Catastrophe Theoretic Semantics
An elaboration and application of René Thom's theory
Author
René Thom, the famous French mathematician and founder of catastrophe theory, considered linguistics an exemplary field for the application of his general morphology. It is surprising that physicists, chemists, biologists, psychologists and sociologists are all engaged in the field of catastrophe theory, but that there has been almost no echo from linguistics. Meanwhile linguistics has evolved in the direction of René Thom’s intuitions about an integrated science of language and it has become a necessary task to review, update and elaborate the proposals made by Thom and to embed them in the framework of modern semantic theory.
[Pragmatics & Beyond, III:5] 1982. iv, 124 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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Introduction | p. 3
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1. Applied catastrophe theory: a short introduction | p. 7
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1.1. A sketch of the mathematical basis
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1.2. Catastrophe conventions
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1.3. The finite set of typical paths in the elementary unfoldings
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1.4. An example: the standard cusp
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2. Semantics from a dynamic perspective | p. 19
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2.1. Aspects of dynamic semiotics
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2.2. The type of semantics aimed at by our model construction
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2.3. Formal semantics on the basis of catastrophe theory: a comparison with logical semantics
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2.4. Principles of interpretation
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2.5. René Thom's list of semantic archetypes
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3. The heart of catastrophe theoretic semantics: the set of semantic archetypes | p. 35
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3.1. The semantic archetypes derivable from the zero-unfolding
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3.2. The semantic archetypes derivable from the fold
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3.3. The semantic archetypes derivable from the cusp
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3.4. The semantic archetypes derivable from the swallowtail
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3.5. The semantic archetypes derivable from the butterfly
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3.6. Archetypes derivable from unfoldings with codimension > 4 and corank 1
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3.7. Semantic archetypes derivable from the compactified umbilics
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4. Applications of catastrophe theoretic semantics | p. 93
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4.1. Dynamic inferences
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4.2. Word semantics
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4.3. Linguistic vagueness
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4.4. Compositional processes
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4.5. Application in neurolinguistics
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5. Beyond catastrophe theoretic semantics | p. 107
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5.1. Beyond semantics: towards a dynamic theory of language
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5.2. Beyond catastrophe theory
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Footnotes | p. 113
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Index | p. 123
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Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CF: Linguistics
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General