2 - Lexical anisomorphism in linguistic and philosophical approaches

Summary

As abundantly demonstrated by Trabant (2006), contemplation about language has been a constant ingredient of European intellectual history. Other global intellectual traditions have exhibited similar, albeit not equally continuous, interest in the subject, as shown by Ivić (1970), Versteegh (1997), Cardona (1976), and Li (1988), among others. However, the interest in language has not necessarily translated into involvement in linguistic anisomorphism. To the contrary, major linguistic and philosophical approaches have been searching for commonality in the cornucopia of natural human languages, leaving the differences between them on the margin, at best. A compounding problem was that, for extended periods of time, philosophical and linguistic traditions revolved around “the” language, be it Mandarin, Sanskrit, Greek, or Latin in the past, or English in the present day, which left little or no place for cross-linguistic comparisons.

However marginal, the problem of lexical anisomorphism is nevertheless present in various linguistic and philosophical traditions. This presence is at least twofold. First, various distinctions pertinent to lexical anisomorphism have been identified in the contemplation of other linguistic and philosophical problems. Second, direct or indirect treatment of lexical anisomorphism can be found in some works. In my review of the subject literature, I will point to the building blocks that, even most remotely, have contributed to our better understanding of cross-linguistic lexical anisomorphism, primarily by stating broader conceptual underpinnings of CLA.

Older Western intellectual history

What follows is a brief review of lexical anisomorphism in older Western intellectual history (an overarching tradition for all approaches included in the present research framework), in terms both of important underlying distinctions and of express treatment of the phenomenon.

In antiquity, the biblical story of the city and its tower is certainly worth mentioning, namely (KJB, Genesis: 11: 6–9):

1. 6 And the lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

2. 7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

3. 8 So the lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.