Contenu du sommaire : Logique et grammaire

Logique et grammaire. Suzanne Bachelard [Dir]

• Articles

  • Remarques sur la théorie stoïcienne du nom propre - Jacques Brunschwig p. 3-19
    Remarks on the Stoic Theory of Names.The Stoics' «invention» of the name as a grammatical category is linked to the general characteristics of Stoic logic, ontology and gnoseology. It is within this framework that the grammar of names (in particular, the fact of their declension and possible construction with the article) and, subsequently, the semantic definitions of the name and the common noun are examined. The paper goes on to analyse the truth-conditions of simple propositions in order to throw light on the peculiarities of the case where the subject is a name. In conclusion, an attempt is made to relate the logic of names and the physics of the individual by showing that the study of the construction of the name with the article is strictly similar to physical or grammatical analysis.
  • Grammaire, Logique, Sémantique, deux positions opposées au XIIème siècle : Roger Bacon et les modistes - Irène Rosier p. 21-34
    Grammar, Logic, Semantic. Two Conflicting Doctrines in the Thirteenth Century: Roger Bacon and the Modistae The complex interplay between grammar and logic in the 12th and 13th centuries is an important element in understanding the development of these two disciplines. Two 13th century doctrines (the Modistae's and Roger Bacon's) show a strong coherence in their logico-semantic and grammatical theories, but rely on diametrically opposed assumptions about language: the Modistae seek to base themselves on the universal and stable (logical and grammatical) properties of a timeless language, Bacon on the variability of language and the freedom of the speaker to change the meaning of words as of constructions, thus enabling mm to take into account the evolution of language. The differences between the two conceptions explain the contradictory answers of the Modistae and Roger Bacon to the important linguistic questions of the latter half of the 13th century.
  • Du latin médiéval au pluriel des langues, le tournant de la Renaissance - Luce Giard p. 35-55
    From Medieval Latin to the Piurality of Languages at the Turn of the Renaissance. The transformation, between 1400 and 1600, of the relationship between logic and grammar in the major European languages is explained by the transformation of the object-Ianguage of this relationship on the one hand, and of its status on the other. In the Middle Ages, logic and grammar operated on an impoverished Latin which, while it held a monopoly over writing, did not have any reaI speakers, but constituted a second language, semi-artificiaI in character, comfortable in the stability of its synchrony and of its own formaI linguistic knowledge. With the humanistic rupture, the vemacular made a debut. As they acceded to writing, slowly constituting their own corpus of textual references and defming their own ways of a proper fonnal linguistic knowledge, these actually-lïving, natural, and hence changing languages became the raw materiaI for a new grammatical and logical analysis conscious of the diversity and non-systematicism of use.
  • Grammaire et logique à Port-Royal - Jean-Claude Pariente p. 57-75
    Grammar and Logic at Port-Royal. Grammar and logic make their appearance at Port-Royal within a system of relationship that were at once anthropological and technical; it is the latter which are examined here. Grammar is subjected to the principle of the reference of facts of language to thought. But this principle does not suffice in resolving all problems and sorne are thus referred to logic which, for its part, analyses the syllogism by basing itself on the theory of parenthetical clauses, and assimilates the results of grammar in order to transcend the level of simple syllogisms. The web of relationships thus woven between logic and grammar seems to encourage the joint development of the two disciplines; however, it in fact constitutes an obstacle to this development, for it imposes on each the constraint of respecting the limits of the other.
  • La notion grammaticale du sujet au XIXe siècle - Jean Stefanini p. 77-90
    The Grammatical Notion of Subject in the Nineteenth Century. Of the simplified theoretical, rationalist and logical framework of Port-Royal, the assimilation of the grammatical subject and predicate to the logical subject and predicate was to hold sway for a long time. It was put to question oruy in the 18th century during the dispute on the order of words and was dealt its fmal blow by Condillac's «psychology» and its rejection of the notion of substance. Slowly elaborated and inseparable from human progress, language involved man as a whole, body and soul, action and reflection. Emphasis was laid on the unity of the gesture and the cry, of perception-judgment on the analytical role of language. Linguistics was founded on a sensualist and associationist phychology (Herbert) to which Humboldt gave its historical and social dimension and which his disciple Steinthal placed in a framework defmed by individual collective and logical psychology. In this new, psychology-based, general grammar (of which Wundt was the last avatar), psychological subject and predicate play an essential role along with the grammatical subject and predicate and their logical counterparts.
  • Sujet, prédicat, objet, concept chez Frege - Philippe de Rouilhan p. 91-99
    Subject, Predicate, Object, Concept in Frege Sentences refer ordinarily to truth values; proper names (or subjects), to objects; concept words (or predicates), to «concepts». It should be possible for a proper name and a concept word to be joined together in the unitYof a sentence; and for their senses, in the unitYof a thought; but also, Frege maintains, for their reference, in the unitYof a truth value. The difference between subject and predicate oruy reflects within language a similar difference occurring within the things themselves, beyond their modes of donation. This is why, the object being «complete», the concept has to be «incomplete»; this also explains why concepts, although extensionnal, cannot be identified with their extensions; and this finally explains why a proper name such as «. the concept of a horse» fails, paradoxically enough, to refer to the concept of a horse (what it actually refers to is an object). But this paradox is the price to pay for a metaphysical difference. In Frege's horizon, the difference between subject and predicate had to be thought of in relation to a similar difference in the realm of sense and not of reference.
  • Le problème de Ramsey - Jacques Bouveresse p. 101-116
    Ramsey ' s Problem. One of the fundamental principles underlying aIl of Frege's logic and ontology is the idea of the existence of a constitutive and radical asymmetry between subject and predicate such that, and inspite of what the superficial grammar of sentences might suggest, they can never really exchange roles. Ramsey, however, maintained that the distinction between subject and predicate in a sentence had no significance other than a pragmatic or rhetorical one, and corresponded to a simple difference of point ofveiw, emphasis or interest. The origins of the present controversy between fol1owers of Ramsey and Frege are traced here in detail through an in-depth examination of the arguments Ramsey himselfused.
  • Un quart de siècle de grammaire générative : de l'énumération à la restriction - Blanche-Noëlle Grunig p. 117-126
    A Quarter Century of Generative Grammar: : from Enumeration to Restriction. The author shows how in the course of the last quarter century Chomsky has veered from his original exercise the essential aim of which was the enumeration of the grammatical sentences of a language, to another where actual enumeration is overshadowed by the search for constraints that so limit the power of operations that they be compatible with neuronal reality. The author tries to identify the few principles that can, in her eyes, be candidates for the construction of such constraints: in particular, she picks out principles of formally-remarkable category, of critical distance, uniqueness, maximality and identity.