LINGUISTICSSCIENCE · Linguistics as a Science - a Historical Philosophical Study

Linguistics as a Science - a Historical Philosophical Study

Linguistics, defined as the ‘scientific study of language’, is probably the last discipline in the humanities and in social studies with aspirations of becoming a science in the positivist sense, a sense defined according to the ‘hard’ sciences such as physics or chemistry. The current project engaged this topic from two angles: first, it argues that recounting the history of linguistics in the last two centuries from the perspective of the scientific character of this discipline may shed an interesting light on its various developments. The second part relies on the assumption that the methodology of the philosophy of science can be an important tool in investigating the foundations of various contemporary linguistic theories and more importantly to understand their scientific background and their actual claims. As for the first part: a) I completed a serious study on the various school of linguistics that stands at the heart of the study; b) In order to understand the scientific aspirations of this period we review the literature in philosophy of science, mostly focusing on the tension between hard sciences and the humanities (only when I already advanced in the project it became clear that this must be a topic to cover). As for the second part, so far, I conducted a study on the topic of reciprocal constructions and focusing on the various analyses of the various theories to the relevant constructions. The reason for this choice is that in the area of verbal encoding of reciprocity theories of argument realization are playing a significant role; and in the area of NP-strategies some interesting questions regarding the directionality of grammaticalization are extremely important. This study is already advancing very well, and results in several publications that I have already completed and that were published. In addition, I added two other topics to this part of the research: with Dr. Nora Boneh of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem I worked on Datival Constructions, and discussed the methodological issues that set apart the various approaches to the relevant phenomena. Finally I also added a study on negation, at topic that stands at the intersection between linguistics and philosophy, which raises a lot of issues relevant to the current project. As for the first part of the project, this is the first systematic attempt to treat linguistics as the object of the history of science, focusing on the linguists’ self perception as scientists. While there are many studies of the history of the fields in general and its first century in particular, a historiography from this perspective is a novel concept. Applying the methodology of the history of science in linguistics and proposing such a narrative for this period has the potential of providing a historical work that will interest scholars beyond the field of linguistics. This will endeavor to be a chapter in the larger theme of the scientist era during the 19th century, and in consequence may be of interest to the larger community of the history of science. After 4 years at the Hebrew University, I have received tenure. I was awarded the Allon Fellowship for Outstanding Young Researchers. I became a member in the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities' Young Scholars Forum in the Humanities and Social Sciences 2015-2016 I was elected to chair my department, and I was appointed to several important committees at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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