Possible Worlds in Humanities, Arts and Sciences: Proceedings of Nobel Symposium 65 (Research in Text Theory, 14)

This is the first study of the typological change of English from a synthetic towards an analytic language that focuses exclusively on the lexical domain of the language. It presents an innovative approach to linguistic typology by focusing on the different encoding techniques used in the lexicon, providing a theoretical framework for the description of structural types (synthetic, analytic) and encoding techniques (fusional, isolating, agglutinative, incorporating) found in the lexicon of a language. It is argued that, in the case of English, the change from syntheticity to analyticity did not only affect its inflectional system and the encoding of grammatical information, but also the derivational component. Based on a cognitive approach to derivation, the book provides empirical evidence for a considerable decline in the use of synthetic structures and a trend towards higher degrees of analyticity in a specific lexical domain of English, the formation of nouns by means of derivation. The full extent of this change surfaced during the transition from Old English to early Middle English, but it was later partly reversed though influence from French. The typological shift was thus the result of a global structural reorganization of the language that resulted in a fundamental change of the structure of words. The book also presents a comprehensive account of the historical development of nominal derivation from the beginnings of Old English until the end of the early Middle English period. Based on empirical data from written sources the study documents the frequency of use of all Germanic-based derivational morphemes for nominalizations over different subperiods and discusses their origin as well as important changes of their semantic and morphological properties. Preface Opening Address Session 1: Philosophy Possible Worlds in History of Science Discussion of Thomas S. Kuhn’s paper “Possible Worlds in History of Science” Discussion of Thomas S. Kuhn’s paper “Possible Worlds in History of Science” Speaker’s Reply Exploring Possible Worlds On Doughnutting. Discussion of Jaakko Hintikka’s paper “Exploring Possible Worlds” Transworld Journeys. Report on Session 1: Philosophy Session 2: Linguistics Possible Worlds in Model-Theoretic Semantics: A Linguistic Perspective Possible Worlds and Subject Matter. Discussion of Barbara H. Partee’s paper “Possible Worlds in Model-Theoretic Semantics: A Linguistic Perspective” Some Caveats with Respect to Possible Worlds. Discussion of Barbara H. Partee’s paper “Possible Worlds in Model-Theoretic Semantics: A Linguistic Perspective” Speaker’s Reply Connexity, Interpretability, Universes of Discourse, and Text Worlds Possible Worlds and Enkvist’s Worlds. Discussion of Nils Erik Enkvist’s paper “Connexity, Interpretability, Universes of Discourse, and Text Worlds” The World of Words – and Pictures. Discussion of Nils Erik Enkvist’s paper “Connexity, Interpretability, Universes of Discourse, and Text Worlds” Possible Worlds – Text Worlds. Quo vadis Linguistica? Report on Session 2: Linguistics Session 3: Literature and Arts Possible Worlds and Literary Fictions Discussion of Lubomír Doležel’s paper “Possible Worlds and Literary Fictions” Fictional Worlds and the Economy of the Imaginary Duality and Deviance: Two Semantic Modes. Discussion of Thomas Pavel’s paper “Fictional Worlds and the Economy of the Imaginary” Fictional and Ontological Landscapes. Discussion of Thomas Pavel’s paper “Fictional Worlds and the Economy of the Imaginary” Possible Worlds – A Chorus of a Multitude of Souls. A Writer’s Perspective Possible Worlds: A Historical Perspective in Literature. Discussion of Lars Gyllensten’s paper “Possible Worlds – A Chorus of a Multitude of Souls. A Writer’s Perspective” Possible Worlds – But for Whom? Discussion of Lars Gyllensten’s paper “Possible Worlds – A Chorus of a Multitude of Souls. A Writer’s Perspective” Speaker’s Reply Image and Dimension Pictorial Possibility. Discussion of Ulf Linde’s paper “Image and Dimension” Discussion of Ulf Linde’s paper “Image and Dimension” Report on Session 3: Literature and Arts Session 4: Natural Science Six Possible Worlds of Quantum Mechanics On Characterizing Possible Worlds of Physics. Discussion of J. S. Bell’s paper “Six Possible Worlds of Quantum Mechanics” Discussion of J. S. Bell’s paper “Six Possible Worlds of Quantum Mechanics” Our Universe and Others: The Limits of Space, Time and Physics How to Describe Physical Reality? Discussion of Martin J. Rees’s paper “Our Universe and Others: The Limits of Space, Time and Physics” The Uniformity of the Universe. Discussion of Martin J. Rees’s paper “Our Universe and Others: The Limits of Space, Time and Physics” Report on Session 4: Natural Science List of Contributors Possible worlds in humanities, arts, and sciences : proceedings of Nobel Symposium 65