Details

Subject(s)

• Language and languages—Philosophy [Browse]

Summary note

The bulk of the book needs no special pleading, as its purpose is more transparent. Most of the material is built around the voco-sensory theory of language, and because the Semitic triliteral root affords us many excellent illustrations of the application of our theory, two chapters were devoted to the structure of Hebrew and kindred languages. Analyzing various phonemic combinations in the light of this theory yields us a good deal of the psychological groundwork underlying the development of both ideas and expressions. Group psychology figures prominently in the third part of the book where ethnic traits are deduced from linguistic comparisons. It is not to be understood that the ethnic group and the language it uses as a medium must be considered as inseparable. In many instances it is the divergence or deviation which counts. William James did not think it beneath him to study exceptions, when all others were rising on their toes to frame generalisations, if not actual laws.

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Contents

• I. Fate, chance, coincidence, and destiny
• II. Destiny in names
• III. Phoney etymology
• IV. The voco-sensory origin of language
• V. Shmoo and shmo: the psychoanalytic implications
• VI. The 'st' phonex
• VII. The 'ng' phonex
• VIII. The hand that gives and the hand that takes
• IX. General framework of the semitic languages
• X. The semantic structure of the Hebrew root
• XI. Linguistic dominants
• XII. Dialects of the verb
• XIII. The impersonal English
• XIV. The prepositional American
• XV. Insinuatives
• XVI. Dialectal homologues
• XVII. National characteristics in language
• XVIII. The psychology of slang
• XIX. Psychological explorations of linguistics
• XX. Psychological linguistics in the United States
• XXI. What is psycholinguistics?
• XXII. The cumula
• XXIII. Simulates.

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Other title(s)

Destiny and motivation in language

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