Janet Carsten and Simon Frith (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780197265864
- eISBN:
- 9780191772016
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265864.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, World Early Modern History
The content derives from the British Academy’s public lecture programme which presents specialist research in an accessible manner. The papers range in subject matter over music, psychology, history, ...
More
The content derives from the British Academy’s public lecture programme which presents specialist research in an accessible manner. The papers range in subject matter over music, psychology, history, economics and linguistics, demonstrating the depth and breadth of scholarship in the humanities and social sciences that the British Academy champions.Less
The content derives from the British Academy’s public lecture programme which presents specialist research in an accessible manner. The papers range in subject matter over music, psychology, history, economics and linguistics, demonstrating the depth and breadth of scholarship in the humanities and social sciences that the British Academy champions.
R. E. Jennings
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195075243
- eISBN:
- 9780199852970
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195075243.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter describes the second myth. The second myth can be described as cheerful handmaiden to the first, and, perhaps because of its classical hearkening, has an undeniable charm. Some ...
More
This chapter describes the second myth. The second myth can be described as cheerful handmaiden to the first, and, perhaps because of its classical hearkening, has an undeniable charm. Some languages, though English is not one of them, have two different words for two different senses of “or.” The second myth—Latin not only possessed truth-functional vocabulary but also possessed a clearer meaning. The ultimate source of the myth remains a mystery. As with the English ‘or’ the puzzle is not to understand how the conjunctive uses of aut are to be explained in the face of its disjunctive meaning, but how its disjunctive use arises out of a more primitive meaning that is adverbially conjunctive and more or less adversative. Latin, awaits its dissolution, and as we shall see, provides a useful clue.Less
This chapter describes the second myth. The second myth can be described as cheerful handmaiden to the first, and, perhaps because of its classical hearkening, has an undeniable charm. Some languages, though English is not one of them, have two different words for two different senses of “or.” The second myth—Latin not only possessed truth-functional vocabulary but also possessed a clearer meaning. The ultimate source of the myth remains a mystery. As with the English ‘or’ the puzzle is not to understand how the conjunctive uses of aut are to be explained in the face of its disjunctive meaning, but how its disjunctive use arises out of a more primitive meaning that is adverbially conjunctive and more or less adversative. Latin, awaits its dissolution, and as we shall see, provides a useful clue.
Mia Gaudern
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- August 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198850458
- eISBN:
- 9780191885556
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198850458.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This book defines, analyses, and theorises a late modern ‘etymological poetry’ that is alive to the past lives of its words, and probes the possible significance of them both explicitly and ...
More
This book defines, analyses, and theorises a late modern ‘etymological poetry’ that is alive to the past lives of its words, and probes the possible significance of them both explicitly and implicitly. Close readings of poetry and criticism by Auden, Prynne, and Muldoon investigate the implications of their etymological perspectives for the way their language establishes relationships between people, and between people and the world. These twin functions of communication and representation are shown to be central to the critical reception of etymological poetry, which is a category of ‘difficult’ poetry. However resonant poetic etymologising may be, critics warn that it shows the poet’s natural interest in language degenerating into an unhealthy obsession with the dictionary. It is unavoidably pedantic, in the post-Saussurean era, to entertain the idea that a word’s history might have any relevance to its current use. As such, etymological poetry elicits the closest of close readings, thus encouraging readers to reflect not only on its own pedantry, obscurity, and virtuosity, but also on how these qualities function in criticism. As well as presenting a new way of reading three very different late modern poet-critics, this book addresses an understudied aspect of the relationship between poetry and criticism. Its findings are situated in the context of literary debates about difficulty and diction, and in larger cultural conversations about the workings of language as a historical event.Less
This book defines, analyses, and theorises a late modern ‘etymological poetry’ that is alive to the past lives of its words, and probes the possible significance of them both explicitly and implicitly. Close readings of poetry and criticism by Auden, Prynne, and Muldoon investigate the implications of their etymological perspectives for the way their language establishes relationships between people, and between people and the world. These twin functions of communication and representation are shown to be central to the critical reception of etymological poetry, which is a category of ‘difficult’ poetry. However resonant poetic etymologising may be, critics warn that it shows the poet’s natural interest in language degenerating into an unhealthy obsession with the dictionary. It is unavoidably pedantic, in the post-Saussurean era, to entertain the idea that a word’s history might have any relevance to its current use. As such, etymological poetry elicits the closest of close readings, thus encouraging readers to reflect not only on its own pedantry, obscurity, and virtuosity, but also on how these qualities function in criticism. As well as presenting a new way of reading three very different late modern poet-critics, this book addresses an understudied aspect of the relationship between poetry and criticism. Its findings are situated in the context of literary debates about difficulty and diction, and in larger cultural conversations about the workings of language as a historical event.
Kevin Newmark
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823240128
- eISBN:
- 9780823240166
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823240128.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The inheritance of the German romantic “tradition” of irony by certain 20th-century French texts can become legible in the way such texts repeat the following question: what is the relation between ...
More
The inheritance of the German romantic “tradition” of irony by certain 20th-century French texts can become legible in the way such texts repeat the following question: what is the relation between thought and language? This chapter examines how such a question is addressed by Saussure's Course in General Linguistics as well as by texts by Maurice Blanchot and Jean Paulhan. Consideration of etymology as a privileged site for the interaction and potential interference between thought and language also discloses the ineluctably historical dimension of such questions. The etymological pretension to release for thought a “true” meaning obscured over time by language becomes at once a new intervention in the future history of meaning. Paulhan's Alain, Or Proof by Etymology and Blanchot's The Writing of the Disaster throw into sharp relief the difference between a historicity that results from ironic disruption and Heidegger's thinking of language and history as aletheia.Less
The inheritance of the German romantic “tradition” of irony by certain 20th-century French texts can become legible in the way such texts repeat the following question: what is the relation between thought and language? This chapter examines how such a question is addressed by Saussure's Course in General Linguistics as well as by texts by Maurice Blanchot and Jean Paulhan. Consideration of etymology as a privileged site for the interaction and potential interference between thought and language also discloses the ineluctably historical dimension of such questions. The etymological pretension to release for thought a “true” meaning obscured over time by language becomes at once a new intervention in the future history of meaning. Paulhan's Alain, Or Proof by Etymology and Blanchot's The Writing of the Disaster throw into sharp relief the difference between a historicity that results from ironic disruption and Heidegger's thinking of language and history as aletheia.
Kathryn M. de Luna
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780300218534
- eISBN:
- 9780300225167
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300218534.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, African History
This chapter introduces the three sources of evidence for the book—paleoclimatology, archaeology, and comparative historical linguistics—and the three historical frameworks each offers for the ...
More
This chapter introduces the three sources of evidence for the book—paleoclimatology, archaeology, and comparative historical linguistics—and the three historical frameworks each offers for the history that follows in later chapters. It reviews the physical geography and ecology of south central Africa and reconstructs the region’s climate history to describe the changing environmental framework. Next, it uses archaeological evidence to reconstruct the history of regional settlement patterns and economies during the Iron Age. The chapter then introduces the method of comparative historical linguistics, including: a new classification of Botatwe languages based on lexicostatistics and innovations in phonology and lexis; an explanation of the reconstruction of words and their meanings (derivation and etymology); and the challenges and opportunities of glottochronology. Finally, the chapter weaves the three frameworks together into a settlement narrative of Botatwe communities in the broader context of the Bantu Expansion.Less
This chapter introduces the three sources of evidence for the book—paleoclimatology, archaeology, and comparative historical linguistics—and the three historical frameworks each offers for the history that follows in later chapters. It reviews the physical geography and ecology of south central Africa and reconstructs the region’s climate history to describe the changing environmental framework. Next, it uses archaeological evidence to reconstruct the history of regional settlement patterns and economies during the Iron Age. The chapter then introduces the method of comparative historical linguistics, including: a new classification of Botatwe languages based on lexicostatistics and innovations in phonology and lexis; an explanation of the reconstruction of words and their meanings (derivation and etymology); and the challenges and opportunities of glottochronology. Finally, the chapter weaves the three frameworks together into a settlement narrative of Botatwe communities in the broader context of the Bantu Expansion.
