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THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF MEANING: IDEAS FOR A PHILOSOPHICAL GRAMMAR

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2006

Barbara Abbott
Barbara Abbott
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF MEANING: IDEAS FOR A PHILOSOPHICAL GRAMMAR. Michele Prandi. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2004. Pp. xviii + 520. $162.00 cloth.

This volume is an attempt to develop a philosophical grammar, one that separates out and unifies the contributions to meaning from syntax, the lexicon, and conceptual structure, and one within which figures of speech such as metonymy and metaphor—conflictual complex meanings—can be explored and analyzed. These are forms of expression that the author views as neglected by philosophers and linguistics (although the work of Lakoff and other cognitive linguists would be one exception). The grammar itself is given in completely descriptive, informal terms.

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BOOK NOTICES
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Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , December 2006 , pp. 659
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© 2006 Cambridge University Press

This volume is an attempt to develop a philosophical grammar, one that separates out and unifies the contributions to meaning from syntax, the lexicon, and conceptual structure, and one within which figures of speech such as metonymy and metaphor—conflictual complex meanings—can be explored and analyzed. These are forms of expression that the author views as neglected by philosophers and linguistics (although the work of Lakoff and other cognitive linguists would be one exception). The grammar itself is given in completely descriptive, informal terms.

Part 1, “The Semiotic Background,” attempts to clarify distinctions among various types of coding—relational (given by grammar) and punctual (given, at least in part, lexically)—and to sort out the contributions of inference. Part 2, “The Conceptual Factors of Significance,” examines the formal framework of natural ontology—roughly speaking, the shape of concepts as modified (or not) by language. A major focus is the criteria for consistency in thought and expression. There is also attention to traditional Chomskyan syntax and the generative conception of the lexicon and lexical relations that arose within it. The author argues for a distinction between lexical and conceptual structure. Part 3, “The Ideation of Complex Meanings,” turns, finally, to the main objective of the volume. Beginning with ordinary simple sentences, the author develops her approach to figures of speech. Although the author's aim is theoretical, the concluding chapter does contain some suggestions for related empirical research. There are 60 pages of footnotes located at the end of the volume.

The author's writing style, although graceful and eloquent, tends at the same time to be somewhat turgid and difficult to comprehend. The volume contains a wealth of examples from English, French, Italian, and other languages; however, they are often not put to use in the original explication of concepts and technical terms, where they would be most helpful. These factors unfortunately act to lessen the utility of the work.