BREAKING THE LINGUISTIC DILEMMA : investigations of explanatory strategies in linguistics

Linguistic theories often suffer from the dilemma that their explanatory power is based on extra-linguistic assumptions. The book delineates the essence of linguistic theory and linguistic explanation and, in doing so, proposes a solution to the dilemma. Simultaneously, the book is one of the first attempts to profile the philosophy of linguistics as a distinct sub-discipline of the contemporary philosophy of science. Foreword Contents 1 Resolving the dilemma 2 Philosophy of scientific explanation 3 Systemic explanation in linguistics 4 Formal explanation in linguistics 5 Functional explanation in quantitative linguistics 6 Conclusion Appendix References Persons index Subject index