A brief history of the verb to be / Andrea Moro ; translated by Bonnie McClellan-Broussard.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Moro, Andrea, author.

Contributor:

McClellan-Broussard, Bonnie, translator.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English language--Verb phrase.

English language.

English language--Grammar, Historical.

Phraseology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 288 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : MIT Press [2017]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Beginning with the early works of Aristotle, the interpretation of the verb "to be" runs through Western linguistic thought like Ariadne's thread. As it unravels, it becomes intertwined with philosophy, metaphysics, logic, and even with mathematics -- so much so that Bertrand Russell showed no hesitation in proclaiming that the verb "to be" was a disgrace to the human race. With the conviction that this verb penetrates modern linguistic thinking, creating scandal in its wake and, like a Trojan horse of linguistics, introducing disruptive elements that lead us to rethink radically the most basic structure of human language -- the sentence -- Andrea Moro reconstructs this history. From classical Greece to the dueling masters of medieval logic through the revolutionary geniuses from the seventeenth century to the Enlightenment, and finally to the twentieth century -- when linguistics became a driving force and model for neuroscience -- the plot unfolds like a detective story, culminating in the discovery of a formula that solves the problem even as it raises new questions -- about language, evolution, and the nature and structure of the human mind. While Moro never resorts to easy shortcuts, "A Brief History of the Verb To Be isn't burdened with inaccessible formulas and always refers to the broader picture of mind and language. In this way it serves as an engaging introduction to a new field of cutting-edge research.

Contents:

1 To Be-and Not "Being"-or, The Names of the Verb 1

1.1 The Name of Tense 7

1.2 The Name of Affirmation 29

1.3 The Name of Identity 44

2 Anatomy of a Sentence 69

2.1 The Calm before the Storm 81

2.2 Molecules of Words 85

2.3 The Anomaly of the Copula: The Asymmetry That Isn't There 121

3 The Strange Case of Verbs without Subjects 127

3.1 The Quasi-Copula 129

3.2 Is and There Is 142

3.3 "Non-Euclidean" Grammars: Concerning the Rise and Fall of the Subject Postulate 152

3.4 The Unified Theory of Copular Sentences 161

3.5 There Is, or "And Yet It Moves" 171

4 Epilogues between Language and Necessity 193

4.1 The Form of Grammar: Between Linearity and Hierarchy 195

4.2 Language in the Brain 205

4.3 Losing and Acquiring the Copula 220.

Notes:

Published in arrangement with The Italian Literary Agency. Translated from the Italian.

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

ISBN:

0262343606

9780262343602

OCLC:

1030301525

Publisher Number:

9780262343602

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.