AKTUELLES

Teilnahme am XXXV. Internationalen Kolloquium “Universalität und Universalien in der Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft” des Studienkreises Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft (SGdS) vom 16. bis 18. September 2026 in Rom mit dem Vortrag “On the universality of word classes”

Abstract: In modern cognitive syntactic theories such as Generative Grammar or Construction Grammar, word classes, e.g., noun, verb, preposition etc., are assumed a priori. Each word of a given language has been attributed to one or, sometimes, to several of these word classes. Word classes are the steadfast foundation of linguistic thinking and they are the limits of what is conceivable as meaningful basic linguistic items. Therefore, they are considered universal. With contemporary cognitive linguistic theory in mind, the contribution explores three fundamental texts of Western Linguistics, i.e., Aristotle’s Categories (4^th century before Christ), Arnauld and Lancelot’s Grammaire générale et raisonnée (1660), and Langacker’s Concept, Image, and Symbol: The Cognitive Basis of Grammar (1991). The goal is to tackle the area of tension of what the human analytic mind in Philosophy, Linguistics, and Cognitive Science is capable of circumscribing as “word-shaped” results of the verbalization of our world experience.