Cognitive Foundations of Grammar / Edition 1

by Bernd Heine

Overview

The main function of language is to convey meaning. Therefore, argues Bernd Heine in these pages, the question of why language is structured the way it is must first of all be answered with reference to this function. Linguistic explanations offered in terms of other exponents of language structure (for example, syntax) are likely to highlight peripheral or epi-phenomenal—rather than central—characteristics of language structure. Heine provides a solid introductory treatment of the ways in which language structure (that is, grammar) and language usage can be explained with reference to the processes underlying human conceptualization and communication.

Exploring an area of linguistics that has developed only recently and is rapidly expanding, Cognitive Foundations of Grammar will appeal to students of linguistics, psychology, and anthropology, especially those interested in grammaticalization processess.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195102529
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	11/28/1997
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Bernd heine is Professor of African Studies (Afrikanistik) and Director of the Institute for African Studies at the University of Cologne in Germany. He has published thirty books, including Possession: Cognitive Sources, Forces, and Grammaticalization (1997), The Mukogodo Maasai: An Ethnobotanical Survey (co-author, 1994), Auxiliaries: Cognitive Forces and Grammaticalization (Oxford, 1993), and Grammaticalization: A Conceptual Framework (co-author, 1991).

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Introduction	xiii
1.	Modalities and Intensional Languages	3
Appendix 1A	Discussion	24
Appendix 1B	Smullyan on Modality and Description	36
2.	Iterated Deontic Modalities	39
3.	Essentialism in Modal Logic	45
4.	Essential Attribution	53
Appendix 4A	Strict Implication, Deducibility, and the Deduction Theorem	71
5.	Quantification and Ontology	75
6.	Classes, Collections, Assortments, and Individuals	89
7.	Does the Principle of Substitutivity Rest on a Mistake?	101
8.	Nominalism and the Substitutional Quantifier	111
9.	Moral Dilemmas and Consistency	125
10.	Rationality and Believing the Impossible	143
11.	Spinoza and the Ontological Proof	163
12.	On Some Post-1920s Views of Russell on Particularity, Identity, and Individuation	177
13.	Possibilia and Possible Worlds	189
14.	A Backward Look at Quine's Animadversions on Modalities	215
15.	Some Revisionary Proposals about Belief and Believing	233
	Index	257