Fortescue Michael Fortescue – författare

This monograph investigates for the first time words like ‘thing’ of maximal semantic generality across languages. Not all languages have exact equivalents of English ‘thing’ – in some, for instance, the nearest equivalent is an interrogative stem (‘what?’). Few languages extend their ‘thing’ words into indefinite ‘something’, ‘anything’, ‘nothing’, as in English. As regards Indo-European languages, Buck (1988) points out that such words typically derive from a more abstract source than that of simple material objects. In the case of ‘thing’, the earliest source usually given is the Germanic word for a ‘judicial assembly’. How does such a word develop the most general sense of ‘thing’ today? Do all languages follow this kind of pattern? These questions lead into an investigation of the concept of ‘thing’ in a wide range of contexts and in a wide variety of languages, involving both typological and cognitive aspects. The results have sometimes been unexpected. Buck, C. D. 1988. A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo -European Languages. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

The main thesis of this book is that abstraction, far from being confined to higher forms of cognition, language and logical reasoning, has actually been a major driving force throughout the evolution of creatures with brains. It is manifest in emotive as well as rational thought. Wending its way through the various facets of abstraction, the book attempts to clarify - and relate - the often confusing meanings of the word 'abstract' that one may encounter even within the same discipline. The unusual synoptic approach, which draws upon research in psychology, neural network theory, child language acquisition, philosophy and consciousness studies, as well as a variety of linguistic disciplines, cannot be compared directly to other books on the market that touch upon just one particular aspect of abstraction. It is aimed at a wide readership - anyone interested in the nature of abstraction and the cognitive processing and purpose behind it. (series A)

This essay is an attempt to build up a plausible model of the cognitive processes behind the behavior exhibited by speaker-hearers in a specific discourse situation.

This collection of papers offers an alternative to mainstream functional linguistics on two points. Especially in American linguistics, function and structure are often viewed almost as polar opposites; in addition, structure is often understood as being only a matter of linguistic form — or expression — as opposed to content. The book tries to illustrate why function and structure must be understood as mutually dependent in relation to language — and why the most interesting aspect of language structure is the way it structures the content side of language. In this, the book represents a reaffirmation of traditional concerns in structural linguistics, especially with respect to the structural integrity of individual languages — but with a reversal of traditional priority: structure is not autonomous, but must be understood on the basis of function. Without being hostile to typological and universal generalizations, the articles suggest that similarities between languages can only be responsibly discussed on the basis of an understanding that includes a respect for language differences.The book contains discussions of a number of different languages including Nahuatl, Danish Sign Language, French, and Tlapanec, and focuses on the way meaning is organized in the grammar of Danish. A final section sums up theoretical perspectives.

This volume contains revised and expanded versions of those papers from the 1990 Functional Grammar Conference in Copenhagen that contributed specifically to the current investigation of clause structure in terms of semantic layers. One of the key concepts in this discussion is ''reference''. Some papers discuss ways in which previous accounts of reference need to be expanded and differentiated to provide a consistent picture of referential properties. The power of layered analysis to bring out fundamental similarities between languages of very different types is the theme of another group of papers, again with the referential properties of constituents playing a central role. By some contributors layered analysis is challenged, and the question is raised as to how it might fit into a dynamic and pragmatic picture of language. The book is rounded off by a comparison between layered structure in Functional Grammar and in Government and Binding Theory.

This volume consists of 19 papers presented at the 16th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, which was held in August 2003 in Copenhagen and drew the largest number of participants and the widest array of languages that this important biannual conference has ever had. As with previous volumes, the papers selected cover a wide range of subjects besides the core areas of historical linguistics, and this time include studies on ethnolinguistics, grammaticalisation, language contact, sociolinguistics, and typology. The individual languages treated include Brazilian Portuguese, Chukchi, Korean, Danish, English, German, Greek, Japanese, Kok-Papónk, Latin, Newar, Old Norse, Romanian, Seneca, Spanish, and Swedish. The volume reflects the state of the art both empirical and theoretical — in Historical Linguistics today, and shows the discipline to be as flourishing and capable of new advances as ever.