Proposition query

[Ron Kuzar]

In that case we differ in our usage. In everyday language, a proposition is at least a sentence, and this is my lower limit as well. Intuitively I don't conceive of a noun phrase as a proposition. I would go for expanding the concept beyond the sentence, on some textual level, but not under it. Variants of the same proposition should in some sense have the same truth values, and an NP doesn't have truth values.
Best
Ron
-------
On Mon, 26 Jan 2009 09:17:19 +0200
"Tahir Wood" <twood at uwc.ac.za> wrote:

> 
> 
> >>> "Ron Kuzar (Dept. English, U Haifa, Israel)"              <kuzar at RESEARCH.HAIFA.AC.IL> 01/23/09 8:09 PM >>>
> Dear Tahir,
> I don't know of any theoretical sources of my own practice, but I use the term
> proposition to capture the semantic common denominator of what may be
> considered variants of the same sentence.
> 
> 
> 
> Tahir: Are you sure you mean 'sentence'? For example how would you see these pairs:
> The book is red.
> The red book.
> The head is talking.
> The talking head.
> The money has vanished.
> The vanished money.
> 
> All of these are communicating propositions in my view.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> These might be sentence pattern variants, such as:
> A child walked into the room.
> There walk into the room a child.
> Into the room walked a child.
> Or information structure variants, such as:
> The monkey peeled the banana.
> The banana the monkey peeled.
> It was the banana that the monkey peeled.
> Or voice variants, such as:
> The monkey peeled the banana.
> The banana was peeled by the monkey.
> Finally, also discourse variants, e.g. the same proposition with different
> levels of directness or hedging.
> In this view, the proposition is an abstraction that cannot have any concrete
> manifestation, but you may decide, as a convenient convention, and after
> uttering the appropriate caveats, to use the most unmarked variant to represent
> it.
> Best
> Ron Kuzar
> -----------------
> On Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:23:40 +0200
> Tahir Wood <twood at UWC.AC.ZA> wrote:
> 
> > Hi folks
> >
> > Another query. It concerns the status of the proposition within linguistic
> theory. I am aware that the proposition is an indispensable notion within Teun
> van Dijk's theoretical work, but I can't recall if there is a really clear
> theoretical definition of the proposition to be found.
> >
> > Kintsch (1998:69), for example, says that “propositions appear to be the
> semantic processing units of the mind” and that they have only an indirect
> relationship to the syntax of sentences, this because natural language has
> “many purposes other than the expression of meaning”, whereas propositions are
> those representations that are “focused on meaning”.
> >
> > This is indeed my point of departure but it doesn't exactly take us very far
> theoretically. I'm working on the theoretical aspect but I don't want to
> reinvent the wheel. If anyone can point me to a good theoretical discussion of
> the proposition that would be useful -- particularly if it can be located
> easliy on the web! -- I would be most grateful. I assume that, given the
> complexion of this list, the definitions offered would tend to reflect
> psychologism rather than logicism (as in Frege, Russell etc).
> >
> > BTW, as a small advertisement, following my query last year as to the
> definition of pragmatics, which pragmatics journals might accept theoretical
> discourse articles, etc., I can report that the theoretical article I was
> working on at the time did in fact get accepted by the Journal of Pragmatics
> and it can be viewed on their website in pre-publication form at
> >
> > 
> http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VCW-4SXRYC6-1&_user=6689617&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000052499&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=6689617&md5=f432a228e10736ff0cd28acb9e1ecb02 
> >
> > Regards
> > Tahir
> >
> >
> >
> 
> ===============================================
> Currently on sabbatical at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich,
> Department of English,
> Till February 28, 2009.
> Phones: Home: +49-89-7230-9032, Mobile: +49-175-885-6215
> email ron.kuzar at anglistik.uni-muenchen.de or the usual.
> ---------------------------------------------
>                        Dr. Ron Kuzar
> Address:       Department of English Language and Literature
>                        University of Haifa
>                        IL-31905 Haifa, Israel
> Office:           +972-4-824-9826, Fax: +972-4-824-9711
> Home:           +972-77-94-00-876, Mobile: +972-54-481-9676
> Email:            kuzar at research.haifa.ac.il 
> Homepage:  http://research.haifa.ac.il/~kuzar 
> ===============================================
> 
> 
> 
> 
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===============================================
Currently on sabbatical at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich,
Department of English,
Till February 28, 2009.
Phones: Home: +49-89-7230-9032, Mobile: +49-175-885-6215
email ron.kuzar at anglistik.uni-muenchen.de or the usual.
---------------------------------------------
                       Dr. Ron Kuzar
Address:       Department of English Language and Literature
                       University of Haifa
                       IL-31905 Haifa, Israel
Office:           +972-4-824-9826, Fax: +972-4-824-9711
Home:           +972-77-94-00-876, Mobile: +972-54-481-9676
Email:            kuzar at research.haifa.ac.il
Homepage:  http://research.haifa.ac.il/~kuzar
===============================================