the object of representation is not the outside world but the subtly modulating relations between consciousness and world. This kind of semiotic boundary crossing between music and literature is inherently metaphorical, but, as Prieto's analyses of Beckett, Leiris, and Pinget show, these interart analogies provide valuable clues for bringing to light the unspoken assumptions, obscurely understood principles, and extra-literary aspirations that gave such urgency to the modernist quest to better represent the mind in action.
An accessible exploration of a burgeoning new field: the incredible evolution of language The first popular book to recount the exciting, very recent developments in tracing the origins of language, The First Word is at the forefront of a controversial, compelling new field. Acclaimed science writer Christine Kenneally explains how a relatively small group of scientists that include Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker assembled the astounding narrative of how the fundamental process of evolution produced a linguistic ape-in other words, us. Infused with the wonder of discovery, this vital and engrossing book offers us all a better understanding of the story of humankind.
During the last thirty years, most linguists and philosophers have assumed that meaning can be represented symbolically and that the mental processing of language involves the manipulation of symbols. Scholars have assembled strong evidence that there must be linguistic representations at several abstract levels—phonological, syntactic, and semantic—and that those representations are related by a describable system of rules. Because meaning is so complex, linguists often posit an equally complex relationship between semantic and other levels of grammar. The Semantics of Syntax is an elegant and powerful analysis of the relationship between syntax and semantics. Noting that meaning is underdetermined by form even in simple cases, Denis Bouchard argues that it is impossible to build knowledge of the world into grammar and still have a describable grammar. He thus proposes simple semantic representations and simple rules to relate linguistic levels. Focusing on a class of French verbs, Bouchard shows how multiple senses can be accounted for by the assumption of a single abstract core meaning along with background information about how objects behave in the world. He demonstrates that this move simplifies the syntax at no cost to the descriptive power of the semantics. In two important final chapters, he examines the consequences of his approach for standard syntactic theories.
This book is the first and so far only formally precise machinery converting well-motivated semantic sentence representations into actual sentences of English, French, German and Dutch. It focuses on the auxiliary and complementation systems of the languages concerned.
Syntax & Sage weaves ideas about nature, software, art, and urban design in a book that shows how software shapes the world, how the world shapes people, and how people shape software.
Grammar and Conceptualization documents some major developments in the theory of cognitive grammar during the last decade. By further articulating the framework and showing its application to numerous domains of linguistic structure, this book substantiates the claim that lexicon, morphology, and syntax form a gradation consisting of assemblies of symbolic structures (form-meaning pairings).
A new edition of a classic work that originated the “embodied cognition” movement and was one of the first to link science and Buddhist practices. This classic book, first published in 1991, was one of the first to propose the “embodied cognition” approach in cognitive science. It pioneered the connections between phenomenology and science and between Buddhist practices and science—claims that have since become highly influential. Through this cross-fertilization of disparate fields of study, The Embodied Mind introduced a new form of cognitive science called “enaction,” in which both the environment and first person experience are aspects of embodiment. However, enactive embodiment is not the grasping of an independent, outside world by a brain, a mind, or a self; rather it is the bringing forth of an interdependent world in and through embodied action. Although enacted cognition lacks an absolute foundation, the book shows how that does not lead to either experiential or philosophical nihilism. Above all, the book's arguments were powered by the conviction that the sciences of mind must encompass lived human experience and the possibilities for transformation inherent in human experience. This revised edition includes substantive introductions by Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch that clarify central arguments of the work and discuss and evaluate subsequent research that has expanded on the themes of the book, including the renewed theoretical and practical interest in Buddhism and mindfulness. A preface by Jon Kabat-Zinn, the originator of the mindfulness-based stress reduction program, contextualizes the book and describes its influence on his life and work.
Sentence Patterns in English and Hebrew offers an innovative perspective on sentential syntax, in which sentence patterns are introduced as constructions within the general framework of Construction Grammar. Drawing on naturally occurring data collected from the Internet, the study challenges the prevailing view of predication as the sole mechanism of sentence formation, and introduces the idea of patterning as a complementary, sometimes even alternative mechanism. Major sentence patterns of English and Hebrew are systematically presented, targeting both their form and their function. A contrastive analysis of the sentence patterns in these two languages results in postulating a typological group, in which cognitive motivations are shown to account for both similarities and differences within the typology. Sentence Patterns in English and Hebrew will appeal to scholars of constructional approaches, cognitive linguistics, typology, syntax, as well as anyone interested in English and Hebrew.
