语言学简史(baike)13.pptVIP

Revision exercises Two states of the language: 1.historical development: (diachronic perspective) (of a language) to be explained with reference to the earlier state but to be irrelevant to the later system 2.a given state of a language: (synchronic perspective) (of a language) to be described without reference to it former or later development the structural approach Teaching goal of this section General grammar General grammar General Rational Grammar was written by Claude Lancelot（朗赛罗） in collaboration with Antoine Arnauld. （安托万，阿尔诺） A general grammar aims at enunciating certain principles that govern all languages and provide the basic explanation of their uses. It thus represents and attempt to define the general phenomenon of language (langage), in terms of which the individual languages are particular cases If all languages have a common basis, it is because they all have the goal of allowing human beings to express themselves, or to make their thoughts known to each other. Q: How does it happen, then that theses words that have “nothing in common with what happens in our minds” can nonetheless imitate “the various movements of our soul”? To put it another way, how should we interpret the relation between the speech “materiality” of speech and the “indivisibility” of a thought (the essential unity of the mind)? For Port- royal authors, only the organization of words in the linguistic utterance has the power to represent. There exists an analysis of thought that respects it unity even while decomposing it——namely, the analysis undertaken by logicians. The principal categories of words correspond to the fundamental moments of logical thought, since judgment consists in attributing a property (predicate) to a thing, languages include words to designate things , properties and the act of attribution itself (the verb to be). Other categories, while linked to the exercise of logical thought, are determined in addition by the condition of co