The Verb ‘Be’ and Its Synonyms series

The Verb ‘Be’ and Its Synonyms; Philosophical and Grammatical Studies, edited by John W. M. Verhaar. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1967-1973. (Foundations of Language; Supplementary Series)

Part 1. Classical Chinese, Athapaskan, Mundari – 1967 (Foundations of Language; Supplementary Series; v. 1)

Graham, A. C. “‘Being’ in Classical Chinese,” in The Verb ‘Be’ and Its Synonyms; Philosophical and Grammatical Studies; Part 1. Classical Chinese, Athapaskan, Mundari, edited by John W. M. Verhaar (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1967), pp. 1-39.

* Section II C: Translation difficulties and fallacious or empty reasoning: Plato, Anselm’s ontological argument, Kant, Hegel.

Contents of volume:
‘BEING’ IN CLASSICAL CHINESE, BY A. C. GRAHAM 1
Introduction 1
I. The treatment of six functions of ‘to be’ in Classical Chinese 6
A. Existence (“There is a man”) 6
B. Copula with noun (“He is a man”) 8
C. Identity (“He is Charles”) 10
D. Roles (“He is a soldier”) 11
E. Copula with adjective (“He is tall”) 12
F. Copula with location (“He is in Paris”) 14
Conclusions 14
II. Yu/wu and shih/fei in Chinese Philosophy
A. Yu/wu in Taoism and Neo-Confucianism 15
B. Shih/fei in Chuang-tzŭ and Mohist Canons 25
C. The treatment of ‘to be’ in Chinese translations of Western philosophers 30 *
Appendix: Glossary of Chinese Words 36
TWO ATHAPASKAN VERBS OF ‘BEING’, BY HERBERT LANDAR 40
I. Stems 41
II. Kernel Prefixes 43
III. Relations Beyond the Kernel 48
IV. Being and Becoming in Navaho Culture 56
V. Paradigms 58
Bibliography 61
THE COPULA IN MUNDARI, BY D. TERENCE LANGENDOEN 75
I. Introduction 75
II. Relevant Phrase Structure Rules in Mundari 76
III. The Mundari Lexicon 77
IV. Agreement Transformations 79
V. Subject Agreement in Copula Sentences, Deletion of Tense and of menaq 82
VI. Negative Copula Sentences 87
VII. Replacement of senoq ‘go’ by LocP 89
VIII. Pre-Nominal Modification 92
Appendix I: Glossary of Mundari Lexical Items and Grammatical Formatives 99
Appendix II: Order of Application of Transformations Formulated in this Paper 99

Part 2. Eskimo, Hindi, Zuni, Modern Greek, Malayalam, Kurukh – 1968 (v. 6)

Part 3. Japanese, Kashmiri, Armenian, Hungarian, Sumerian, Shona – 1968 (v. 8)

Part 4. Twi, Modern Chinese, Arabic – 1969 (v. 9)

THE VERB ‘TO BE’ IN MODERN CHINESE, BY ANNE YUE HASHIMOTO 72
0. Introduction 72
1. Syntactic Characteristics of the Verb ‘To Be’ 73
1.1. Characteristics as a Verb 74
1.2. Types of ‘Copula’ Sentences 82
1.3. Copula Sentence without the Copula 83
1.4. shi in Embedding Structures 85
2. shi as a Pro-Verb 86
2.1. The So-Called Illogical ‘Copula’ Sentence 86
2.2. A Pro-Verb? 90
3. shi Expressing Emphasis and Contrast 94
3.1. The Emphatic shi 95
3.2. Contrastive NP’s Introduced by shi 96
3.3. The shi... de Construction 98
4. shi in Negative Constructions 102
5. Epilogue 106
Bibliography 110

Part 5. Urdu, Turkish, Bengali, Amharic, Indonesian, Telugu, Estonian – 1972 (v. 14)

Part 6. Kahn, C.H. The verb 'be' in Ancient Greek – 1973 (v. 16) [reprint 2003]

Note also:

Havranek, Bohuslav. “The functional differentiation of the standard language” (1932), in A Prague School Reader on Esthetics, Literary Structure, and Style, selected and translated from Czech by Paul L. Garvin (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1964), pp. 3-16.

On lexical and syntactic aspects of standard vs. folk speech, different modes of utilization of the devices of language, intellectualization, automatization and foregrounding. Intellectualization of language makes possible precision, rigor, and abstractness. Syntactic devices enable an integrated structure of sentences. Automatization is the creation of conventional expressions with definite meanings; once established, an automatization does not attract attention to itself linguistically. Foregrounding is the use of language (usually uncommon) that attracts attention to itself, eg. live poetic metaphor. An expression automatized in one context may be foregrounded in another. Automatizations of science are different from those in conversation.

This essay is important for two complementary reasons: (1) It proposes requisites of intellectual language, especially the ability to express abstractions, which I believe is the key issue in being able to formulate and change one's world view; (2) automatization, in creating conventional expressions, not only makes possible the expression of concepts, but an automatization as such is no longer metaphorically alive and so no longer binds a thought to its particular linguistic expression (thus negating a putative Whorfian limitation on thought). [RD]

Klinger, Dustin D. Being Another Way: The Copula and Arabic Philosophy of Language, 900–1500. Oakland: University of California Press, 2024. (Open access.)

Links:

• “The Graphic Figure & the Philosophical Abstraction” by Ion Banu
• Language and Thought: Annotated Bibliography
• History of Chinese Logic, Argumentation, & Rhetoric to 1950: Essential Bibliography
• Philosophical Style: Selected Bibliography
• Indian Logic & Argumentation: Selected Bibliography
• Argumentation & Controversies: Selected Bibliography
• Occultism, Eastern Mysticism, Fascism, & Countercultures: Selected Bibliography