Follow the Signs

Archetypes of consciousness embodied in the signs of language

Hardbound – Available
ISBN 9789027204936 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00
 
e-Book –
ISBN 9789027261571 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00
 
In this his latest book, Sangster presents a comprehensive theory that takes the cognitive view of language in a promising new direction, based upon how linguistic signs relate to one another at different levels of consciousness. At the rational level, where signs are necessarily experienced in context, they are primarily polysemic. At the transpersonal or pre-contextual level, however, they are monosemic, constituting a dynamic and self-organizing relational structure capable of producing a potentially infinite variety of contextual applications. The two levels are united by a stochastic or somatic selection process called contextualization, where feedback from experience assures the evolution of the system. The relational structure itself is composed of archetypes of space and time consciousness that derive from the evolution of the linguistic sign from the signaling behavior of antecedent species. Detailed analyses are provided to explain how the archetypes structure meaning in both the grammatical and lexical spheres, as well as in syntax.
[Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics, 79]  2020.  xiii, 175 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins
https://doi.org/10.1075/sfsl.79
Table of Contents
Preface
viii–xiii
Introduction: Theories of form and meaning
2–4
Part 1. General concepts
8–50
1.1. The evolution of conciousness and its neurological foundation
8–12
1.2. From primate signals to human signs
14–15
1.3. The concept of reference in a self-organizing system
18–20
1.4. Higher-order consciousness reexamined
22–24
1.5. The locus and function of monosemy in human consciousness
26–32
1.6. The ultimate nature of meaning
34–37
1.7. The role of metaphor in higher-order consciousness
40–41
1.8. The place of sign theory in neurolinguistics
44–50
Part 2. Archetypes of meaning
54–94
2.1. The archetypes of time-consciousness
54–60
2.2. Evidence of time-consciousness in prepositions
62–69
2.3. Comparing time- and space-consciousness in prepositions
72–75
2.4. Further evidence of space-consciousness in prepositions
78–79
2.5. Plurality as the defining characteristic of one-dimensional phenomena
82–85
2.6. Further evidence of space-consciousness in grammatical relations: Aspect in Russian
88–91
2.7. The space-time continuum in human consciousness
94
Part 3. Syntactic structure
98–146
3.1. The syntactic structure of sign relations
98–101
3.2. The modification relation in English
104–111
3.3. The structure of the English predicate
114–119
3.4. The modification relation in French
122–131
3.5. The archetypal structure of the French verb
134–146
Part 4. The structure of the lexicon
150–161
4.1. Transition to lexical meaning
150
4.2. Archetypes in the nominal lexicon
152–157
4.3. Archetypes in the verbal lexicon
160–161
Epilogue: Towards a quantum theory of meaning in language
164–168
Bibliography
169–172
Index
References

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Subjects

Consciousness Research

Consciousness research

Linguistics

Semantics
Evolution of language
Semiotics
Syntax
BIC Subject: CFA – Philosophy of language
BISAC Subject: LAN009000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number:  2019052317 | Marc record