Concepts
- Is there a universal definition of word?
- Is there a universal definition of sentence?
- Are there any universal grammatical categories?
- Can the elements contained in words (morphemes) and the elements contained in sentences (syntactic constituents) be shown to follow the same principles?
- Is it possible to formally circumscribe languages from each other? That is to say, is it possible to use linguistic (rather than social) criteria to draw a clear boundary between two closely related languages with a dialect continuum between their respective standard forms (e.g. Occitan and Catalan)?
- How does grammaticalization function?
- How do creole languages emerge?
Read more about this topic: List Of Unsolved Problems In Linguistics
Famous quotes containing the word concepts:
“When you have broken the reality into concepts you never can reconstruct it in its wholeness.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Institutional psychiatry is a continuation of the Inquisition. All that has really changed is the vocabulary and the social style. The vocabulary conforms to the intellectual expectations of our age: it is a pseudo-medical jargon that parodies the concepts of science. The social style conforms to the political expectations of our age: it is a pseudo-liberal social movement that parodies the ideals of freedom and rationality.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)