How to Show Things with Words

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-description types. The book adresses an audience of linguists in general, formal semanticists, cognitive scientists, philosophers and narratologists with an interest in natural language semantics.

Autorentext

Rui Linhares-Dias, Universidade dos Açores,Ponta Delgada, Azores Archipelago, Portugal.

Klappentext
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-description types. The book adresses an audience of linguists in general, formal semanticists, cognitive scientists, philosophers and narratologists with an interest in natural language semantics.

Inhalt
Chapter 1 The linguistics structure of narrative transmission1. Introduction2. The showing-telling distinction3. Narrative transmission as cognitive distance: from evidential modalities to indication signs4. The role of tense, aspect and 'Aktionsart' Chapter 2 Linguistics in Narratology. A critical historical survey1. Introduction2. Ingarden, Stanzel, Hamburger: the neutralization of the 'episches Präteritum' as a past tense 3. Müller: quantitative indicators and beyond4. Weinrich's textlinguistic theory: a tense-centered approach to backgrounded narrative discourse5. Uspensky: synchronic and retrospective viewpoints as a function of both tense and aspect oppositions6. Barthes: the semiotics of 'l'effet de réel'7. Chatman, Prince, Toolan: 'Aktionsart' revisited8. Caenepeel: perspectivally situated vs. perspectivally non-situated sentences Chapter 3 The narrating instance as locutionary subjectivity1. Introduction2. Speech-act theory and narrative discourse3. The philosophical research on linguistic functions4. The phenomenological make-up of the narrating instance as locutionary subjectivity5. Locutionary subjectivity as a(n) (indexical) function of tense, aspect and 'Aktionsart' Chapter 4 Tense1. Introduction2. Reichenbach's theory of tense3. Tense in narrative discourse4. Tense, perception and memory Chapter 5 Aspect1. Introduction2. Classificatory systems of aspectual oppositions3. Viewpoint aspect and point of view: a first view on the role played by imperfective meaning4. Imperfectivity as a two-edged aspectual form or another view on viewpoint aspect and point of view5. A note on iterativity Chapter 6 "Aktionsart"1. Introduction2. Vendler's aspectual classes3. Formal semantic approaches to 'Aktionsart' Chapter 7 The effect of "Aktionsart" on narrative transmission1. Introduction2. - STAT eventuality descriptions3. + STAT eventuality discriptions4. World-knowledge based event semantics