Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 26 Heft: 2 Seiten: 289-330.

Herodotus’s Scythians and Ptolemy’s Central Asia: Semasiological and Onomasiological Studies. By Helmut Humbach and Klaus Faiss. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2012. Pp. xii + 91.

The article is devoted to the problem of studying the relationship between language and ethnic culture. It analyzes Bashkir toponyms associated with the cult of fire. The Bashkirs, like many nations, including the Turkic and Mongolian, have thought that fire symbolized home and was the protector of the family. The Bashkirs worshiped fire as cleansing and healing power, while at the same time the fire represented formidable and dangerous force. Fire in the Bashkir mythology is closely related to its opposite (...) element - Water, with the gods of the upper world - the Sun and the Moon and the deity of Earth, geographical names of Bashkortostan testify this. On the material of Bashkir toponymy and related beliefs it was attempted to do a semantic etimological-onomasiological reconstruction of the Bashkir deity of fire Otukan, which dates back to the old Turkic deity Yduk Otuken//Otukan. In Mongolian mythology, it corresponds to the deity Etugen//Otuken, associated with the cult of the mother goddess, earth and fire, and in Japanese mythology - with the god, the owner of the land, - Ootukonu-si-no kami. According to the author, the formation of names connected with ‘fire‘ in the Bashkir toponymy was promoted by the worship of the deity of fire, the tribal fire, the tribal habitat and the family by Tatar-Mongols. Interesting is the fact, that the base ‘ut‘, which is connected with the ancient Turkic beliefs, also builds a theonym, a toponymic term, a geographic name, an ethnonym and anthroponym, i.e. it permeates the entire onomastic and appellative vocabulary. However, at the appellative level, this lexical item has no religious significance. For example, Otukan, TÓ©kÓ©n, Ò®tәgәn, Ò®tәk, otaq in Turkic languages have the meanings of ‘home‘, ‘yurt‘, ‘mountain valley‘, ‘flat place in the mountains on the hillside‘, ‘southern winter quarters‘. This relationship is explained by the fact that, initially, perhaps, yet there was the worship of a female deity Otukan that embodied fire and was associated with the earth, with the habitat and the ancestral hearth, where the original base morpheme was ‘fire‘, then it was associated with the deification of family and tribal territory, and later with the deification of the person of the ruler, this lexic item has spread throughout the onomastic vocabulary and in the appellative lexicon within the meaning of the place of residence. (shrink)

Rosenberg concludes with a critical reassessment of widely accepted views regarding the relationships among natural languages, mathematical formalisms, and philosophical commitments. The culmination of twenty years' reflection, Beyond Formalism is an original and sophisticated book of importance to both philosophers and linguists.

A guest's gift -- In the voice -- Square necessities -- Varieties of indefiniteness -- An imported irregularity -- Ways of indeterminacy -- From empty words -- Toward the object in general -- The infinite judgment -- Zero logic -- Non-I and I -- Collapsing sentences -- The springboard principle -- After the judgment -- A persistent particle -- Callings.

This book explores international trends in naming and contributes to the growing field of critical onomastic enquiry. The contributors to this publication examine why names are not only symbols of a person or place, but also manifestations of cultural, linguistic and social heritage in their own right.

This book offers an innovative, unified theoretical model for better understanding of the processes underpinning naming and framing and the power of words in shaping our perceived reality.

Name and Naming: Synchronic and Diachronic Perspectives aims to analyse names and the act of naming from an intercultural perspective, both synchronically and diachronically. The volume is divided into four main parts (Theory of Names, Anthroponomastics, Toponomastics, Names in Society), which are, in turn, organised into thematic chapters and subchapters. The book sets to offer a bird's-eye view of names and naming; this synthesis is made possible, on the one hand, by the blending of synchronic and diachronic viewpoints in the (...) investigation of language facts and, on the other, by the fruitful conjunction of modern and classic theories. The originality and the novelty of the subject lies in the multi-disciplinary approach, in which the field of onomastics merges with that of sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, pragmatics, history, literature, stylistics, religion, etc. The thematic diversity also derives from the meeting, within the pages of this book, of specialists (35 linguists and literati) from 11 countries on three continents. (shrink)

The relationship between thought, language, and the world is an intimate one. When we have an idea or thought about the world and we wish to express that idea or thought to others we utter a sentence or make a statement. If the statement correctly describes the world then it is true. Moreover, it seems as though our ability to have more complex or sophisticated thoughts about the world increases as the complexity of our language or our ability to use (...) the language increases. Understanding the complex relationship between language, thought, and the world is one of the central aims of philosophy. This book is an attempt to increase our understanding of this complex relationship by focusing on certain philosophical issues that arise from our ability to refer to objects in the world though the use of language. In particular, it is an attempt to solve the puzzles of reference and belief that Frege and Russell presented within the context of a theory of direct reference for proper names. (shrink)

Dieser Sammelband zeigt anhand von Problemen der Lexik und Grammatik romanischer Sprachen sowie der linguistischen Metasprache, daß die onomasiologische und die semasiologische Perspektive in ihrer Komplementarität unabdingbare Bezugspunkte einer sich als 'kognitiv' verstehenden Sprachwissenschaft sein sollten. Mit im Detail unterschiedlicher Perspektivierung werden Fragen der synchronischen und diachronischen Lexikologie und Grammatik diskutiert, ausgewählte Konzept- bzw. Funktionsbereiche im Detail analysiert und Probleme der Grammatikographie und der Konzeptualisierung von Sprache beleuchtet.

Personennamen leisten den größten Anteil an der sprachlichen Herstellung zweier Geschlechter. Die Beiträge dieses Bandes beleuchten diese Leistung aus linguistisch-onomastischer, soziologischer und historischer Sicht. Sie untersuchen u.a. inoffizielle Namen in Nahbeziehungen, die Benennung Ungeborener, die Umbenennung Transsexueller, deutsche, niederländische und schwedische Unisexnamen sowie das phonologische Degendering von Jungenamen der jüngeren Zeit.

Denommer, c'est appeler les etres et les choses par le nom qui leur a ete institue dans et par la langue. Assurant l'intercomprehension entre les locuteurs, la denomination constitue une propriete fondamentale du lexique et des terminologies. Si epistemologiquement, la denomination fait partie integrante des appareils conceptuel et methodologique de la Linguistique et de la Terminologie, dans l'une et l'autre discipline elle connait une situation paradoxale. D'une part elle souffre d'un deficit important de conceptualisation; de l'autre elle se revele etre (...) un puissant moteur pour la description semantique et referentielle du lexique et des terminologies. L'objet du present ouvrage est de proposer un reexamen systematique et explicite de cette notion et de lui assurer un positionnement valide dans l'appareil theorique de la Linguistique. Refusant une caracterisation monolithique, l'analyse opte pour une conception modulaire, articulee sur les differents parametres combinables et superposables qui definissent cette propriete: ontologiques, sociolinguistiques, juridiques et linguistiques. L'objectif de ce travail est egalement heuristique: envisager la denomination comme un levier en vue du reexamen du concept de polysemie, qui lui est consubstantiellement lie. Appliquee aux modeles categoriels et non categoriels, la denomination permet de distinguer entre emplois relevant effectivement d'une polysemie lexicale de ceux procedant d'effet impartis aux instanciations de vocables. (shrink)

I. Introduction As I sketched in my Preface, what frames this discussion is the opposition between the conceptual and the objective approaches to the ...

Lao Tseu, Blanchot et Merleau-Ponty proposent, chacun à sa manière, une lecture singulière de l'acte de nomination. Si, pour Merleau-Ponty, la langue fabrique du sens, pour Lao Tseu, elle va au-delà des significations que les mots portent pour s'abimer dans l'impossibilité d'affirmer. Et c'est à travers les méandres du langage que Blanchot rencontre Lao Tseu. Le "Parler peu est se conformer à la nature" de Lao Tseu interpelle le "la nature est à l'intérieur - de Cézanne que Merleau-Ponty réinterprète sans (...) cesse. Ce dialogue hors du temps questionne le langage comme parole plurielle. L'intention de cet ouvrage est de proposer des pistes jamais entrevues entre la philosophie du Tao et l'acte de nomination de la tradition occidentale."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Les articles reunis dans cet ouvrage ont fait l'objet de presentations lors du premier colloque Res per nomen, qui s'est tenu en 2007 a l'Universite de Reims, et qui fut entierement consacre a la reference en langue. Ils presentent tous un point de vue en rupture avec les doctrines les plus courantes sur le langage, a savoir le cognitivisme et le logicisme. Cela signifie-t-il que la perspective referentielle et denominative developpee ici puisse constituer une alternative? Il est trop tot pour (...) le dire. Il semble bien, toutefois, qu'aborder la langue sous l'angle referentiel la fasse voir plutot comme un objet anthropologique et semiotique complexe que comme le produit d'un encodage / decodage individuel, qui necessite des hypotheses ontologiques particulierement fortes sur la nature et la pensee. Il est remarquable aussi que nombre de ces articles se soient interesses a l'usage de la langue tel qu'il apparait dans les corpus, et notamment a propos des unites phraseologiques. Sans doute cela est-il du au fait que les solutions classiques au probleme du figement en langue ne soient pas vraiment satisfaisantes, et que nombre d'auteurs aient decide d'aller voir dans les corpus ce qui s'y passe reellement, ce qui les a rendu sensibles a la question de la denomination. (shrink)

The inclusion of Semantic Web technologies into the lexicographic ‘Middle High German Conceptual Database’ (MHDBDB) is a challenge for this long-term project. Since the 1970 s the Middle High German Concept Database has aimed to provide an onomasiological dictionary for Middle High German. The latest technological revision dates back to 1992, so there is a growing demand for more contemporary infrastructure and usability. The data models themselves, as well as the linking of data sets with authority files, need to be (...) modernised to ensure compatibility with the Semantic Web. This paper summarises the current discussion on formats and ontologies for online dictionaries with a focus on Middle High German lexicography. (shrink)

From the Anglo-Saxons to the end of the Tudor era, many English glossaries and dictionaries were arranged topically rather than alphabetically and thus reflected the prevailing concerns of theology, philosophy, and natural history. These works are a fascinating part of the topical or onomasiological lexicographical tradition in England. In this book Werner Hüllen presents a learned and readable account of the topical tradition's principles and origins. He considers early glossaries, treatises for the learning of foreign languages, and didactic dialogues, and (...) provides in-depth examinations of later, more comprehensive works. He shows that the English tradition is embedded in a rich European tradition whose important representatives, such as Junius and Comenius, had a marked influence on the English methods. The book makes an important contribution to the history of the English lexicon and English semantics, and to the study of English lexicography. It also reveals a great deal about the history of English ideas over nine centuries. "This is a work of enormously broad scholarship, which brings together a range of quite diverse elements into a coherent narrative which makes for absorbing and often surprisingly entertaining reading..... This is a rich and multifaceted book, and one which will appeal to a variety of audiences." International Journal of Lexicography"Hüllen brings to life relatively dry and difficult material by applying modern techniques to remote frameworks, setting new standards for research in dictionary history." Anglistik. Mitteilungen des deutschen Anglistenverbandes. (shrink)

A l’heure où des travaux importants tendent à renouveler sensiblement un certain nombre de disciplines, au nombre desquelles la sémantique lexicale et la lexicologie diachronique, il apparaît intéressant de faire le point au plan conceptuel sur une autre discipline connexe, la dialectologie, puisque celle-ci est au centre de ce numéro de Corpus. La dialectologie a pour objet majeur, à notre sens, l’étude comparative de langues qui se présentent sous forme d’entités disséminées – convenons de les appeler langues dialectales – dans (...) l’espace géographique et/ou temporel. La démarche a pour ambition, ce faisant, de démontrer qu’elles sont, les unes avec les autres, dans un rapport de parenté génétique, ou plus précisément d’établir le degré de celle-ci lorsque la parenté est un fait déjà avéré. La modélisation de ces langues dialectales sous forme de corrélations de traits permet alors d’aboutir à la reconstruction de l’ensemble dialectal considéré : hypothèse d’un protosystème et de faisceaux de règles d’évolution dont l’application combinée rend compte des observables. Mais ce schéma, valide pour des reconstructions phonologiques et morphologiques, doit être réaménagé si l’on veut envisager des reconstructions lexicales. Cet article constitue une discussion sur l’apport novateur de la dialectologie à ce problème. (shrink)