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The Science of Idiom: A Method of Inquiry into the Cognitive Design of Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Murat H. Roberts
Murat H. Roberts*
Affiliation:
New York University
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Extract

The idiom of a language is the atmosphere of thought which pervades the signification of all its words and governs the architecture of all its sentences. Idiom appears in the structure of the language as an effect; as a cause, it resides in the experiences and predilections of the speakers of the language. Arising in the domain of ideas, belonging to the content communicated rather than to the communicating instrument, idiom is the attitude of mind common to all members of a linguistic community and inherent in all their thinking. This common attitude creates the master pattern, the cardinal orientation of cognition, to which all the phrases of the language must conform.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , March 1944 , pp. 291 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1944

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References

Note 1 in page 291 In this transliteration of Russian, ‘y’ represents the vowel jery and ‘j’ represents the jot-sound as in Czech ja, jest, German ja, Jahr, Latin judex, jubeo.

Note 2 in page 294 Ferdinand de Saussure, Cours de Linguistique Générale (Paris, 1922), pp. 23–39.

Note 3 in page 294 Victor Egger, La Parole Intérieure (Paris, 1904).

Note 4 in page 294 Æneid, v, 8–11.

Note 5 in page 306 Georg von der Gabelentz, Die Sprachwissenschaft, ihre Aufgaben, Methoden, und bisherigen Ergebnisse (Leipzig, 1891), p. 466.