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This volume presents a collection of 23 papers by renowned linguists on current research in the field of theoretical linguistics. The book focuses on linguistic theory and metatheory and on fundamental concepts and assumptions of modern linguistics.

This is a two-volume collection of original research papers designed to reflect the breadth and depth of the impact that William Labov has had on linguistic science. Four areas of 'Labovian' linguistics are addressed: First is the study of variation and change; the papers in sections I and II of the first volume take this as their central theme with a focus on either the social context and uses of language (I) or on the the internal linguistic dynamics of variation and change (II). The study of African American English and other language varieties in the Americas spoken by people of African descent and influenced by their linguistic heritage is the subject of the papers in section III of the first volume. The third theme is the study of discourse; the papers in section I of the second volume develop themes in Labovian linguistics that go back to Labov's work on narrative descriptive and therapeutic discourse. Fourth is the emphasis on language use the search for discursive interactive and meaningful determinants of the complexity in human communication. Papers with these themes appear in section II of the second volume.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>

The articles in this volume are inspired by the Minimalist Program first outlined in Chomsky’s MIT Fall term class lectures of 1991 and in his seminal paper “A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory”. The articles seek to develop further some key idea in the Minimalist Program sometimes in ways deviating from the course taken by Chomsky.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>The articles are preceded by a 40 page introduction into the minimalist framework. The introduction pays special attention to the question how the minimalist framework developed out of the Principles and Parameters (Government and Binding) framework. The introduction serves as a guide through the entire volume presenting the issues to be discussed in the articles in detail and offering a thematic overview over the volume as a whole.<br/>Most of the articles in this volume are concerned with issues raised in Chomsky’s first two minimalist papers namely “A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory” (1993 first distributed in 1992) and “Bare Phrase Structure” (1995a first distributed 1994). In acknowledgment of this each article starts out with a quote from Chomsky (1993 1995a). This quote also serves to highlight the particular grammatical or theoretical issue that is primarily discussed in the relevant article.<br/>Several articles relate issues raised in Chomsky’s first two minimalist papers to the basic ideas in Kayne’s book The Antisymmetry of Syntax (1994 distributed in part in manuscript form in 1993). In many respects therefore these articles develop alternatives to ideas proposed in chapter 4 “Categories and Transformations” of Chomsky’s most recent book The Minimalist Program (1995b). Some of the articles contain references to chapter 4 and some comments on similarities and differences between ideas developed in these papers and in chapter 4 of Chomsky 1995b can also be found in the Introduction to this volume.<br/>

Against the background of the proliferation of the various subdisciplines of language acquisition research over the past decades this volume aims to enhance the existing but somewhat fragile links between language acquisition and theoretical linguistics. With regard to previous research the book focuses on the acquisition of syntax and syntactic theory specifically on Chomskyan Generative Grammar.

This collective volume is the first to discuss systematically what are the possibilities to model different aspects of brain and mind functioning with the formal means of fractal geometry and deterministic chaos. At stake here is not an approximation to the way of actual performance but the possibility of brain and mind to implement nonlinear dynamic patterns in their functioning. The contributions discuss the following topics (among others): the edge-of-chaos dynamics in recursively organized neural systems and in intersensory interaction the fractal timing of the neural functioning on different scales of brain networking aspects of fractal neurodynamics and quantum chaos in novel biophysics the fractal maximum-power evolution of brain and mind the chaotic dynamics in the development of consciousness etc. It is suggested that the ‘margins’ of our capacity for phenomenal experience are ‘fractal-limit phenomena’. Here the possibilities to prove the plausibility of fractal modeling with appropriate experimentation and rational reconstruction are also discussed. A conjecture is made that the brain vs. mind differentiation becomes possible most probably only with the imposition of appropriate symmetry groups implementing a flowing interface of features of local vs. global brain dynamics. (Series B)

The roots of pragmatics reach back to Antiquity especially to rhetoric as one of the three liberal arts. However until the end of the 18th century proto-pragmatic insights tended to be consigned to the pragmatic that is rhetoric wastepaper basket and thus excluded from serious philosophical consideration.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>It can be said that pragmatics was conceived between 1780 and 1830 in Britain but also in Germany and in France in post-Lockian and post-Kantian philosophies of language. These early ‘conceptions’ of pragmatics are described in the first part of the book.<br/>The second part of the book looks at pragmatic insights made between 1830 and 1880 when they were once more relegated to the philosophical and linguistic underground. The main stage was then occupied by a fact-hunting historical comparative linguistics on the one hand and a newly spiritualised philosophy on the other.<br/>In the last part the period between 1880 and 1930 is presented when pragmatic insights flourished and were sought after systematically. This was due in part to a new upsurge in empiricism positivism and later behaviourism in philosophy linguistics and psychology. Between 1780 and 1930 philosophers psychologists sociologists and linguists came to see that language could only be studied in the context of dialogue in the context of human life and finally as being a kind of human action itself.

Text-based interaction among humans connected via computer networks such as takes place via email and in synchronous modes such as “chat” MUDs and MOOs has attracted considerable popular and scholarly attention. This collection of 14 articles on text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC) is the first to bring empirical evidence from a variety of disciplinary perspectives to bear on questions raised by the new medium.<br />The first section linguistic perspectives addresses the question of how CMC compares with speaking and writing and describes its unique structural characteristics. Section two on social and ethical perspectives explores conflicts between the interests of groups and those of individual users including issues of online sex and sexism. In the third section cross-cultural perspectives the advantages and risks of using CMC to communicate across cultures are examined in three studies involving users in East Asia Mexico and students of ethnically diverse backgrounds in remedial writing classes in the United States. The final section deals with the effects of CMC on group interaction: in a women’s studies mailing list a hierarchically-organized workplace and a public protest on the Internet against corporate interests.

Literary Studies is currently going through a deep transformation preparing itself for the launch into the twenty-first century.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>The present volume which is dedicated to Douwe Fokkema on the occasion of his retirement from Utrecht University captures this transformation in a number of squibs by a select international group of scholars. Topics dealt with are: canon formation conventions cultural relativism hermeneutics vs. empirical studies and the problem of values all themes very much central to current discussions in comparative literature and literary theory. Taken together they form a variegated picture of a discipline in a changing world continually involved so to speak in ‘The Search for a New Alphabet.’

Der Neo-Konfuzianismus bildet mit seinen verschiedenen Strömungen die wichtigste Geistesschule des imperialen China seit der Song-Zeit (960-1279). Er entstand als Reaktion auf die das chinesische Denken in den Jahrhunderten vorher stark beeinflussenden Schulen des Buddhismus und des Neo-Daoismus und versteht sich selbst als eine Rückkehr zu der Essenz der ursprünglichen konfuzianischen Lehre vor der Han-Zeit (206 v.u.Z.-221 n.u.Z.). Wesentliche Elemente in den Theorien der beiden gegnerischen Schulen wurden aber vom Neo-Konfuzianismus absorbiert und haben ihn ohne Zweifel bereichert und neue Elemente in den Konfuzianismus getragen.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>Zhang Zai gehört zu den wichtigsten Vertretern des Neo-Konfuzianismus. Er hat dem Begriff Qi erstmals innerhalb der konfuzianischen Schule eine zentrale Bedeutung gegeben. Qi ist ein ontologischer Begriff der in der Lehre Zhang Zais auf die eine alle Dinge konstituierende Substanz verweist deren unaufhörlicher Prozeß des Verdichtens und Zerstreuens das Entstehen und Vergehen der Dingen hervorruft. Einzelding und Universum sind wesentlich gleich denn sie finden ihre Einheit in der Substanz Qi. Der Mensch hat die Fähigkeit und Aufgabe im Erkenntnisprozeß die Einheit der Welt zu erfassen und die als ein wesentlicher Aspekt dem Qi immanenten sittlichen Prinzipien (Li) im Denken und Handeln zu verwirklichen. So wird er zum Weisen und erlangt die höchste Stufe des menschlichen Seins.

This book provides a new way of studying grammar. The basic thrust of the book is to investigate grammar based on a prosodic unit the intonation unit (IU) in spontaneous speech. The author challenges the dominant practice in the study of syntax which has been to focus on the unit of the artificially constructed sentence. The book shows that some basic notions developed from sentence-level data often do not account well for speech data. For example in many versions of syntactic theory the basic syntactic structure of any sentence is assumed to comprise both an NP and a VP (with variations in terminology). However the author shows that a Mandarin sentence in spoken discourse can consist of a lone NP or a transitive verbal expression without any explicit argument (which is not due to anaphora). Although the book concerns Mandarin discourse and grammar it will be of interest to students of a wide range of fields including discourse analysis syntax conversation analysis prosodic studies and typological studies.