7.1020, Sum: Propositional attitudes

The Linguist List linguist at tam2000.tamu.edu
Sat Jul 13 17:14:33 UTC 1996


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LINGUIST List:  Vol-7-1020. Sat Jul 13 1996. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines:  71
 
Subject: 7.1020, Sum: Propositional attitudes
 
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---------------------------------Directory-----------------------------------
1)
Date:  Fri, 12 Jul 1996 11:47:07 CDT
From:  abbottb at pilot.msu.edu (Barbara Abbott)
Subject:  Sum: Propositional attitudes expressions
 
---------------------------------Messages------------------------------------
1)
Date:  Fri, 12 Jul 1996 11:47:07 CDT
From:  abbottb at pilot.msu.edu (Barbara Abbott)
Subject:  Sum: Propositional attitudes expressions
 
A week or so ago I posted the following query:
 
>I would like to find out whether or not most languages have terms for
>propositional attitudes.  These might be verbs like English 'think',
>'believe', 'want', 'know', 'hope', 'wish', etc., or expressions in
>other parts of speech that convey the same idea.  What prompts me is
>the following remark in Chomsky's paper 'Language and Nature' (_Mind_,
>1995, p.  29): "Do people attribute beliefs if they speak languages
>that have no such term, the great majority, it appears?"  Any data
>gratefully appreciated -- I'd be especially interested in hearing of
>languages that lack such terms.
 
Thanks to Pier Marco Bertinetto, Lucia Maria de Oliveira Camoes, Nancy
Frishberg, Sarah D. Kennelly, Bert Peeters, Johan Rooryck, and Dan
Sperber for their replies.
 
I didn't hear from anybody about any languages that lack propositional
attitude expressions.  I did get some useful references though (in
addition to useful comments and suggestions):
 
- Rodney Needham, "Belief, Language and Experience", Blackwell 1972
 
This is a book that argues against the universality of a concept of
religious belief.  The author isn't concerned with propositional
attitudes, or expresions for them, in general.  In fact he mentions
the universality of a notion of intending, by way of contrast with
religious belief.
 
A couple of references arguing for the universality of some
propositional attitude concepts are:
 
- Cliff Goddard & Anna Wierzbicka (eds). 1994. *Semantic and lexical
universals*. Amsterdam. John Benjamins.
 
- Anna Wierzbicka. 1996. *Semantics: Primes and
Universals*. Oxford. Oxford University Press.
 
Thanks again to the responders.
 
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