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… read more
Although major cognitively based studies of SPACE and TIME in language have appeared in terms of “Frames of Reference”, these do not extend to a wide selection of the world’s languages, nor do they combine SPACE and TIME in the overarching concept of WORLD, which has its own corresponding frames of… read more
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… read more
Edited by Michael Fortescue, Eva Skafte Jensen, Jens Erik Mogensen and Lene Schøsler
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… read more
The purpose of this book is to illustrate the relevance to linguistics today of Whiteheads philosophy of organism. Although largely ignored by linguists, Whitehead has in fact much to say as regards the cognitive processes underpinning language pattern. His theory of symbolism conceives of… read more
Edited by Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen, Michael Fortescue, Peter Harder, Lars Heltoft and Lisbeth Falster Jakobsen
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… read more
Edited by Michael Fortescue, Peter Harder and Lars Kristoffersen
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… read more
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. read more
The Eskimo-Uralic hypothesis of a genetic link between Eskimo-Aleut and the Uralic languages is now reaching its second centenary. Two major problems with its advancement since Bergsland’s (1959) summary of its status are addressed in this article. The first of these is the lack of an obvious… read more
This paper presents a diagnostic for distinguishing older from newer forms of polysynthesis. Explanations for the global “cline” of polysynthesis from northern Asia into northwestern America are examined in this light. This leads to addressing the questions as to the “robustness” of polysynthesis… read more
The issue of compositionality is applied to the modelling of the mental lexicon in terms of neural networks as described in Fortescue (2009). The approach is illustrated by applying it to the analysis of a semantically complex verb, conquer, illustrating the need to draw upon top-down (social,… read more
In both Chukchi and West Greenlandic, there are certain circumstances where a choice exists between an analytic and a corresponding synthetic construction. These cases are more widespread and systematic in Chukchi, where it is a matter of the presence or absence of an auxiliary verb, although the… read more
The traditional linear conception of speech production shared by the majority of formalists and functionalists alike envisages a step-by-step succession of stages on the way from conceptual intention to speech chain product. However, the alternative conception of parallel distributed processing has… read more
Various proposals have been put forward to explain the typological skewing produced by the universal preference for suffixing as opposed to prefixing. These proposals have focused either on processing or on diachronic explanations (or a combination of both). In the present paper it is argued that a… read more
It has generally been assumed in the literature on ergativity that the phenomenon of ergative clause structure in Chukotkan languages represents a family-internal development reflecting the common source of such constructions in earlier passives. On closer inspection it appears that Chukotkan… read more
