History and Philosophy of Linguistics Reading group Next meeting: Tuesday, September 13, 2011, Woolley S302, 57pm
Reading: William McGregor 1997. Conjugation: the interpersonal semiotic. Chapter 7 of Semiotic Grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press. The label `semiotic grammar' captures a fundamental property of the grammars of human languages: not only is language a semiotic system in the familiar Saussurean sense, but its organizing system, its grammar, is also a semiotic system. This proposition, explicated in detail by William McGregor in this book, constitutes a new theory of grammar. Semiotic Grammar is `functional' rather than `formal' in its intellectual origins, approaches, and methods. It demonstrates, however, that neither a purely functional nor a purely formal account of language is adequate, given the centrality of the sign as the fundamental unit of grammatical analysis. The author distinguishes four types of grammatical signs: experiential, logical, interpersonal, and textural. The signifiers of these signs are syntagmatic relationships of the following types, respectively: constituency, dependency, conjugational (scopal) and linking (indexical, connective). McGregor illustrates and exemplifies the theory with data from a variety of languages including English, Acehnese, Polish, Finnish, Japanese, Chinese, and Mohawk; and from his pioneering research on Gooniyandi and Nyulnyul, two languages of the Kimberleys region of Western Australia.. Reading available by signing up to http://hplinguistics.pbworks.com. Enquiries: [email protected] All welcome!
_______________________________________________ SydPhil mailing list: http://sydphil.info 1000 subscribers now served!! To UNSUBSCRIBE, change your MEMBERSHIP OPTIONS, find ANSWERS TO COMMON PROBLEMS, or visit our ONLINE ARCHIVES, please go to the LIST INFORMATION PAGE: http://sydphil.info
