GEORGE DALGARNO ON UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE by George Dalgarno, Dr. David Cram (Editor), Jaap Maat (Editor) ( 9780198237327 )

Item Details

Title:

GEORGE DALGARNO ON UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE
'THE ART OF SIGNS' (1661), 'THE DEAF AND DUMB MAN'S TUTOR' (1680), AND THE UNPUBLISHED PAPERS

By:

George Dalgarno, Dr. David Cram (Editor), Jaap Maat (Editor)

Format:

Hardback

List price:

£190.00

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£166.25

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12.5% off

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£23.75

ISBN 10:

0198237324

ISBN 13:

9780198237327

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Publisher:

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Pub. date:

5 July, 2001

Pages:

468

Description:

This volume brings together the published and the previously unpublished works on language by the seventeenth-century thinker George Dalgarno. His 'Art of Signs' - the earliest seventeenth-century work to attempt a fully elaborated universal language scheme - is presented here for the first time with a full English translation alongside the Latin. Also included is a further book-length tract, broadsheets, and correspondence, all of which provide the modern readerwith better access to the ideas of this original and stimulating thinker.

Synopsis:

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. The text is further elucidated by a previously unpublished autobiographical tract in which Dalgarno describes the development of his ideas, and his discussions with John Wilkins, who eventually was to produce a rival universal language scheme. In this tract Dalgarno provides, in unprecedented detail, a lucid account of the major issues involved in the debate on the structure of a philosophical language. Further tracts by Dalgarno reprinted here illustrate other facets of his thought.These include a series of broadsheets in which he advertised his scheme; 'The Deaf and Dumb Man's Tutor' (1680) which contains some original observations concerning the teaching of language to the deaf; and a treatise on 'Double Consonants' - one of the earliest treatments of phonotactics. In bringing together for the first time the full range of Dalgarno's linguistic work - which has strking resonance with modern work in universal grammar and cognitive science - the present volume gives ready access to the ideas of this original and stimulating thinker.

Illustrations:

4 figures, 3 facsimiles, 1 fold-out table

Publication:

Imprint:

Oxford University Press

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Returnable

Some other items by this author:

COPING WITH PSORIASIS (PB)

DIDASCALOCOPHUS, OR, THE DEAF AND DUMB MANS TUTOR TO WHICH IS ADDED A DISCOURSE OF THE NATURE AND NUMBER OF DOUBLE CONSONANTS, BOTH WHICH TRACTS BEING THE FIRST (FOR WHAT THE AUTHOR KNOWS) THAT HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED UPON EITHER OF THE SUBJECTS (1680)

FRANCIS WILLUGHBY'S BOOK OF GAMES (HB)

HISTORY OF LINGUISTICS (HB)