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Description:
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Based on fieldwork carried out in a Mayan village in Guatemala, this book
examines local understandings of mind through the lens of language and
culture. It focuses on a variety of grammatical structures and discursive
practices through which mental states are encoded and social relations are
expressed: inalienable possessions, such as body parts and kinship terms;
interjections, such as 'ouch' and 'yuck'; complement-taking predicates,
such as 'believe' and 'desire'; and grammatical categories such as
mood, status and evidentiality. And, more generally, it develops a
theoretical framework through which both community-specific and
human-general features of mind may be contrasted and compared. It will be
of interest to researchers and students working within the disciplines of
anthropology, linguistics, psychology, and philosophy.
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