Problèmes de linguistique générale
About: This article is published in Language.The article was published on 1968-03-01. It has received 1838 citations till now.
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05 May 2011TL;DR: The authors argue that the grammar of sensitivity is grounded in a very general human cognitive ability to form categories and draw inferences based on scalar alternatives, and in the ways this ability is deployed for rhetorical effects in ordinary interpersonal communication.
Abstract: Many languages include constructions which are sensitive to the expression of polarity: that is, negative polarity items, which cannot occur in affirmative clauses, and positive polarity items, which cannot occur in negatives. The phenomenon of polarity sensitivity has been an important source of evidence for theories about the mental architecture of grammar over the last fifty years, and to many the oddly dysfunctional sensitivities of polarity items have seemed to support a view of grammar as an encapsulated mental module fundamentally unrelated to other aspects of human cognition or communicative behavior. This book draws on insights from cognitive/functional linguistics and formal semantics to argue that, on the contrary, the grammar of sensitivity is grounded in a very general human cognitive ability to form categories and draw inferences based on scalar alternatives, and in the ways this ability is deployed for rhetorical effects in ordinary interpersonal communication.
65 citations
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TL;DR: A unified analysis of all uses of main verb have, including causative and experiencer readings, alienable and inalienable possession, the locational reading, and is extended to account for properties of auxiliary have is proposed.
65 citations
01 Jan 1997
TL;DR: At a very early age, the child is able to manipulate language appropriately, both in its comprehension and its production Later comes the ability to reflect upon and deliberately control its use The emergence of these metalinguistic abilities must be distinguished from that of ordinary verbal communication as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: At a very early age, the child is able to manipulate language appropriately, both in its comprehension and its production Later comes the ability to reflect upon and deliberately control its use The emergence of these metalinguistic abilities must be distinguished from that of ordinary verbal communication The key questions concerning this topic are: What is metalinguistics? What knowledge do metalinguistic abilities require? Are they conscious activities? And how do they develop? (also see the review by Tunmer in Volume 2 and by Nicholson in this volume)
65 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the challenge posed by the constant confrontation of "incommensurable" (yet translated) paradigms may become a field for ethnographical inquiry, and propose a new anthropological way to define translation, not only as a key technique for understanding ethnography, but also as a general epistemological principle.
Abstract: Translation has played an important but equivocal role in the history of anthropology and linguistics. At least since Saussure and Boas, languages have been seen as systems whose differences make precise translation exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. More recently, Quine has argued that, in purely abstract terms, reference is ultimately inscrutable and translation between languages is in principle indeterminate. From a Kuhn-inspired point of view, we argue, on the contrary, that the challenge posed by the constant confrontation of "incommensurable" (yet translated) paradigms may become a field for ethnographical inquiry. This approach can provide a new anthropological way to define translation, not only as a key technique for understanding ethnography, but also as a general epistemological principle. Social anthropology would be thus defined not only as the study of cultural differences, but also and simultaneously as a science of translation: the study of the empirical processes and theoretical principles of cultural translation.
64 citations
TL;DR: The authors provide a case study of three absolute universals ranging over inventories of person marking in morphology, and suggest that the functionalist explanations of these facts currently on offer fall short of the mark.
Abstract: This article offers a case study of three absolute universals ranging over inventories of person marking in morphology. Certain logically possible distinctions are never drawn in morpheme inventories (either as pronouns or as agreement markers), though these distinctions may be expressed in other ways (and hence are not impossible a priori or for reasons of general cognition). After reviewing the literature, and dismissing apparent counter-examples, I submit that these universals bear on issues of formal versus functional explanation in linguistics, and suggest that the functionalist explanations of these facts currently on offer fall short of the mark. At least in this domain, it appears that there is a universal inventory of features which delimits the range of possible "persons" in language.
64 citations