Possible words: generativity, instantiation, and individuation.

Words come into existence through a number of distinct processes including naming, semantic shifts, morphological productivity, and compounding. In accounting for the instantiation and individuation of word-types, two diachronic proposals termed Originalism and History are considered, which view wor...

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Publicado en:Synthese Vol. 202; no. 6; pp. 1 - 28
Autor principal: Hughes, Thomas J.
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Springer Nature Dec2023
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Possible words: generativity, instantiation, and individuation.
      aug:
        au: Hughes, Thomas J.
        affil: CGT - Beijing Institute of Technology, Zhuhai, No. 6, Jinfeng Road, Tangjiawan, 519088, Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, China
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      keyword:
        Individuation
        Instantiation
        Originalism
        Originalism-plus-transfer
        Words
      ab: Words come into existence through a number of distinct processes including naming, semantic shifts, morphological productivity, and compounding. In accounting for the instantiation and individuation of word-types, two diachronic proposals termed Originalism and History are considered, which view word-types as emerging through a tokening act after which they are subsequently distinguished from others on the basis of having a unique event-like origin. In the following paper I elucidate two central tenets of Originalism and History, which I name essentialism and propagation. Next, I demonstrate that each suffer considerable challenges from evidence pertaining to the systematic generativity of words grounded in universal features of human lexical cognition. A third diachronic theory named Originalism-Plus-Transfer (OPT) is then outlined. I argue that this more nuanced version of Originalism, in its present form, still lacks a thorough explanation of pivotal features of word generativity, word instantiation, and word individuation. A number of ‘synchronic’ constraints on word-hood—phonological, phonotactic, morpho-syntactic, and semantic—are put forward to ground the possible space for word generation. I conclude by exploring the viability of supplementing OPT with synchronic constraints and propose that a union between the two has the potential to provide OPT with greater empirical strength and predictive power. The upshot of this analysis is that there exists great programmatic value for diachronic theories in drawing on synchronic data and that the latter must feature as central to the philosophy of words if such work is to anticipate achieving explanatory adequacy.
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    language: English
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