Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T00:57:39.239Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Transformational theory and semantic analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Richard A. Thompson
Richard A. Thompson
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, The University of Texas
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Schools of thought concerning the study of language in anthropology and in linguistics proper have developed historically along lines that are sometimes convergent, but too often divergent because of a certain gap in communication between the two disciplines. It is the purpose of this paper to suggest the existence of an area of common interest which is at present unrecognized in the literature. I submit that recent work in what anthropologists refer to as ‘formal’ semantic analysis, when considered in the light of transformational linguistics, provides a potentially fruitful point of interdisciplinary interaction which should result in the formulation of a more adequate theory of meaning in the study of language than exists at the moment.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , April 1968 , pp. 73 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Berlin, B., Breedlove, D. E. & Raven, P. H. (In press). Covert semantic categories and folk taxonomies. AmA.Google Scholar
Burling, R. (1964). Cognition and componential analysis: God's truth or hocus pocus. AmA 66. 20–28.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1964). Current issues in linguistic theory. The Structure of Language (eds. Fodor, J. A. & Katz, J. J.), 50–118. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass.MIT Press.Google Scholar
Conklin, H. C. (1962). Lexicographical treatment of folk taxonomies. IJAL 28(2) part 4. 119–141.Google Scholar
Frake, C. O. (1960). The Eastern Subanun of Mindanao. Social Structure in Southeast Asia (ed. Murdock, G. P.). New York: Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, No. 29, pp. 51–64.Google Scholar
Frake, C. O. (1961). The diagnosis of disease among the Subanun of Mindanao. Ama 63. 113–132.Google Scholar
Frake, C. O. (1962). The ethnographic study of cognitive systems. Anthropology and Human Behavior (eds. Gladwin, T. & Sturtevant, W. C.). Washington: Anthropological Society of Washington.Google Scholar
Frake, C. O. (1964). Notes on queries in anthropology. Transcultural Studies in Cognition (eds. Romney, A. K. & D'Andrade, R.). Ama (Special Publication) 66. 132–145.Google Scholar
Goodenough, W. H. (1951). Property, Kin, and Community in Truk. New Haven: Yale University Publications in Anthropology, No. 46.Google Scholar
Goodenough, W. H. (1956). Componential analysis and the study of meaning. Lg 32. 195–216.Google Scholar
Katz, J. J. (1966). The Philosophy of Language. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Katz, J. J. & Fodor, J. A. (1964). The structure of a semantic theory. In Fodor & Katz (1964: 479–518).Google Scholar
Katz, J. J. & Postal, P. (1964). An Integrated Theory of Linguistic Descriptions. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lounsbury, F. G. (1956). A semantic analysis of the Pawnee kinship usage. Lg 32. 158–194.Google Scholar
Lounsbury, F. G. (1964). A formal account of the Crow and Omaha-type kinship terminologies. Explorations in Cultural Anthropology: Essays Presented to George Peter Murdock (ed. W. H. Goodenough), 351–393.Google Scholar
Metzger, D. E. & Williams, G. (1963). A formal ethnographic analysis of Tenejapa Ladino weddings. AmA 65. 1076–1101.Google Scholar
Morgan, L. H. (1871). Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Contributions to Knowledge, No. 17.Google Scholar
Wallace, A. F. C. & Atkins, J. (1960). The meaning of kinship terms. AmA 62. 58–80.Google Scholar