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Signs, Mind, and Reality <DOCINFO AUTHOR ""TITLE "Signs, Mind, and Reality: A theory of language as the folk model of the world"SUBJECT "Advances in Consciousness Research, Volume 65"KEYWORDS ""SIZE HEIGHT "240"WIDTH "160"VOFFSET "4"> Signs, Mind, and Reality Advances in Consciousness Research Advances in Consciousness Research provides a forum for scholars from different scientific disciplines and fields of knowledge who study consciousness in its multifaceted aspects. Thus the Series will include (but not be limited to) the various areas of cognitive science, including cognitive psychology, linguis- tics, brain science and philosophy. The orientation of the Series is toward developing new interdisciplinary and integrative approaches for the investiga- tion, description and theory of consciousness, as well as the practical conse- quences of this research for the individual and society. Editor Maxim I. Stamenov Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Editorial Board David Chalmers Steven Macknik Australian National University Barrow Neurological Institute Gordon G. Globus George Mandler University of California at Irvine University of California at San Diego Ray Jackendoff Susana Martinez-Conde Brandeis University Barrow Neurological Institute Christof Koch John R. Searle California Institute of Technology University of California at Berkeley Stephen Kosslyn Petra Stoerig Harvard University Universität Düsseldorf Earl Mac Cormac Duke University Volume 65 Signs, Mind, and Reality: A theory of language as the folk model of the world by Sebastian Shaumyan Signs, Mind, and Reality A theory of language as the folk model of the world Sebastian Shaumyan Yale University, USA John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements 8 of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sebastian Shaumyan Signs, Mind, and Reality : A theory of language as the folk model of the world / Sebastian Shaumyan. p. cm. (Advances in Consciousness Research, issn 1381–589X ; v. 65) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Semiotics. 2. Language and languages--Philosophy. 3. Structural linguistics. 4. Linguistic analysis (Linguistics). I. Title. II. Series. P99.S462 2006 401’.43--dc22 2006042713 isbn 90 272 5201 7 (Hb; alk. paper) © 2006 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa Table of contents Preface xi CHAPTER 1 The Science of Semiotic Linguistics 1 1.1 The confusion of language and logic in modern linguistics 1 1.2 The place of Semiotic Linguistics among other semiotic disciplines 8 1.3 Language defined 11 1.4 Grammar and semantics 12 1.5 Transfer Principle 13 1.6 Genotype grammar and phenotype grammar 15 1.7 The organization of Semiotic Linguistics 17 1.8 Research Program for Semiotic Linguistics 17 1.9 Anomalies, antinomies, and concepts of Semiotic Linguistics 18 CHAPTER 2 Language as a Phenomenon of the Social Mind 21 2.1 Facts of the social mind 21 2.2 Independence of language from psychology 22 2.3 Independence of language from biology 24 2.4 Methodological fallacy of reductionism 25 2.5 Language versus knowledge of language 26 2.6 Language-thought and the method of the distinction of language from thought 27 2.7 Semiotic versus objectivist view of language 28 2.8 Language as a theoretical construct and language universals 32 2.9 Semiotic universals as genetic factors 36 2.9.1 Communicative function of language 36 2.9.2 Subjectivity 36 2.9.3 Polarity of persons 37 2.9.4 Complementary duality of society-individual 37 2.9.5 Arbitrariness and conventionality of the sign 38 2.9.6 Ego-coordinates 39 2.9.7 Fundamental linguistic classes 40 2.9.8 Distributive and integrative relations 42 vi Table of contents CHAPTER 3 The Linguistic Sign 45 3.1 Sign and meaning defined 46 3.1.1 Sign 47 3.1.2 Meaning 48 3.1.3 Field 48 3.1.4 Assignment of attributes to sign and meaning 49 3.1.5 Conventionality of the sign-meaning relation 50 3.1.6 Meaning and referent 51 3.1.7 Meaning and information 52 3.2 Critique of Saussure's concept of the linguistic sign 53 3.3 Critique of Peirce's conception of semiotics 56 CHAPTER 4 The Anomalies of Categorization and the Principle of Differences 58 4.1 Anomalies of categorization 58 4.2 Arbitrariness and conventionality of the linguistic sign 61 4.3 Principle of Differences and the Concept of Value 63 4.4 Explaining the anomaly of meaning by the Principle of Differences 65 4.4.1 Anomalies of meaning 65 4.4.2 Semiotic identities and semiotic differences 66 4.4.3 Semiotic identities and semiotic differences in phonology 67 4.5 Principle of Duality of Categorization, and value and worth classes of signs and meanings 68 4.6 Critique of Saussure's conception of the arbitrariness of the sign 70 4.7 Homonymy 71 4.8 Principle of Phonological Differences and Principle of Phonological Duality of Categorization 73 4.9 The significance of the Principle of Differences 74 4.9.1 Principle of Differences as the cornerstone of linguistic analysis 74 4.9.2 Philosophical implications of the Principle of Differences 76 4.9.3 Principle of Differences and cognition 77 4.10 Disassociation of the sign-meaning bond in modern linguistics 79 4.10.1 Generative semantics 79 4.10.2 Generative phonology 80 4.10.3 The confusion of the functional and physical aspects of the concept of phoneme in violation of the Principle of the Duality of Categorization 81 CHAPTER 5 Linguistic Structure 86 5.1 Principle of the Contrast of Structural and Lexical Signs 86 5.2 Syntactic and paradigmatic meanings 91 5.3 Antinomies between lexical and structural meanings 92 5.4 Grammatical structure 95 5.4.1 Contensive autonomous words and their structures 95 5.4.2 The structure of the word combination 98 5.4.3 The structure of the syllable 99 5.5 The concept of the structural class 100 Table of contents vii 5.5.1 Fusion of meanings and structural series 100 5.5.2 Meaning of structural classes 102 5.5.3 Structural class defined 103 5.5.4 Structural classes and the Proportionality Law 105 5.6 Extending the Principle of Differences to cover the structural sign series 106 5.6.1 Generalized Principle of Differences 106 5.6.2 Extension of the diagnostic cases for homonymy 107 5.7 The lexicon 107 5.8 Grammar 108 5.9 Law of Autonomy of Grammar from the Lexicon 110 5.10 Semiotic Typology of Languages 112 5.10.1 Typology of signs 112 5.10.2 Sign-based typology of languages 115 5.10.3 Law of the Syntactic Field as the foundation of linguistic typology 115 5.11 Confusion of structural and lexical meanings in modern linguistics 117 5.11.1 Agentivity 117 5.11.2 Agentivity in ergative languages 119 CHAPTER 6 The Theory of Superposition 121 6.1 Meaning and information 121 6.2 Worth-and value-changing contexts 123 6.3 Primary and secondary functions of a sign and the notion of the field 125 6.3.1 Synonymy and polysemy 126 6.3.2 Spurious polysemy 127 6.3.3 Syntactic superposition 128 6.3.4 Syntactic and non-syntactic contexts 129 6.3.5 Superposition in phonology 129 6.3.6 Variants and alternants 130 6.3.7 The notion of the field of a sign 131 6.4 Principle of Superposition 131 6.5 Stability and flexibility of language 133 6.6 Law of Sign-Function Correspondence 133 6.7 Hierarchy of sign functions and the Range-Content Law 134 6.8 Basic and derived words as primary and secondary forms of the word 135 6.9 Antinomies of structural and logical meaning explained by superposition 137 6.9.1 Antinomies of word classification 137 6.9.2 Antinomy of transitivity 138 6.10 Confusion of linguistic and logical analysis of meaning 142 6.11 Superposition in diachrony: Principle of Diachronic Differentiation 144 6.11.1 Structural meaning shift 146 6.11.2 Lexical meaning shift 147 6.11.3 Phonological shift 147 6.12 The theory of synonymy as part of the theory of superposition 148 6.13 A historical note 151 viii Table of contents CHAPTER 7 Methodological Interlude 152 7.1 Dimensions of a theory 152 7.1.1 Research program 153 7.1.2 Principles and laws 154 7.1.3 Conceptual framework 157 7.1.4 Analogical modeling 158 7.1.5 Mathematical modeling 160 7.2 The nature of abstraction 162 7.3 Examples of semiotic abstraction 164 7.3.1 Communicative and informational dimensions of language 164 7.3.2 Abstraction from sound to phoneme 165 7.3.3 The concept of phoneme 169 7.3.4 Are segmental phonemes a fiction? 171 7.4 Dialectics and Complementarity Principle 175 7.5 Empirical and conceptual problems in linguistics 176 7.6 What must count as discovery in theoretical linguistics 182 7.7 The pitfalls of formal models of language 184 7.8 Critique of Hjelmslev's notion of linguistic reality 189 CHAPTER 8 The Word and Word Classes 192 8.1 Difficulties with defining the word 192 8.2 Defining the word 194 8.2.1 Word defined 194 8.2.2 Lexeme 194 8.2.3 Autonomous and non-autonomous words 195 8.2.4 Independent and dependent contensive autonomous words 196 8.2.5 Modifiers and relators 197 8.2.6 Functional definition of the word 197 8.3 Word and morpheme 197 8.4 Theory of word classes 198 8.4.1 Difficulties with the word classification 198 8.4.2 Law of Contensive Autonomous Word Classes 200 8.4.3 Principal phoneme classes 202 8.5 Word and its syntactic field 204 8.6 Principle
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