Language and linguistics are two interesting research areas
that I’d like to focus. These interests were stimulated by the work I have done
in natural language processing, like unambiguously interpreting instructions
from user manuals. After resigning from my previous work place I had some time
to restard blogging the things I’m interested. Here I summed few facts that I have
collected time by time and I’m hoping to write more about language and
linguistics often.
Language is one of the most expressive forms of
communicating knowledge with rest of the world; a master of this expressive
form could share his wisdom with others. Philosophy of language can be denoted
as a systematic study/inquiry of the origins of language, the nature of
meaning, the usage and cognition of language and the relationship between
language and reality.
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| The curious fate of humankind. |
Philosophy of language has its roots in final centuries BC
and early centuries AD. VedicAge in Indian history made contribution to the philosophy of language in
early stages of this quest, to be precise philosophical schools of Nyaya and Mimamsa
gave rise to linguistic philosophy. For example Sanskrit GrammaticalTradition can be considered and one such contribution.
Ancient Greece covered most of work in philosophy of
language from the Western tradition. Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics made contributions in
that era.
Plato believed that names of things are based on the nature
where each smallest structural unit that distinguishes meaning represents basic
ideas or sentiments. Aristotle considered that the way a
subject is modified or described in a sentence is established through an
abstraction of the similarities between various individual things. The Stoic
philosophers separated five parts of speech: nouns, verbs, appellatives,
conjunctions and articles. Their contributions are mostly made to the analysis
of grammar.
In late 19th Century language start playing a
major role in Western philosophy. Publication like “Cours delinguistique generale” made an impact to that contribution.
