Sumerian linguists started language study.
Mycenaeans introduced Linear B writing after they conquered Crete. In Linear B writing, symbols are syllables with one consonant and one vowel.
Linguistics includes grammar, language families, language origins, phonetics, and semantics.
He lived 1845 to 1912.
He lived 1866 to 1936.
He lived 1912 to 2000. Synonyms in different contexts are different idea instances {tagmeme} {tagmemics}. Behavior description can be for actor or inside {emic}. Behavior description can be for observer or outside {etic}. He invented a language {Kalaba-X constructed language}.
She lived 1921 to 1994. She invented Kurgan hypothesis [1956].
He lived 1916 to 2001 and classified world languages [1963] into four families: Niger-Kordofanian, Nilo-Saharan, Afro-Asiatic, and Khoisan. People came to Americas from Asia in three separate waves with different languages {Greenberg Theory}: Amerind, Eskimo-Aleut, and Na-Dene.
He lived 1887 to 1891.
Beatrix lived 1933 to 1995. After four years of training, the chimpanzee Washoe acquired over 100 signs of American Sign Language. It heard no other language. Some signs were for general classes, rather than specific objects and events. Some signs changed or extended. Washoe used sign order and substituted signs with similar meanings or shapes. However, no primates developed signing themselves. Humans had to teach them. Humans cued chimpanzees to make signs, and chimpanzees signed to get rewards. Chimpanzees signed to each other socially but not for rewards.
She lived 1947 to ?. The gorilla Koko acquired over 250 signs of American Sign Language and learned spoken English comprehension.
The chimpanzee Nim Chimsky acquired over 125 simplified American-Sign-Language signs.
He lived -520 to -460 and wrote Sanskrit grammar that had phonetic system and word analysis.
Stoic linguists studied logic, rhetoric, etymology, language origins, and relations among nouns, verbs, and articles.
He wrote about Patanjali Yoga or Raja Yoga or Ashtanga Yoga, one of the Six Schools, Shad-Darsananas, or Classical Systems of Philosophy. Raja Yoga is meditation. Hiranyagarbha started Raja Yoga.
Bhakti Yoga is devotions, prayers, rituals, and worship. Jnana Yoga is using reason to become free of seeing differences. Karma Yoga is service to others.
He lived -200 to -140. He was in Aindra grammarian school and lived in northwest India.
He lived -170 to -90, was Stoic, and wrote comprehensive grammar.
He lived -116 to -27.
He lived 100 to 200 and wrote about Greek syntax, starting systematic grammar study.
He taught St. Jerome.
He was Greek and from Caesarea (Cherchell, Algeria).
He lived 760 to 793.
Twelve schools of grammatical theory developed, using phonetic systems and word analysis.
He lived 973 to 1048, wrote grammar, and calculated latitude and longitude. He measured land in three dimensions {geodesy} {geodetics}.
Lancelot lived 1616 to 1695. Arnauld lived 1612 to 1694.
He lived 1767 to 1835, wrote about ethics, and studied language types. The three structural-language types differ in morphology and syntax. Sanskrit is syntactically more complex than modern languages.
Politics
States should ensure property and lives.
All sound changes follow rules, so certain phonetic laws are absolute. It included Karl Verner, Berthold Delbrück, August Leskien, Hermann Paul, Hermann Osthoff, Karl Brugmann, Eduard Sievers, and Wilhelm Braune.
He lived 1860 to 1948 and wrote about syntax.
He lived 1860 to 1943 and developed categorical grammar. Specific factors, such as maximum vocal-tract-constriction location, determine speech-sound articulation. Constriction completely closes for consonants like /p/. Nasal passage opens for consonants like /m/. Voicing onset time is immediate for /b/ but delayed for /p/.
He lived 1890 to 1960 and developed prosodic analysis.
He lived 1887 to 1949 and was main developer of immediate constituent grammar and constituent structure.
He lived 1890 to 1963, helped develop immediate constituent grammar, and was analytic philosopher. The same data can have more than one closed and coherent independent description {conventionalism} {radical conventionalism}, from which people can choose based on simplicity, aesthetics, usefulness, ease, or evidence. Two basic syntax categories are sentences and singular terms, which can combine.
He lived 1899 to 1965 and developed categorical grammar.
He lived 1916 to 2001, was Bloomfield's student, and worked on transformational grammar.
He lived 1919 to ?.
He lived 1887 to 1967 and studied grammar.
He lived 1915 to 1975 and helped develop immediate constituent grammar.
He lived 1909 to 1992 and developed transformational grammar.
He lived 1916 to 2006 and helped develop transformational grammar {applicative-generative grammar}.
He lived 1923 to ?, was member of Prague School, and studied phoneme distinctive features.
He lived 1896 to 1982, was member of Prague School, and studied phoneme distinctive features.
He lived 1928 to ?, studied unconscious and innate language structures, and developed transformational grammar to explain how brain makes language structures. Newborn brain has innate linguistic rules {universal grammar, Chomsky}. Learning a particular language, which has words, sets limited-range linguistic parameters. Expressed language {E-language} depends on internal language {I-language}. Grammars assign structures {logical form} to sentences. Grammars can generate just language sentences {observationally adequate grammar}, give some structure to all sentences {descriptively adequate grammar}, or give structure used by speakers to all sentences {explanatorily adequate grammar}.
He lived 1922 to ? and helped develop immediate constituent grammar.
He lived 1894 to 1979.
He lived 1935 to ?. Putnam and Chomsky influenced him. He developed projection rules to try to formalize semantics and model semantic relations by syntax {proof theory, Fodor}. Brains think using symbol system with syntax and semantics {language of thought, Fodor} {mentalese, Fodor}.
However, mental language must also have meaning and syntax. If mental language is meaningful, then regular language is meaningful, so why have mental language.
He lived 1946 to ? and studied grammar.
Animal calls and signs are structural wholes and have no component parts. Hawaiian immigrants spoke pidgin, and their children spoke creole. Creoles all over world are mostly similar to each other, possibly indicating universal grammar, which has same default settings for creole and young children.
In first writing system {pre-cuneiform}, styluses indented clay.
Reed pens drew pictures that represented words or sounds on clay tablets {cuneiform writing}, to record trade and taxes. Pre-cuneiform developed into a system with 200 to 300 simplified sideways pictures.
Egyptian mdju netjer or words of the gods {hieroglyph, script} {hieroglyphics, script} {hieroglyphic script} developed as idealized or sketched picture ideograms, referring to animal characteristics and human gestures. Hieroglyphs face rightward in columns, to read down, or lines, to read right to left. Greeks called it hiera grammata (sacred letters) or ta hieroglyphica (sacred carved letters). Book of the Dead used cursive hieroglyphic script.
Hieroglyphs {phonogram, sound} can stand for sounds.
Phonogram series rebuses can be for concepts, opinions, beliefs, commands, requests, and logical relations. Rebuses can have extra end signs {determinative, rebus} to indicate rebus-series subject.
Cursive script {hieratic script} derived from cursive hieroglyphic script. After -600, it was only for religious documents, because demonic script replaced it.
Cuneiform writing came from Sumer.
Cursive script {demotic script} derived from hieratic script. Rosetta Stone has demotic, hieroglyphic, and Greek.
When Ptolemies ruled, script {Coptic script} was like Greek alphabet.
He lived 1809 to 1852. He invented a printing and writing system using six dots, in two vertical lines of three raised dots each, to represent 63 characters and allow blind people to read by touch {Braille} [1821 to 1829].
He lived 1895 to 1980 and invented sound recorder {sonograph} [1945].
Languages began, or at least became significant, 70,000 to 60,000 years ago.
African and Eurasian languages diverged 70,000 to 50,000 years ago.
Southeast Asian and Eurasian languages diverged 60,000 to 40,000 years ago.
Perhaps, Chinese, Navajo, Basque, Etruscan, and some Caucasian-Mountain languages had a common ancestor {Na-Dene language}, 15000 years ago.
Perhaps, Uralic, Altaic, and Indo-European languages had a common ancestor {Nostratic language}, 15000 years ago. Uralic was in northeast Europe. Altaic was in central Asia. Indo-European was in Anatolia, Turkey.
Languages {Proto-Indo-European language} began in central-Asia steppes among Kurgan horsemen, possibly from Nostratic and/or Na-Dene languages, 10000 to 8500 years ago.
First Samara and Seroglazovo cultures, then Dnieper-Donets and Sredny Stog cultures of Scythians near lower Volga River to Dnieper River, in central Asia steppe at Urheimat, rode horses and had Proto-Indo-European language [-4500 to -4000]. From them developed Kurgan people [-5000 to -3000], who built kurg burial mounds and spread Proto-Indo-European language from southwest Russia {Kurgan hypothesis}, making Kurgan I, Kurgan II, and then Kurgan III. Maykop culture is in north Caucasus [-4000 to -2500]. Kurgan IV or Yamna culture is in steppe [-4000 to -2500]. Globular Amphora culture began in east Europe [-2500]. Proto-Greeks went to Balkans [-2500]. Proto-Persians went there [-2500].
First Chinese written characters were 7500 to 7000 years ago, along Yellow River.
Languages {Sumerian language} began 7000 years ago. Sumerian is a separate language family. Akkadian belongs to Afro-Asiatic languages.
Indo-European language began among farmers in Anatolia, Turkey, 6000 to 5000 years ago, possibly from Nostratic and/or Na-Dene.
Languages {Sanskrit language} began 4000 years ago in Pakistan.
He lived 1785 to 1863. As language develops, sound usage shifts according to rules {Grimm's Law} [1822], accounting for sound pairing among languages.
He lived 1846 to 1896. In all languages, sound changes follow same rules {Verner's Law} [1875].
He lived 1881 to 1967 and invented International Phonetic Alphabet. Cardinal vowels have different articulation places, such as tongue height, mouth front or back, and rounded or unrounded lips.
He lived 1890 to 1938 and studied phonemes.
He lived 560 to 636 and translated.
Realist and Nominalist philosophers studied word and object relations, object classes, and human mind.
He lived 1746 to 1794 and related Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin by describing similarities among words [1786].
Expressive aspects of language are dominant.
He lived 1832 to 1915. Metaphors are common.
He lived 1816 to 1889. Event and relation communications differ in meaning and grammar. Relation communications nest and invert phrases. Event communications can use word sequences in event order, with no transformations.
He lived 1884 to 1939. Language affects thinking {Sapir-Whorf hypothesis} [1929].
He lived 1882 to 1945, was of Vienna Circle of Logical Positivism, and led Unity of Science Movement. Movement tried to unite sciences through characteristic actions.
Epistemology
People can have knowledge through subjective and historic means. Sentence meaning is the publicly accessible outcome {outcome, meaning} of publicly accessible procedures. Group beliefs establish outcomes and procedures, even in science. Cognitive and scientific meaning requires that sentence be expressible in logical language. People have constructed subjects of discourse without foundations, like boats {Neurath's boat} built while at sea.
He lived 1893 to 1979. He developed Basic English with C. K. Ogden. Metaphor has actual topic, analogy to that topic, something in common between the topics, and reason for using analogy.
He lived 1889 to 1957 and studied semantics.
He lived 1879 to 1950 and developed General Semantics, with Hayakawa.
He lived 1909 to 1988. Models and metaphors are similar in purpose and use. Different people interpret metaphors in different ways {interaction theory}.
He lived 1906 to 1992 and helped develop semantics {General Semantics}, with Korzybski.
He lived 1901 to 1979 and studied theory of signs {semiotics}, which has semantics, pragmatics, and syntactics.
He lived 1897 to 1941. Language affects thinking {Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, Whorf} [1940].
He lived 1857 to 1913 and founded modern structural linguistics {structuralism, linguistics} {structural linguistics}.
Phonemes marks usage differences in sound or symbol systems. Phonemes are not physical, separate, independent elements.
Word values are functions of exchangeable and non-exchangeable words {substitution, word} {word substitution}. Word connections provide word meanings, so word meaning depends on all word values. Speaker and listener vocabularies must be identical to convey full meaning in communication.
He lived 1901 to 1978.
He lived 1913 to 1988. Speaker meaning is what speaker intended to make happen to audience using words {conversation implicature}. Intention is to modify audience beliefs or behavior, and audience knows intention {reflexive intention}. Meaning is about speaker and hearer mental state. Speaker meaning is first and determining, above word or sentence meaning. Speaker meaning, linguistic meaning, or semantics follows from thoughts. Actual usage does not necessarily reflect thought. Speaker meaning and word meaning can differ.
He lived 1932 to 2002 and developed projection rules to try to formalize semantics.
He lived 1905 to ? and was logical empiricist.
Description is result of physical laws.
Explanation and prediction differ only in time, because facts are deducible from other facts and at least one law {covering-law model} {deductive-nomological model}.
Sentence meaning is the publicly accessible outcome of publicly accessible procedures. Group beliefs establish outcomes and procedures, even in science. Cognitive and scientific meaning requires that sentence be expressible in logical language.
Psychology can treat internal states of people like black boxes, only checking stimuli and responses {methodological behaviorism}.
Induction can lead to statements but can also lead to statement contrapositives. Contrapositive statements are general, while statements are specific. Evidence for contrapositive statement cannot support statement. For example, "All ravens are black" is logically the same as its contrapositive, "All not black things are not ravens", and both have support from each raven observation {paradox of the ravens, Hempel} {ravens paradox, Hempel}.
Physical and material world concepts always change as people acquire new knowledge, so physicalism and functionalism are not static concepts {Hempel's dilemma}.
He lived 1940 to ?.
Statements can be true and cannot be false {necessary truth, Kripke}, like arithmetical equalities. Statements can be true, though possible to be false {contingent truth}, like historical facts. Some necessary truths are not a priori, because people can learn identities later.
Terms, such as person names or natural substances {natural kind, Kripke}, can always mean same thing in physical and all other worlds {rigid designator, Kripke}. Terms {non-rigid designator}, such as variables or descriptions, can allow different possible values in physical and/or all other worlds. People can use rigid designators to refer to same things to which previous persons referred {causal theory of reference, Kripke}.
However, time can change references.
Necessary identities involve two rigid designators, and contingent identities involve at least one non-rigid designator. Identity theories of mental state and physical state are either necessary identities or one term is non-rigid. They cannot be necessary, because people can imagine mental state, like pain, without physical state. They do not have non-rigid terms, because mental-state instance is essence, not property, and physical state specifies atom positions and motions.
Proper names are always about same object. Proper names can be about people about whom people know nothing more and so have no sense, only reference. Proper names of people about whom people know something else have sense and reference.
People can conceive of matter and consciousness as separate being, so they are both possible, and so must be different, not just different names for same thing or different levels in hierarchy of knowledge or being, because one is objective and one subjective. Mental states, representing ideas, cause linguistic responses, which report mental state using signs. Response pattern depends on similarity or relation, represented by mental state, which people do not necessarily consciously know. Because mental states vary widely, natural occurrences have incompatible expressions.
People think and speak based on social word usage {anti-individualism}. Meaning is normative, as language communities make rules, and relates to individual dispositions. Perception is also necessary for communication about objects.
People can have a priori knowledge of contingent things {mind, Kripke} and empirical knowledge of necessary truths {essence, Kripke}.
He developed projection rules to try to formalize semantics.
He studied naming.
He lived 1941 to ?.
Language and other social conventions developed unconsciously, not by agreement, to coordinate behavior. First, unstructured unrelated signals expressed intention. Later, signals gained structure. Then simple intentions used conventional form. Finally, sentences used these elements. Complex-expression meanings are functions of component meanings.
Epistemology
Roles in causing organism physical behaviors define mental concepts, states, events, and processes {causal theory of mental concepts}.
Effects depend on their causes, so if there are no such causes, there are no such effects {counterfactual dependence}.
Propositions are about possible worlds and cannot be about impossible worlds.
Properties are about possible subjects of propositions, which can be individual or category sets.
Metaphysics
Reality is local physics, which makes everything else. Quantum mechanically possible worlds are actually real {modal realism, Lewis} and are separate in time and space.
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Date Modified: 2022.0225