Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome | |||
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Grammar: Grammar is total domain of linguistic theory encompassing syntax, semantics, phonology, morphology. W.V.O. Quine distinguishes the grammar from the lexicon. L. Wittgenstein calls sentences about language grammatical sentences. See also meaning, lexicon, language._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
Author | Concept | Summary/Quotes | Sources |
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Michel Foucault on Grammar - Dictionary of Arguments
I 118 Search for the original root. Grammar/Hobbes: made from a system of symbols, which the individuals have chosen for themselves first. The language cannot explain to the thought at once, it must proceed linearly in one order. This linear order is foreign to the representation. The thoughts follow each other in time, but each one forms a unity. The language is for thinking and the sign what the algebra is for geometry. It substitutes for the simultaneous comparison of the parts the order whose degrees one can go through one after the other. In this sense language is the analysis of thought. Definition General Grammar: the study of the linguistic order in its relation to the simultaneity, which is to represent it according to its task. Thus, it has not thinking, and not language, as the actual object, but the discourse as a sequence of signs. In contrast to thinking, language stands as the reflected to the immediate. Language/Adam Smith: "The invention of even the simplest adjectives must have required more metaphysics than we can all comprehend." Consequences: division of the science of language into A) Rhetoric: spatial, figures, tropes, B) Grammar temporal order in time. Grammar presupposes a rhetorical nature even of the most primitive languages (see below). 2. Grammar: Reflection on the relationship that it maintains with the universality. Two forms, depending on whether one considers the possibility of a universal language. Universal/Foucault: to award each sign the unique way of representation, the power to go through all orders. The universal discourse is no longer the "only text", which, in the cipher of its mystery, contains the key to deciphering the world. Rather, the possibility to define everything. I 127ff Grammar/Foucault: The general grammar is not a comparative. It defines the system of identity/difference, which presupposes and uses those features. Analysis of the band of the link, different word types, theory of the structure, the origin, the root, the rhetorical space, the derivation. I 132 Theory of the verb: indispensable for any discourse. Without verb no language. >Verbs, >Language. Edge of the discourse, where the signs become the language. The verb indicates that the discourse is the discourse of the human who not only comprehends the names, but also judges them. I 134 The verb is the represented being of language, which makes it receptive to truth and error. This is why it differs from all signs which can be conformed, faithful (or not), what they designate, but are never true or false. What is the meaning and power that goes beyond the limits of the words? I 287ff Grammar/Language/Foucault: The horizontal comparison between languages achieves another function: it no longer allows to know what everyone brings back as memories from the time before Babel. Lexicography: first beginnings. Grammar: Principle of a primitive and general language that provides an original measure. (already existed before) Grammar/old: flection: the root is changed, the flexions are constant. Grammar/New element: role of subject or object, time of action, system of modifications. No more judging search after the first expression, but analysis of the sounds. Vowel rectangle. Comparative Grammar: one does not longer compare between the different languages a certain meaning, but the relations between the words. Language/old: as long as it was defined as a discourse, it could have no other history than that of its representations. Language/new: inner mechanism as the bearer of identity and difference, as a sign of neighborhood, a characteristic of kinship, a support of history. >Language, >Words, >Subject, >Object._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Foucault I M. Foucault Les mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines , Paris 1966 - The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, New York 1970 German Edition: Die Ordnung der Dinge. Eine Archäologie der Humanwissenschaften Frankfurt/M. 1994 Foucault II Michel Foucault l’Archéologie du savoir, Paris 1969 German Edition: Archäologie des Wissens Frankfurt/M. 1981 |