The Building Blocks of Meaning

Ideas for a philosophical grammar

Michele Prandi | Bologna, Italy

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027223654 (Eur) | EUR 135.00

ISBN 9781588115263 (USA) | USD 203.00

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ISBN 9789027295408 | EUR 135.00 | USD 203.00

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ISBN 9781423761310

The shaping of complex meanings depends on punctual and relational coding and inferencing. Coding is viewed as a vector which can run either from expression to content or from concepts to (linguistic) forms to mark independent conceptual relations. While coding relies on systematic resources internal to language, inferencing essentially depends on a layered system of autonomous shared conceptual structures, which include both cognitive models and consistency criteria grounded in a natural ontology. Inference guided by coding is not a residual pragmatic device but it is a direct way to long-term conceptual structures that guide the connection of meanings.

The interaction of linguistic forms and concepts is particularly clear in conceptual conflict where conflictual complex meanings provide insights into the roots of significance and the linguistic structure of metaphors.

Complementing a formal analysis of linguistic structures with a substantive analysis of conceptual structures, a philosophical grammar provides insights from both formal and functional approaches toward a more profound understanding of how language works in constructing and communicating complex meanings.

This monograph is ideally addressed to linguists, philosophers and psychologists interested in language as symbolic form and as an instrument of human action rooted in a complex conceptual and cognitive landscape.

[Human Cognitive Processing, 13] 2004. xviii, 521 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.13

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments | p. vii

Foreword: The Idea of Philosophical Grammar | p. ix

I. The Semiotic Background: Coding and Inferencing in the Ideation of Complex Meanings

Introduction

1. Meanings and Messages | p. 5

2. The Ideation of Complex Meanings: The Object of Philosophical Grammar | p. 33

3. At the Roots of Complex Meanings: The Object of Philosophical Grammar | p. 55

II. The Conceptual Factors of Significance: Consistency Criteria, Lexical Structures Cognitive Models and Data

Introduction

4. Consistency Criteria within Philosophic and Linguistic Reflexion | p. 103

5. The Formal Frame of Natural Ontology | p. 119

6. Lexical Structures and Lexical Information | p. 151

7. Lexical Structures, Lexical Information and Consistency Criteria | p. 203

8. Consistency Criteria as Presuppositions of Natural Attitude | p. 225

III. The Ideation of Complex Meanings: Simple Sentence, Interclausal Links, Conflictual Complex Meanings

Introduction

9. The Ideation of the Simple Process | p. 249

10. The Ideation of Interclausal Links | p. 281

11. Conflictual Complex Meanings: a Philosophical Grammar of Tropes | p. 345

12. Concluding Remarks | p. 405

Notes | p. 421

Index | p. 513

“Close scrutiny of this challenging book will pay rich dividends, since the work is full of subtle and original insights into the nature of language, far too complex to summarize in a short review. For example, the book contains intriguing observations on figures of speech, the semantic pragmatics distinction, the nature of communication, and many other areas of special interest to linguists and philosophers.”

Verena Haser, Universität Hamburg, Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft Band 27. Heft 1 (2008)

“In the thirteenth release of Benjamins' Human Cognitive Processing, Michele Prandi offers an indepth exploration of complex meanings. In the foreword, the idea of a philosophical grammar is introduced and programmatically described as the complementing interaction between grammar of conceptual structures. A study of this interaction allows for a deeper comprehension of how the linguistic system works so as to construct and to communicate complex meanings.”

Annalisa Baicchi, in Pragmatics 2007

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