Cover not available
Article published In:
Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 2:1 (1975) ► pp.25–47

Early Scholastic Views on Ambiguity

Composition and Division

| University of Ottawa

This article presents a linguistic study of a number of 12th-century logical tracts with respect to their views on fallacies of composition and division. It will be seen that early Scholastic work done in this area was greatly influenced by certain syntactic properties of Latin.

The correlation between meaning and syntactic order came to preoccupy logicians upon the rediscovery and subsequent translation of Aristotle’s De Sophisticis Elenchis at the beginning of the 12th century. Some logicians of the period felt that a composite syntactic order correlated obligatorily with a composite sense; others thought that order and sense could be independent from each other, and that, consequently, a composite syntactic order could have two readings, a composite one and a divided one. A third opinion expressed was that certain syntactic orders received two interpretations, one considered to be normal (a composite order correlating preferentially with a composite sense), and another one regarded as secondary (the possibility for a composite order to be understood in a divided sense as well).

The ideas which found expression in the 12th century manuscripts discussed in this study influenced logical speculation throughout the Scholastic period.

Published online: 1 January 1975
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.2.1.03riv
References
Bocheński, Innocentius M(aria)
1961, A History of Formal Logic. Transl. and ed. by Ivo Thomas. Notre Dame, Ind.: Univ. of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Bursill-Hall, G(eoffrey) L(eslie)
1971 Speculative Grammars of the Middle Ages: The doctrine of partes orationis of the Modistae, The Hague: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carnap, Rudolf
(1891–1970). 1947 Meaning and Necessity: A study in semantics and modal logic. Chicago, Ill.: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Morris R(aphael), and Ernest Nagel
1934 An Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.Google Scholar
Copi, Irving M.
1953 Introduction to Logic. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Frege, (Friedrich Ludwig) Gottlob
(1848–1925). 1970 [1892] “On Sense and Reference” [Ueber Sinn und Bedeutung]. Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege ed. by Peter Geach and Max Black, 56–78. Oxford: B. Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hamblin, Charles L.
1970 Fallacies. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Hintikka, Jaakko
1969 “Semantics for Proportional Attitudes”. Philosophical Logic ed. by J. W. Davis, et al., 21–45. Dordrecht: D. Reidel. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kneale, William, and Martha Kneale
1962 The Development of Logic. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Repr. 1968)Google Scholar
Lakoff, George, and Stanley Peters
1966 “Phrasal Conjunction and Symmetric Predicates”. Report No. NSF-17 to the National Science Foundation VI1. 1–49. Cambridge, Mass.: Computational Laboratory, Harvard Univ.Google Scholar
McCawley, James D.
1971 “Where Do Noun Phrases Come from?”. Semantics: An interdisciplinary reader in philosophy, linguistics and psychology ed. by Danny D(avid) Steinberg and Leon A. Jakobovits, 217–31. London:. Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Minio-Paluello, Lorenzo
1952 “Iacobus Veneticus Graecus – canonist and translator of Aristotle”. Traditio 81.265–304. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moody, Ernest A(ddison)
1965 “Buridan and a Dilemma of Nominalism”. Harry Austryn Wolfson Jubilee Volume II1, 577–96. Jerusalem: Kraus Reprint.Google Scholar
Newmeyer, Frederick J.
1969 English Aspectual Verbs. (= Studies in Linguistics and Language Learning 6.) Seattle: Univ. of Washington.Google Scholar
1970 “The ‘Root Modal’: Can it be transitive? ”. Studies Presented to Robert B. Lees by his Students ed. by Jerrold M. Sadock and Anthony L(adislav) Vanek, 189–96. Edmonton, Alberta: Linguistic Research.Google Scholar
O’Donnell, J. Reginald
ed. 1941 “The Syncategoremata of William of Sherwood”. Medieval Studies 31.46–93. (For E. version, see William of Sherwood 1968.) DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Paul of Pergula [Paulus Pergulensis
(d.1451)]. 1961 Logica and Tractatus de sensu composito et diviso. Ed. by Sister Mary Anthony Brown. St. Bonaventura N.Y.: Franciscan Institute.Google Scholar
Peter of Spain [Petrus Hispanus (c.1210–1277)]. 1964 Tractatus syncategor-ematum and Selected Anonymous Treatises. Transl. by Joseph P(atrick) Mullally. Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Pinborg, Jan
1967 Die Entwicklung der Sprachtheorie im Mittelalter. (= Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, 42:2.) Münster: Aschendorff; Copenhagen: Frost-Hansen.Google Scholar
1972 Logik und Semantik im Mittelalter. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Fromman-Holzboog.Google Scholar
Quine, W(illard) V(an) O(rman)
1951 Mathematical Logic. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
1953 “Reference and Modality”. From a Logical Point of View: 9 logico-philosophical essays by W. V. O. Quine, 139–59. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
1960 Word and Object. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
1966 “Quantifiers and Prepositional Attitudes”. The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays by W. V. O. Quine, 183–94. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Rijk, L(ambertus) M(arie) de
1962–1967 Logica modernorum: A contribution to the history of early terminist logic. 2 vols, in 3. Assen: Van Gorcum.Google Scholar
Rivero, María-Luisa
1973 “Antecedents of Contemporary Logical and Linguistic Analyses in Scholastic Logic”. FL 101.55–64.Google Scholar
1974a “Modalities and Scope in Scholastic Logic from a Linguistic Point of View”. AL 15:2.133–52.Google Scholar
1974b “La ambigüedad de los verbos modales: Una visión histórica”. To appear.Google Scholar
Robins, R(obert) H(enry)
1951 Ancient and Medieval Grammatical Theory in Europe, with particular reference to modern linguistic doctrine. London: G. Bell & Sons. (Repr., Port Washington, N.Y. & London: Kennikat Press 1971.)Google Scholar
1967 A Short History of Linguistics. London: Longmans. (2nd printing 1970.)Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand (Arthur William
, 3rd Earl 1872–1970). 1940 An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Sosa, Ernest
1970 “Propositional Attitudes De dicto and De re ”. Journal of Philosophy 671.883–96. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thomas Aquinas, Saint
(1225–74). 1940 [De propositionibus modalibus] “Sancti Thomae Aquinatis de modalibus opusculum et doctrina”. Ed. by I. M. Bocheński. Angelicum 171.180–218.Google Scholar
William of Sherwood [Guilelmus Shirwodus
(fl. 1260)]. 1937 Die Introdutiones in logicam des Wilhelm von Shyreswood. Ed. by Martin Grabmann (1875–1949) Munich: Bayerische Akad. der Wissenschaften.Google Scholar
(fl. 1260)]. 1966 William of Sherwood’s Introduction to Logic. Transl. by Norman Kretzmann. Minneapolis, Minn.: Univ. of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
William of Sherwood [Guilelmus Shirwodus (fl. 1260)]. 1968 William of Sherwood’s Treatise on Syncategorematic Words. Transl. by Norman Kretzmann. Minneapolis, Min.: Univ. of Minnesota Press. (See O’Donnell 1941 for Lat. ed.)Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Koerner, Konrad
1980. Medieval Linguistic Thought. Historiographia Linguistica 7:1-2 ► pp. 265 ff. DOI logo
Rivero, María Luisa
1976. William of Sherwood on Composition and Division. Historiographia Linguistica 3:1 ► pp. 17 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.