Book contents
- Language and Nature in the Classical Roman World
- Language and Nature in the Classical Roman World
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: First Thoughts on Language and Nature
- Chapter 1 Posidonius’ Linguistic Naturalism and Its Philosophical Pedigree
- Chapter 2 Lucilius on Latin Spelling, Grammar, and Usage
- Chapter 3 Nigidius Figulus’ Naturalism
- Chapter 4 Naturalism in Morphology
- Chapter 5 What’s Hecuba to Him?
- Chapter 6 Linguistic Naturalism in Cicero’s Academica
- Chapter 7 Linguistic Naturalism and Natural Style
- Chapter 8 Natural Law and Natural Language in the First Century BCE
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- Index Nominum et Rerum
Introduction: First Thoughts on Language and Nature
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2019
- Language and Nature in the Classical Roman World
- Language and Nature in the Classical Roman World
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: First Thoughts on Language and Nature
- Chapter 1 Posidonius’ Linguistic Naturalism and Its Philosophical Pedigree
- Chapter 2 Lucilius on Latin Spelling, Grammar, and Usage
- Chapter 3 Nigidius Figulus’ Naturalism
- Chapter 4 Naturalism in Morphology
- Chapter 5 What’s Hecuba to Him?
- Chapter 6 Linguistic Naturalism in Cicero’s Academica
- Chapter 7 Linguistic Naturalism and Natural Style
- Chapter 8 Natural Law and Natural Language in the First Century BCE
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- Index Nominum et Rerum
Summary
One of the key questions in language studies, both ancient and modern, concerns the relationship between language and reality: how has extra-linguistic reality influenced the emergence, development, and structures of language? This question is at the core of several advances in the last century, including the development of theories arguing for the biological regulation of the structures of language (generative grammar) and the pioneering investigation of the neuro-biological mechanisms regulating language use (neurolinguistics). This question is no less productive in ancient thought, both Greek and Roman. Ancient theorists conceived of the question in terms of the relationship between language and nature (physis /natura), and the essays gathered in this volume deal with theories from the Roman world according to which linguistic facts, structures, or behaviours are in some significant sense determined by nature. We refer to such theories as instances of ‘linguistic naturalism’.
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- Language and Nature in the Classical Roman World , pp. 1 - 14Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019