Della Nur Wijiarti 120912011
Historis of Lingustics Development
1.2. The Aristotelian Tradition
A different tradition from the one established by Pluto and contained with the Macedonian pholosopher Aristoteles ini Athens. First his influence via the notion of truth upon modern-theorotic formal semantics and then the theories of grammar in Antiquity.
1.2.1 Aristotle’s theory of truth: where things went wrong
Verbal and cognitive notions of truth
Aristotle’s defended two distinct notions of truth, both within the general frame of truth as correspondence. In some passages he presents truth as a property of thought but in other pessages truth is defined as a property of what is said, without any reference to underlying thoughts. The former we call the cognitive notion, the verbal notion of truth. Thought or sentence, on the one hand and an actual state of affairs on the other.
The formalism of logic based on verbal notion of truth
Aristotle’s logical principles, quite apart from his actual logical system, have been enormously influential throughout the history of logic, so much so that present-day logic maintains the Arestotelian principles, even if the actual machinery of his predicate calculus on isms has been replaced.
Aristotle adds writing as a fourth elements. There are besides the sounds, the mental impressions, and the actual word and the last a sentence can only be true, in a derived sense.
On this point, therefore, Aristotle, Plato and the Stoics are one mind. Both Plato and Aristotle waver between thoughts (opinions) and sentences as bearers of the truth values. In the context of modern studies of language the point at issue of quite serious, for two related and important reasons.
Empirical reason: truth is so ce-determined by cognition
The first reason is that it is empirically to say that a sentence, or, if one wishes, utterance, is the bearer of a truth value, while the underlying thought is nothing but the mental counterpart of the sentence.
The truth conditions of such sentences are therefore co-determined by non-linguistics. We must realized that when we say of an uttered sentence that it is true or that it is false it is taken for granted that such a truth value assignment is conditional upon any extraneous cognitive information that may have a bearing on the utterance’s meaning. Consequences for model theory
Cognitive notion of truth has never been formalized
When we now speak of the “Aristotelian notion of truth” we mean the verbal notion according to which the sentence, not the though, is the bearer of the truth value. The sentence-based or verbal notion of truth that became dominant, as opposed the though-based or cognitive notion.
Ogden and Richards’ semiotics triangle
Ogden and Richards’ (1923) notion of the linguistic sign, expressed in their famous ‘semiotics triangle’. Ogden and Richards pointedly fail to show the primary truth relation, which holds between the though and its ‘referent’. What they call the relation of ‘adequacy’ is in fact the primary truth relation.
1.2.2 The Alexandrine philologists
First beggining of linguistics as a sustained scientific activity distinct from philosophy were, at least in part, a result of Alexander’s exploits.
Aristotle and Alexandre the Great
Aristotle (384-322 BC) was the son of a Macedonian physician, the court phycisian of the Madeconian king Amyntas II, father of Philippus II and grandfather of Alexander the Great. Macedonian was not a Greek language or dialect, but a totally different language. And the Macedonian were strictly speaking, considered barbarians. Young Aristotle studied philosophy with Palto for about twenty years, until Plato’s death in 384-347. In 343-342, to assume the task of educating the crown prince Alexander ‘the Great’ (356-323 BC). This he did till about 340, when Alexander’s education became more directed at military matters. Alexander died however, in 323, thirty-three years old from the effects of an injury incurred during his many beatles. After his death there was a great deal of strife about his succession. In the end, the great empire wa split up among some of his generals.
Kelevance of Alexander’s campaign for linguistics
The relvance of Alexander’s campaign in the present context lies in what happened to the Greek language as a result of it. But Alexander’s campaign brought about an enormous change in the respect. Wherever he went he let behind Greek, or anyway Greek speaking officials to rule according to his directives. A sudden and massive demand thus developed for the teaching of Greek as s foreign language, especially in Egypt, which was the most powerful and the best organized among the new Hellenestic kingsdoms.
Foundation of the Museum, the first university
Around the year 280 BC a university, the Museum was established in the capital Alexandria by the aged Ptomely or his son Ptomely II for the advancement of the sciences as they had been started by Aristotle, to counteract the intelectual influence of athens. Proffesors were appointed in different subjects, some of them linguist or ‘philologist’. The Alexandrine philologists were concerned with critical editions of ancient literary texts, in particular Homer, always with the aim of establishing they thought of as the original, pure forms of Greek words and sentences.
Early Alexandrine grammar
teaching. However, what was provided by the philosophical tradition was too little to suffice for the Alexandrines’ purpose.
Origin of the term ‘grammar’
The term grammar has its origin in these developments. Its Latin equivalent is grammatica which is short for ars grammatica. The term began to be used for what we now call ‘grammar’ though always with strictly normative connotations.
Grammars in the classroom: teaching Greek as a foreign language
In actual practice, the teaching of Greek as a foreign language consisted of the teaching of inflectional paradigms and othe possible grammatical reguralities.
Linguistics started as applied lingusitics
The work done by the Alexandrines marked the beginning of what we now call ‘linguistics. Greek it began, strictly speaking, as applied lingusitics.
Dionysius Thrax
One particular document from that period must be mentioned specifically, the techne grammatike traditionally atributed to Dionysius Thrax, who lived ca. 100 BC and had been traineed by the Alexandrianes.
1.3 Anomalism and Analogism, or Ecologism and Formalism Two traditions: analogism and anomalism
On the other hand, there is a tradition of Aristotle and the Alexandrine philologist. These two traditions were at odds with each other.we follow the commonly held view that such a controversy did indeed exist during that perio, adherents of the former being called “anomalists” and of the letter “analogist” used in particular for the reguralities expressed in morphological paradigms. The two traditions, one carried by the Stoa and the other by the Alexandrines. The relation between language and thought, or between language and logic, the notion of ‘sign’ and how language can be considered to be system of signs, the origin, of language as part of human nature, and similar abstract topics.
The important point is that, the Alexandrines, language is a system of conventional word forms, which are not “true” or given by nature, as was maintained by anomalist. They stressed the arbitrary nature of the ‘etymologies’ proposed by their opponents. The two school merge in first century BC
By the first century BC the controversy apparently died down. It is the combination of the two schools that produced what we now know as “traditional grammar”.
Difference of method: formalism and ecologism
