Toward a History of American Linguistics

Koerner, E. F. K.

doi:10.4324/9780203361856

Cited by 16 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…the periodization in Koerner 2002). The studies discussed in the previous section give an unbiased account of the verbs, and stress the complex and regular nature of the languages in response to the earlier claims about their deficiency.…”

Section: Late 19th Centurymentioning

confidence: 95%

Cherokee Classificatory Verbs

Kilarski

2009

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary This article examines the role played by the Cherokee verbs for ‘wash’, first cited in 1820 by John Pickering (1777–1848), in studies which postulated lexical redundancy and the lack of generic terms in ‘primitive’ languages. Like the more well-known “Eskimo words for ‘snow’”, the Cherokee verbs provide an example of misanalysis of the complexity of polysynthetic morphology and negligence in the presentation of data from ‘exotic’ languages. In addition, the accounts of the verbs for ‘wash’ demonstrate a misinterpretation of the function of the Cherokee classificatory verbs. In the article the author traces the description of the verbs in 19th and 20th century studies in linguistics, psychology, sociology and anthropology, with the aim of illustrating the claims made about the lexical and grammatical properties of American Indian languages, and the cognitive and cultural characteristics of the American Indians, in particular their inability to express abstract notions and the absence of moral and social values.

show abstract

Section: Late 19th Centurymentioning

confidence: 95%

Cherokee Classificatory Verbs

Kilarski

2009

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For instance, extensive lists of numeral classifiers, referred to as 'numerals' or 'generic particles' were given in the grammars of Chinese by Joshua Marshman (1768-1837Marshman 1814) and Robert Morrison (1782Morrison ( -1834Morrison 1815). Semantic and functional properties were discussed in the first account of numeral classifiers in Burmese in A Grammar of the Language of Burmah by Thomas Latter (1816-1853Latter 1845). As can be seen in the quotation below, Latter showed understanding of the fact that the use of different classifiers with a noun is pragmatically motivated, and depends on which particular property of the referent is in focus, in this case shape or function.…”

Section: Th Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Place of Classifiers in the History of Linguistics

Kilarski

2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary This article examines the approaches to classifiers within the Western tradition, ranging from the earliest accounts of the languages of Mesoamerica and East Asia from the 16th-17th centuries to ongoing discussions regarding their semantic motivation and functionality. I show that in spite of the limited attention they attracted before the 1970s, classifiers have played an important role in discussions concerning such notions as the functions of grammatical categories, the distinction between grammar and lexicon as well as the cognitive and cultural correlates of linguistic structure. In addition, I attribute common assumptions about classifiers to projections of typical properties of grammatical gender and, more generally, semantic and morphosyntactic properties of non-classifier languages.

show abstract

“…Herodotus, for instance, in his famous Historiae, speculated whether the divergent behaviours of Egyptians and Greeks could be explained by the directionality of their scripts: Whereas the former wrote from right to left, the latter wrote from left to right. Herodotus's view on language and thought, however, did not go unchallenged, as other scholars would posit that language is but a tool to talk about reality, and does not influence our experience of it (for historical accounts, see Fishman, 1980;Koerner, 2002). Even though scholarly inquiry into language and thought has come a long way since antiquity, these opposing views are to a large extent still found in current debates on language and thought: On the one side, there is the universalist camp, which holds that human cognitive processes are guided by universal perceptual biases, and on the other side, the relativist camp, according to which human cognition is indeed influenced by language.…”

Section: Language and Thoughtmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction: Cognition, Motion Events, and SLA

Bylund

Athanasopoulos

2015

The Modern Language Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This opening article introduces the reader to current topics in research on language and thought in monolingual speakers and second language (L2) learners, with particular attention to the domain of motion. The article also delineates the rationale that underlies the special issue at hand, and provides a contextualisation of the individual contributions. It is argued that the centrality of motion in everyday human life, in combination with the vast cross‐linguistic variation in motion construal, makes motion events a suitable topic for SLA research, both in terms of ecological validity and learnability challenge. The pedagogical aspects of this line of research are discussed in terms of, first, whether it is desirable to include the acquisition of language‐specific thought patterns in curricular goals, and second, whether the knowledge about language specificity in thought can be used in teaching as a means to facilitate learning.

show abstract

Toward a History of American Linguistics

Cited by 16 publications

References 0 publications

Cherokee Classificatory Verbs

Cherokee Classificatory Verbs

The Place of Classifiers in the History of Linguistics

Introduction: Cognition, Motion Events, and SLA

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About