LINGUIST List 12.2002

Thu Aug 9 2001

Books: General Linguistics

Editor for this issue: Naomi Ogasawara <naomilinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Kimberly Kahn, General Linguistics: George Dalgarno on Universal Language

GEORGE DALGARNO ON UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE: "The Art of Signs" (1661), 
"The Deaf and Dumb Man's Tutor" (1680), and the Unpublished Papers
Edited by David Cram, Oxford University, and Jaap Maat, University of Amsterdam

George Dalgarno's Art of Signs (Ars Signorum, 1661) was the first work
in the seventeenth century to present a fully elaborated universal
language constructed on philosophical principles. It contains a wealth
of observations on human language and the nature of representation in
general, and the author takes issue with leading philosophers of his
day, notably Hobbes and Descartes, on epistemological and logical
questions. By including the first complete English translation
alongside the Latin, the present edition makes this seminal text
accessible to a wider audience. In bringing together for the first
time the full range of Dalgarno's linguistic work - which has striking
resonance with modern work in universal grammar and cognitive science
- this volume gives ready access to the ideas of this original and
stimulating thinker.

August 2001 352 pp.; 4 figs , 3 facsimiles, 1 fold-out table
0-19-823732-4 $98.00
Oxford University Press
 
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