#linguistic

A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas. ↗

— Ferdinand de Saussure

#differences #ideas #linguistic #series #sound

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to compute it. ↗

— Steven Pinker

#linguistics #science #humor

... [In 'Pride and Prejudice'] Mr Collins's repulsiveness in his letter [about Lydia's elopement] does not exist only at the level of the sentence: it permeates all aspects of his rhetoric. Austen's point is that the well-formed sentence belongs to a self-enclosed mind, incapable of sympathetic connections with others and eager to inflict as much pain as is compatible with a thin veneer of politeness. Whereas Blair judged the Addisonian sentence as a completely autonomous unit, Austen judges the sentence as the product of a pre-existing moral agent. What counts is the sentence's ability to reveal that agent, not to enshrine a free-standing morsel of truth. Mr Darcy's letter to Elizabeth, in contrast, features a quite different practice of the sentence, including an odd form of punctation ... The dashes in Mr Darcy's letter transform the typographical sentence by physically making each sentence continuous with the next one. ... The dashes insist that each sentence is not self-sufficient but belongs to a larger macrostructure. Most of Mr Darcy's justification consists not of organised arguments like those of Mr Collins but of narrative. ... The letter's totality exists not in the typographical sentence but in the described event. ↗

— Andrew Elfenbein

#jane-austen #linguistics #style #grammar

When I was a college student and I got interested in linguistics the concern among students was, this is a lot of fun, but after we have done a structural analysis of every language in the world what's left? It was assumed there were basically no puzzles. ↗

— Noam Chomsky

#among #analysis #assumed #basically #college

At the same time we overlap, because, I do linguistics, and Ben did a first degree in Linguistics at Lancaster University, so he knows some of my subject. ↗

— David Crystal

#ben #degree #did #first #i

I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism, and it sends shivers down the spine of my generation who went to war against fascism. ↗

— P. D. James

#believe #correctness #down #fascism #form

The critical principle demanded an examination, for instance, of the contribution of different periods, thus to some extent embarking on historical linguistics. ↗

— Ferdinand de Saussure

#critical #demanded #different #embarking #examination

Time changes all things; there is no reason why language should escape this universal law ↗

— de Saussure

#language #linguistics #time #change

Chantal is having a relationship with a sentence. Just one of those things. A chance meeting that grew into something important for the both of them. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#linguistics-love #only-in-my-dreams #readers-and-writers #dreams

It seemed to a number of philosophers of language, myself included, that we should attempt to achieve a unification of Chomsky's syntax, with the results of the researches that were going on in semantics and pragmatics. I believe that this effort has proven to be a failure. Though Chomsky did indeed revolutionize the subject of linguistics, it is not at all clear, at the end the century, what the solid results of this revolution are. As far as I can tell there is not a single rule of syntax that all, or even most, competent linguists are prepared to agree is a rule. ↗

— John Searle

#linguistics #philosophy #science #science