Thanks for your reply, Michael.
So, I'll ask - why should 'infrastructure/deep structure' - ever change? After
all, the logical structure of the syllogism doesn't change. The linguistic deep
structure seems to me, at least, to be a logical structure.
Now, as for whether the verbal superstructure evolves - yes, certainly, words,
phrases, grammatical format [but not the deep logical structure] can
change..but I don't see that deep logical structure as changing. For example,
it is interesting that Latin has the verb at the end, as does classical
Chinese. Modern Chinese, however, moves to the linguistic format of 'western'
languages - with the verb separating subject and object.
That's an interesting aspect - the ever-greater diagrammatization of meaning in
form - but I don't see how diagrammatization evolves. That suggests that the
'early languages' were less capable of abstraction than modern - and I'm not
aware of such factual evidence though I've certainly heard of such an
assumption.
We probably won't come to a full agreement, but your analytic framework is very
interesting.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Shapiro
To: Edwina Taborsky
Cc: CSP
Sent: Saturday, November 28, 2015 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] material relevant to Peircean linguistics
Edwina - It doesn't fit into the Peircean concept of semeiosis because it's
arbitrary. There's no way in that conception for accounting how speech is
related to rules of grammar except by linguists' fiat. Chomsky also has no way
of accounting for linguistic history. Why should "infrastructure" (by which I
take it you mean "deep structure") ever change?
What you call "verbal superstructure" EVOLVES IN TANDEM WITH "logical
infrastructure." There is a set of patterned relationships between these two
aspects of linguistic structure that are diagrammatic, and the telos of all
language change is toward ever-greater diagrammatization of meaning in form.
Hope this helps eliminate the problems you speak about.
Michael
-----Original Message-----
From: Edwina Taborsky
Sent: Nov 28, 2015 12:03 PM
To: Michael Shapiro , CSP
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] material relevant to Peircean linguistics
Michael - I don't see why Chomsky's linguistic analysis doesn't fit into
Peircean semiosis. After all, the underlying grammatical infrastructural
capacity can be argued as Thirdness, and for Peirce, Thirdness is evolutionary.
And after all, is it the logical infrastructure of language that evolves,
or is it the verbal superstructure, so to speak? I'd have a problem with
considering that the logical infrastructure evolves, but linguistic expression
does (eg, Breal, M - and I'm sure you know his work)..
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Shapiro
To: CSP
Sent: Saturday, November 28, 2015 6:45 AM
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] material relevant to Peircean linguistics
List,
Ben Udell and Gary Richmond have suggested that I occasionally post
material on the use of Peirce's whole philosophy for the founding of a new
linguistics. Here is the first installment. (Glosses are supplied in order to
aid comprehension by readers whose first language is other than English.)
Semeiotic Neostructuralism and Language
GLOSSARY
bootless, adj.: to no advantage or avail
cortex, n.: outer layer of neural tissue in humans and other mammals
diagram, n.: a type of sign in which relations at one level (form) are
replicated at another level (meaning)
diagrammatization, n. < diagrammatize, v.: make (into) a diagram (of)
fortuitous, adj.: occurring by chance without evident causal need or
relation or without deliberate intention
nota bene: mark well (Latin); used to call attention to something
important
paradigm, n.: a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific
school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and
the experiments performed in support of them are formulated; broadly: a
philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind
phenomenalist, n. > phenomenalism, n.: a mode of thought which considers
things from a phenomenal viewpoint, or as phenomena only; the metaphysical
theory or belief that (actual or possible) phenomena are the only objects of
knowledge, or the only realities; also: spec. the theory that statements about
physical objects can be analysed in terms of, or reduced to, statements about
(actual or possible) sensory experiences and their contents
pleonasm, n.: iteration or repetition in speaking or in writing; the use
of more words than those necessary to denote mere sense (as the man he said,
saw with his own eyes, true fact); esp. the coincident use of a word and its
substitute for the same grammatical function
postbiotic, adj.: pertaining to the period following the appearance of
life
pragmaticism, n.: the pragmatic philosophy of C. S. Peirce
semeiotic, adj. < semeiosis, n.: the process whereby something functions
as a sign
teleology, n.: a metaphysical doctrine explaining phenomena and events by
final causes
vignette, n.: a short literary sketch chiefly descriptive and
characterized usually by delicacy, wit, and subtlety
Readers of this book [The Speaking Self: Language Lore and
English Usage, 2nd ed., in preparation] who have an interest in the conceptual
underpinnings of its vignettes may benefit from being reminded of some of the
main points in which the doctrine christened “semeiotic neostructuralism” (in
the spirit of C. S. Peirce’s pragmaticism) by the author differs fundamentally
from the dominant paradigm of contemporary linguistics, which is nominally
identified with Chomsky and his followers––regardless, nota bene, whether these
latter-day practitioners have renamed their particular enterprise (e. g.,
“Optimality Theory” or “Cognitive Linguistics;” ALL linguistics is necessarily
‘cognitive’, hence CL is a flagrant pleonasm) so as to differentiate it from
what was originally called “tranformational” or “generative” grammar.
Chomsky has a rather mechanistic/mechanicalist view of
language, for all that he understands that the freedom to compose sentences
that are original, unpredictable, and yet intelligible is different from the
unoriginal, predictable products of strictly mechanical action. His view is
mechanistic nonetheless because he simply posits underlying structures by which
sentences are to be generated. Possibly in a wider perspective, Chomsky is no
more reductively mechanistic than a semeiotic neostructuralist, in a wider
perspective, is a phenomenalist. For he no doubt admits (or would admit) that
the linguistic universals in our brains are not just there, period, but
evolved, with the brain’s evolution, as chance variants that were ‘selected’ by
the principle of reproductive success. Similarly, the intentions or needs or
felt urgencies to speak or to achieve certain outcomes might explain––but only
in a context wider than Chomskyan linguistics––why language’s generative
mechanisms are used in this way rather than in that.
But if we focus simply on the linguist’s study, as diversely
conceived by Chomsky and the semeiotic neostructuralist, then there is this
difference: for the one, the teleology of language is excluded from linguistic
explanation, while for the other it is the very stuff of explanation. For the
one, linguistic phenomena conform to a describable structure of highly abstract
laws, while for the other linguistic phenomena exhibit an intelligible if less
abstract, more complicated structure. For the one, the system is a given, and
any changes in it are accidental, while for the other development is essential
to language––development is more the reality than is any one system of
rules––and that development is also intelligible and not merely given.
That is the conflict. The reason the semeiotic
neostructuralist approach is, if it is successful, superior is that it can be
used to explain the very evolution of the brain-mechanism or linguistic
capacities and universals that Chomsky can at best describe. That is, given
creatures somewhat sociable, exchanging signs as their way of life, then the
survival value of their communicating more elaborate and precise diagrams would
explain the retention of those fortuitous variations, say, in brain structure
that promote exactly such powers of expressible diagrammatization. That is, the
principle of this evolution will be itself linguistic, and continuous with the
principles of postbiotic, strictly linguistic evolution.
The thought here is not unlike that which refuses to
postulate linguistic intentions separate from the capacity to exercise those
intentions. Just as there could be no desire to speak without an ability to
speak, so also there could be no evolution of linguistic capacities––even, or
especially, at the physiological level––except among those who, already
speaking to one another, will more likely survive as a species if they speak
more effectively. Thus, instead of a neurophysiological explanation of
language, we have a linguistic explanation of the higher cortex––and probably
not just the speech centers either, since so many of our capacities for
sensation and action would be bootless without our capacities for speech.
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