Unsolved Problems in Linguistics - Concepts

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:  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)

    Science is a dynamic undertaking directed to lowering the degree of the empiricism involved in solving problems; or, if you prefer, science is a process of fabricating a web of interconnected concepts and conceptual schemes arising from experiments and observations and fruitful of further experiments and observations.
    James Conant (1893–1978)

    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)