ANTH 104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Language Of Thought Hypothesis, Philia, Linguistic Determinism
17 Sep 2018
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During the enlightenment, philosophers (like john locke) were determined to "perfect" language -- to make it transparently reflect the world. Are svo (subject-verb-objecthe hits the ball) languages the most. "logical" (because that"s the order we think in"?) All of these approaches suggest that we think/experience language differently. There is no one "correct" way of perceiving the world. Each language divides the world up in its own logical way. Different languages divide up the world differently. Agape (brotherly) , eros (sexual), philia (friendship), storge (child) Are nouns always thin are verbs always actions. We can normalize verbs and "verbify" nouns --so clearly there is flexibility in terms of part of speech. Different languages encode different aspects of experience relative vs. absolute positioning. English has both: relative: left/right/in front of/behind. Expectation law in english, we can include modality/evidentiality if we want to. Hopi speakers can include tense if they want to. Different languages require different aspects of experience to be encoded.
