Full Description
What is a language? What do scientific grammars tell us about the structure of individual languages and human language in general? What kind of science is linguistics? These and other questions are the subject of Ryan M. Nefdt's Language, Science, and Structure.
Linguistics presents a unique and challenging subject matter for the philosophy of science. As a special science, its formalisation and naturalisation inspired what many consider to be a scientific revolution in the study of mind and language. Yet radical internal theory change, multiple competing frameworks, and issues of modelling and realism have largely gone unaddressed in the field. Nefdt develops a structural realist perspective on the philosophy of linguistics which aims to confront the aforementioned topics in new ways while expanding the outlook toward new scientific connections and novel philosophical insights. On this view, languages are real patterns which emerge from complex biological systems. Nefdt's exploration of this novel view will be especially valuable to those working in formal and computational linguistics, cognitive science, and the philosophies of science, mathematics, and language.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
Part 1: Introduction
1.1 The Philosophy of Linguistics
1.2 Generative and Non-Generative Frameworks
1.3 Structures and Structuralisms
1.4 A Guide to the Book
Part 2: Old Landscapes, New Maps
2.1 What is a Language, Anyway?
2.2 Object-oriented accounts
2.3 State and Network accounts
Part 3: The Many and the None
3.1 Anti-realist Accounts
3.2 Why I am not a Pluralist
3.3 No Country for Clear Resolutions
Part 4: Language and Structure
4.1 Moderate Naturalism
4.2 Languages as Real Patterns
4.3 Grammars as Compression Algorithms
Part 5: Linguistic Patterns and Biological Systems
5.1 Biolinguistics and Biology
5.2 Unbanishing the 'Linguistic Community'
5.3 A Note on Acquisition
Part 6: A Case Study: Words and SLEs
6.1 The Naive Picture and Three Naturalistic Desiderata
6.2 Constructions and Constraints
6.3 A Structural Approach to Linguistic Entities
Part 7: Structural Realism and the Science of Linguistics
7.1 The Aim and Scope
7.2 Linguistic Theory Change
7.3 Structural Realism in Generative Linguistics
7.4 The Problem of Multiple Grammars
Part 8: Language at the Interface
8.1 A Note on Complex Systems
8.2 Levels of Abstraction
8.3 The Proposal
8.4 Semantic Metastructuralism
Part 9: Language and Cognitive Science: an arranged marriage
9.1 The Dilemma
9.2 The Study of Mind in Language
9.3 Intersection, Integration, and Architecture
9.4 Unifying Cognitive Structures
Conclusion: A Canopy in the Rainforest
References
