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  • Book
  • © 2003

Sign Levels

Language and Its Evolutionary Antecedents

Authors:

  1. D. S. Clarke

    1. Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, USA

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  • provides a methodology for comparing language to primitive sign levels that avoids reductionism
  • provides comparisons and contrasts between sign levels that enable distinctions between necessary and contingent features of language
  • provides an integrative framework for relating isolated results in linguistic philosophy, experimental psychology, and ethology
  • provides a means of resolving some of the principal metaphysical disputes derived from linguistic investigations
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: Philosophical Studies Series (PSSP, volume 96)

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
    PDF

  2. Three Ideals of Modern Philosophy

    • D. S. Clarke
    Pages 1-17

  3. The Methodology of Semiotic

    • D. S. Clarke
    Pages 19-37

  4. Signs and Learning Theories

    • D. S. Clarke
    Pages 39-66

  5. Communicative Intent and Conventionality

    • D. S. Clarke
    Pages 67-93

  6. Proto-Language Sentences

    • D. S. Clarke
    Pages 95-126

  7. Natural Language Discourse

    • D. S. Clarke
    Pages 127-155

  8. Specialized Discourse

    • D. S. Clarke
    Pages 157-195

  9. Applications to Metaphysics

    • D. S. Clarke
    Pages 197-215

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 217-260
    PDF
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About this book

Since the revolution in philosophic method that began about a century ago, the focus of philosophic attention has been on language as used both in daily conversation and in specialized institutional activities such as science, law, and the arts. But language is an extremely complex and varied means of communication, and the study of it has been increasingly incorporated into such empirical disciplines as linguistics, psycho linguistics, and cognitive psychology. It is becoming less clear what aspects of language remain as proper subjects of philosophical study, what are to be "kicked upstairs" (J. L. Austin's phrase) to the sciences. This work is a study of those logical features of language that remain central to philosophy after completion of kicking up. It conducts this study by describing similarities and differences between signs at differing levels, starting with natural events as primitive signs in the environments of their interpreters, and proceeding to pre­ linguistic signaling systems, elementary forms of language, and finally to the forms of specialized discourse used within social institutions. The investiga­ tion of comparative features requires isolating basic mental capacities that are present in the most primitive forms of organisms capable of sign interpretation. The problem then becomes one of tracing the emergence from these capacities of such categories as substance, attribute or quality, and quantity that we apply to natural languages. The study of sign levels is thus the construction of a genealogy of logical categories marking the develop­ ment of natural languages.
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Keywords

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Authors and Affiliations

  • Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, USA

    D. S. Clarke

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Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Sign Levels

  • Book Subtitle: Language and Its Evolutionary Antecedents

  • Authors: D. S. Clarke

  • Series Title: Philosophical Studies Series

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0011-6

  • Publisher: Springer Dordrecht

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: Kluwer Academic Publishers 2003

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4020-1650-9Published: 31 October 2003

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4020-3079-6Published: 20 October 2004

  • eBook ISBN: 978-94-010-0011-6Published: 06 December 2012

  • Series ISSN: 0921-8599

  • Series E-ISSN: 2542-8349

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XI, 260

  • Topics: Philosophy of Language, Logic, Methodology of the Social Sciences, Linguistics, general

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Buy it now

eBook USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

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