Bloomfield, Korzybski, and the Meaning of Lanuage Science: A Tale of Two Scholars

This was written in the spring of 1998 towards the completion of my undergraduate degree in Linguistics at the University of Alberta.  When I was having a rough time getting it done at one point, my advisor, Dr. Leo Mos, placated my fears of imperfection by affirming that the only people who would read it would be him and my mother.  That made it easier to write.

Anyway, here it is for the world to see.  I'm proud of it, if only for the fact that the department head read it and said, "It's actually very good, but I don't know if I can call it Linguistics." (said with a capital 'L').  If you have any interest in linguistics, general semantics, language science, the history of language science, the study of meaning, or the philosophy of science, then you may find this a worthwhile read.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FRONT MATTER - TITLE, ABSTRACT, ACKNOWLEDMENTS

CHAPTER I. FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE SCIENCE (1933)

1.1 THE AUTONOMOUS SCIENCE OF LEONARD BLOOMFIELD
1.2 KORZYBSKI AND GENERAL SEMANTICS

CHAPTER II. BLOOMFIELD'S "MEANINGLESS" SCIENCE OF SOUNDS

CHAPTER III. KORZYBSKI'S "MEANINGFUL" SCIENCE OF HUMANITY

CHAPTER IV. BLOOMFIELD, KORZYBSKI. KORZYBSKI, BLOOMFIELD: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

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