Thought-based Linguistics
How Languages Turn Thoughts into Sounds

Argues for the central role of thoughts in the design of language.

Wallace Chafe (Author)

9781108431569, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 17 September 2020

209 pages, 72 b/w illus.
23 x 15.3 x 2.6 cm, 0.42 kg

The extent to which language is inseparable from thought has long been a major subject of debate across linguistics, psychology, philosophy and other disciplines. In this study, Wallace Chafe presents a thought-based theory of language that goes beyond traditional views that semantics, syntax, and sounds are sufficient to account for language design. Language begins with thoughts in the mind of a speaker and ends by affecting thoughts in the mind of a listener. This obvious observation is seldom incorporated in descriptions of language design for two major reasons. First, the role of thought is usually usurped by semantics. But semantic structures are imposed on thought by languages and differ from one language to another. Second, thought does not lend itself to familiar methods of linguistic analysis. Chafe suggests ways of describing thoughts, traces the path languages follow from thoughts to sounds, and explores ways in which thoughts are oriented in time, memory, imagination, reality, and emotions.

Prologue
Part I. Preliminaries: 1. Background
2. Ground rules
Part II. Thoughts and their Properties: 3. The priority of thoughts
4. The path from a thought to a sound
5. How thoughts are structured
6. How thoughts are experienced
7. How thoughts are shared
8. How thoughts flow through time
Part III. Verbalization Illustrated: 9. From a thought to a sound in English
10. From a thought to a sound in a polysynthetic language
Part IV. Related Issues: 11. The translation paradox
12. Repeated verbalizations of the same thought
13. Rethinking Whorf
14. Lessons from literature
Part V. Common Ways of Orienting Thoughts: 15. Small numbers and subitizing
16. Thoughts and gender
17. Time, tense, memory, and imagination
18. Relating ideas to reality
Part VI. The Emotional Component of Thoughts: 19. Emotional involvement in a conversation
20. The feeling of nonseriousness
21. How language can be beautiful
Epilogue
Index.

Subject Areas: Philosophy of mind [HPM], Semantics, discourse analysis, etc [CFG], Psycholinguistics [CFD], Philosophy of language [CFA]