Rui Linhares-Dias, Universidade dos Açores, Ponta Delgada, Azores Archipelago, Portugal.
How to Show Things with Words is an interdisciplinary research study at the interface between linguistics and philosophy which sheds new light on the narrative-theoretical issue of proximal vs. distal stance adoption in discourse.
Narrative distance ultimately depends on the epistemological source of the information conveyed, but English and other Indo-European languages have no inflectional systems for (en)coding that source of knowledge. To fill in the gap, speech act theory is (re)considered in the light of philosophical research on linguistic functions and a parallel is drawn between grammaticalized evidential categories and the objectifying acts of Husserl's phenomenology of constitution. These intuitive vs. signitive intentional acts do, indeed, roughly correspond to direct vs. indirect evidentiary forms and can be inferred from the temporal-perspectival organization of discourse by the so-called intimation or announcement function of language-systems. It turns out that perspectival immediacy requires tenses with overlapping event- and reference-points, but predictions of the sort are non-monotonic forms of reasoning defeasible by quantificational aspect distinctions, on the one hand, and inherent meaning considerations, on the other. To substantiate this claim, the bulk of the book provides an in-depth formal semantic account of tense, aspect and Aktionsart, interwoven with a detailed analysis of the cognitive processes associated with eventuality-deillegalscription types.
The book adresses an audience of linguists in general, formal semanticists, cognitive scientists, philosophers and narratologists with an interest in natural language semantics.
This book straddles the border between linguistics and philosophy to address, on a sound interdisciplinary basis, the narrative-theoretical issue of proximal vs. For that matter, the book provides an in-depth formal semantic account of tense, aspect and Aktionsart, supported by the cognitive processes inherent in eventuality-deillegalscription types.
Chapter 1 The linguistics structure of narrative transmission
1. Introduction
2. The showing-telling distinction
3. Narrative transmission as cognitive distance: from evidential modalities to indication signs
4. The role of tense, aspect and 'Aktionsart'
Chapter 2 Linguistics in Narratology. A critical historical survey
1. Introduction
2. Ingarden, Stanzel, Hamburger: the neutralization of the 'episches Präteritum' as a past tense
3. Müller: quantitative indicators and beyond
4. Weinrich's textlinguistic theory: a tense-centered approach to backgrounded narrative discourse
5. Uspensky: synchronic and retrospective viewpoints as a function of both tense and aspect oppositions
6. Barthes: the semiotics of 'l'effet de réel'
7. Chatman, Prince, Toolan: 'Aktionsart' revisited
8. Caenepeel: perspectivally situated vs. perspectivally non-situated sentences
Chapter 3 The narrating instance as locutionary subjectivity
1. Introduction
2. Speech-act theory and narrative discourse
3. The philosophical research on linguistic functions
4. The phenomenological make-up of the narrating instance as locutionary subjectivity
5. Locutionary subjectivity as a(n) (indexical) function of tense, aspect and 'Aktionsart'
Chapter 4 Tense
1. Introduction
2. Reichenbach's theory of tense
3. Tense in narrative discourse
4. Tense, perception and memory
Chapter 5 Aspect
1. Introduction
2. Classificatory systems of aspectual oppositions
3. Viewpoint aspect and point of view: a first view on the role played by imperfective meaning
4. Imperfectivity as a two-edged aspectual form or another view on viewpoint aspect and point of view
5. A note on iterativity
Chapter 6 "Aktionsart"
1. Introduction
2. Vendler's aspectual classes
3. Formal semantic approaches to 'Aktionsart'
Chapter 7 The effect of "Aktionsart" on narrative transmission
1. Introduction
2. - STAT eventuality deillegalscriptions
3. + STAT eventuality diillegalscriptions
4. World-knowledge based event semantics
Über den Autor
Rui Linhares-Dias works at the Universidade dos A¿es,Ponta Delgada, Azores Archipelago, Portugal. n
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Chapter 1 The linguistics structure of narrative transmission
1. Introduction
2. The showing-telling distinction
3. Narrative transmission as cognitive distance: from evidential modalities to indication signs
4. The role of tense, aspect and 'Aktionsart'
Chapter 2 Linguistics in Narratology. A critical historical survey
1. Introduction
2. Ingarden, Stanzel, Hamburger: the neutralization of the 'episches Präteritum' as a past tense
3. Müller: quantitative indicators and beyond
4. Weinrich's textlinguistic theory: a tense-centered approach to backgrounded narrative discourse
5. Uspensky: synchronic and retrospective viewpoints as a function of both tense and aspect oppositions
6. Barthes: the semiotics of 'l'effet de réel'
7. Chatman, Prince, Toolan: 'Aktionsart' revisited
8. Caenepeel: perspectivally situated vs. perspectivally non-situated sentences
Chapter 3 The narrating instance as locutionary subjectivity
1. Introduction
2. Speech-act theory and narrative discourse
3. The philosophical research on linguistic functions
4. The phenomenological make-up of the narrating instance as locutionary subjectivity
5. Locutionary subjectivity as a(n) (indexical) function of tense, aspect and 'Aktionsart'
Chapter 4 Tense
1. Introduction
2. Reichenbach's theory of tense
3. Tense in narrative discourse
4. Tense, perception and memory
Chapter 5 Aspect
1. Introduction
2. Classificatory systems of aspectual oppositions
3. Viewpoint aspect and point of view: a first view on the role played by imperfective meaning
4. Imperfectivity as a two-edged aspectual form or another view on viewpoint aspect and point of view
5. A note on iterativity
Chapter 6 "Aktionsart"
1. Introduction
2. Vendler's aspectual classes
3. Formal semantic approaches to 'Aktionsart'
Chapter 7 The effect of "Aktionsart" on narrative transmission
1. Introduction
2. - STAT eventuality deillegalscriptions
3. + STAT eventuality diillegalscriptions
4. World-knowledge based event semantics
Klappentext
rn
How to Show Things with Words is an interdisciplinary research study at the interface between linguistics and philosophy which sheds new light on the narrative-theoretical issue of proximal vs. distal stance adoption in discourse. rnNarrative distance ultimately depends on the epistemological source of the information conveyed, but English and other Indo-European languages have no inflectional systems for (en)coding that source of knowledge. To fill in the gap, speech act theory is (re)considered in the light of philosophical research on linguistic functions and a parallel is drawn between grammaticalized evidential categories and the objectifying acts of Husserl's phenomenology of constitution. These intuitive vs. signitive intentional acts do, indeed, roughly correspond to direct vs. indirect evidentiary forms and can be inferred from the temporal-perspectival organization of discourse by the so-called intimation or announcement function of language-systems. It turns out that perspectival immediacy requires tenses with overlapping event- and reference-points, but predictions of the sort are non-monotonic forms of reasoning defeasible by quantificational aspect distinctions, on the one hand, and inherent meaning considerations, on the other. To substantiate this claim, the bulk of the book provides an in-depth formal semantic account of tense, aspect and
Aktionsart, interwoven with a detailed analysis of the cognitive processes associated with eventuality-deillegalscription types. rn The book adresses an audience of linguists in general, formal semanticists, cognitive scientists, philosophers and narratologists with an interest in natural language semantics.
