In this book, Pieter Seuren argues that Ferdinand de Saussure has been grossly overestimated over the past century, while his junior colleague Albert Sechehaye has been undeservedly ignored. Saussure was anything but the great innovator he is generally believed to be. Sechehaye was a genius providing many trenchant analyses and anticipating many modern insights. The lives and works of both men are discussed in detail and they are placed in the cultural, intellectual and social environment of their day. Much attention is paid to the theoretical issues involved, in particular to the notion and history of structuralism, to the great subject-predicate debate that dominated linguistic theory at the time, and to questions of methodology in the theory of language.

In this book, Stanley E. Porter offers a unique, language-based critique of New Testament theology by comparing it to the development of language study from the Enlightenment to the present. Tracing the histories of two disciplines that are rarely considered together, Porter shows how the study of New Testament theology has followed outmoded conceptual models from previous eras of intellectual discussion. He reconceptualizes the study of New Testament theology via methods that are based upon the categories of modern linguistics, and demonstrates how they have already been applied to New Testament Greek studies. Porter also develops a workable linguistic model that can be applied to other areas of New Testament research. Opening New Testament Greek linguistics to a wider audience, his volume offers numerous examples of the productivity of this linguistic model, especially in his chapter devoted to the case study of the Son of Man.

This book is the first and so far only formally precise machinery converting well-motivated semantic sentence representations into actual sentences of English, French, German and Dutch. It focuses on the auxiliary and complementation systems of the languages concerned.

Stanley E. Porter provides descriptions of various important topics in Greek linguistics from a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) perspective; an approach that has been foundational to Porter's long and influential career in the field of New Testament Greek. Deep insights into Porter's understanding of SFL are displayed throughout, based either upon how he positions SFL in relation to other linguistic models, or how he utilizes it to describe topics within Greek and New Testament studies. Porter reflects on his core approach to the Greek New Testament by exploring subjects such as metaphor, rhetoric, cognition, orality and textuality, as well as studies on linguistic schools of thought and traditional grammar.

This book argues that positivism, though now the dominant paradigm for both the natural and the human sciences, is intrinsically unfit for the latter. In particular, it is unfit for linguistics and cognitive science, where it is ultimately self-destructive, since it fails to account for causality, while the mind, the primary object of research of the human sciences, cannot be understood unless considered to be an autonomous causal force. Author Pieter Albertus Maria Seuren, who died shortly after this manuscript was finished and after a remarkable career, reviews the history of this issue since the seventeenth century. He focuses on Descartes, Leibniz, British Empiricism and Kant, arguing that neither cognition nor language can be adequately accounted for unless the mind is given its full due. This implies that a distinction must be made—following Alexius Meinong, but against Russell and Quine—between actual and virtual reality. The latter is a product of the causally active mind and a necessary ingredient for the setting up of mental models, without which neither cognition nor language can function. Mental models are coherent sets of propositions, and can be wholly or partially true or false. Positivism rules out mental models, blocking any serious semantics and thereby reducing both language and cognition to caricatures of themselves. Seuren presents a causal theory of meaning, linking up language with cognition and solving the old question of what meaning actually amounts to. Key Features: Provides a fundamental reassessment of the methodology of the humanities Makes a distinctive contribution to the conceptual foundations of linguistics and philosophy of mind Explores the philosophical and historical origins of central developments in the human sciences in the past 100 years Offers a new approach to ontology and epistemology in the scientific study of the creative human mind and its products.

South America was populated relatively recently, probably around 15,000 years ago. Yet, instead of finding a relatively small number of language families, we find some 118 genealogical units. So far, the historical processes that underlie the current picture are not yet fully understood. This book represents a preliminary attempt at understanding the socio-historical dynamics behind language diversification in the region, focusing on the Kawapanan languages, particularly on Shawi. The book provides an introduction to the ideas behind the flux approach of Dynamic linguistics and later concentrates on prehistorical language contact, specifically in the northern Peruvian Andean sphere. The number of studies presented shed light on a layered picture in which a number of Kawapanan lects were used in non-polyglosic multilingual settings. The book explores the potential contact relationships between Kawapanan languages, Quechuan, Aymaran, Chachapuya, Cholón-Hibito, Arawak, Carib and Puelche. The analysis draws on data collected in the field over a period of eight years (2012-2020) with both Shawi and Shiwilu speakers and includes the first comprehensive grammar sketch of Shawi.

Each person born participates in the genius of life and the world at this time is in great need of an awakening of genius qualities hidden within each of us. In a rapidly changing world faced with seemingly impossible problems, it becomes important to understand that each person has something to contribute. Both timely and timeless, this book combines dramatic real life experiences with compelling mythic tales and a profound exploration of the wisdom of genius, and is essential for anyone who seeks to awaken their own genius and learn how to heal nature and renew culture.

Whether it's Sherlock Holmes solving crimes or Sheldon and Leonard geeking out over sci-fi, geniuses are central figures on many of television's most popular series. They are often enigmatic, displaying superhuman intellect while struggling with mundane aspects of daily life. This collection of new essays explores why TV geniuses fascinate us and how they shape our perceptions of what it means to be highly intelligent. Examining series like Criminal Minds, The Big Bang Theory, Bones, Elementary, Fringe, House, The Mentalist, Monk, Sherlock, Leverage and others, scholars from a variety of disciplines discuss how television both reflects and informs our cultural understanding of genius.

Despite creating vast inequalities and propping up reactionary world regimes, capitalism has many passionate defenders—but not because of what it withholds from some and gives to others. Capitalism dominates, Todd McGowan argues, because it mimics the structure of our desire while hiding the trauma that the system inflicts upon it. People from all backgrounds enjoy what capitalism provides, but at the same time are told more and better is yet to come. Capitalism traps us through an incomplete satisfaction that compels us after the new, the better, and the more. Capitalism's parasitic relationship to our desires gives it the illusion of corresponding to our natural impulses, which is how capitalism's defenders characterize it. By understanding this psychic strategy, McGowan hopes to divest us of our addiction to capitalist enrichment and help us rediscover enjoyment as we actually experienced it. By locating it in the present, McGowan frees us from our attachment to a better future and the belief that capitalism is an essential outgrowth of human nature. From this perspective, our economic, social, and political worlds open up to real political change. Eloquent and enlivened by examples from film, television, consumer culture, and everyday life, Capitalism and Desire brings a new, psychoanalytically grounded approach to political and social theory.

In The distinctive terminology in Sarḥ al-Kāfiya by Raḍī l-Dīn al-ʾAstarābāḏī Beata Sheyhatovitch offers a comprehensive and systematic study of terminology used by a highly perceptive and original Arab grammarian from 13th century C.E