Edited by Aleksi Mäkilähde, Ville Leppänen and Esa Itkonen
This volume sets out to discuss the role of norms and normativity in both language and linguistics from a multiplicity of perspectives. These concepts are centrally important to the philosophy and methodology of linguistics, and their role and nature need to be investigated in detail. The chapters… read more
Edited by Jordan Zlatev, Timothy P. Racine, Chris Sinha and Esa Itkonen
The cognitive and language sciences are increasingly oriented towards the social dimension of human cognition and communication. The hitherto dominant approach in modern cognitive science has viewed “social cognition” through the prism of the traditional philosophical puzzle of how individuals… read more
The concept of analogy is of central concern to modern cognitive scientists, whereas it has been largely neglected in linguistics in the past four decades. The goal of this thought-provoking book is (1) to introduce a cognitively and linguistically viable notion of analogy; and (2) to re-establish… read more
This wide-ranging book presents the linguistic achievements of four major cultures to readers presumably conversant with modern theoretical linguistics. The chapter on India discusses in detail Pāṇini's (c. 400 B.C.) grammar Ast-adhy-ay-i as well as the work of his commentators Kātyāyana,… read more
In this book, the author analyses the nature of the science of grammar. After presenting some methodological and historical background, he sets forth a theory of language and of grammar, showing that the science of grammar is not an empirical, but a normative science, comparable to logic and… read more
Wherever a mistake can be made, there is a corresponding norm. Normativity is divided into correctness and rationality. These two dimensions are independent of each other, as shown by the fact that rational actions can be performed by speaking incorrectly, and irrational actions can be performed by… read more
Underlying all the chapters of this volume are the concepts of norm and normativity. In this Introduction we set the stage for the individual chapters: first, by introducing certain basic concepts and relevant terminology; second, by briefly discussing the status of two types of norms in… read more
From the methodological point of view, linguistics is not a monolith. Nor is it an arbitrary conglomerate of unrelated methods. Rather, the methods most commonly used in linguistic description constitute a definite hierarchy that is motivated both logically and temporally, namely: intuition-based… read more
‘Any natural language consists of rules which are inherently social and normative.’ It is the purpose of this chapter to establish the truth of this claim and to show that it is significant or non-trivial. The argument is based on the ineluctable place of normativity in any consistent account of… read more
SUMMARY Language is a social phenomenon; linguistic changes are non-nomic in character; the customary type of explanation utilized in diachronic linguistics is teleological explanation. From these three facts is follows that it is plausible to consider linguistic changes as social actions. They… read more
