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LINGUISTICS 490 | SUBDISCIPLINES | THE PAPER | EXAMS & QUIZZES | | DEFINITIONS
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Quiz #1 - The Search for the Perfect Language

Understanding the following questions will prepare you for the first quiz.

Chapter 1 - From Adam to Confusio Linguarum

  • What conflict does Eco describe involving Adam as the nomothete?

  • Chapter 2 - The Kabbalistic Pansemioticism

  • What are the three basic types of theosophical kabbalism?

  • What did followers of the ecstatic kabbala (kabbala of the names) believe?

  • What was Abraham Abulafia's contribution to the kabbalistic art?

  • What was Abraham Abulafia's feeling about philology (language origins)?

  • Chapter 3 - The Perfect Language of Dante

  • What is the main idea of Dante's De Vulgari Eloquentia?

  • Which of Dante's ideas precludes the thought of Noam Chomsky?

  • Chapter 4 - The Ars Magna of Raymond Lull

  • Who was Raymond Lull and how did he come up with the Ars Magna?

  • Lull's Ars Combinatoria had an alphabet of nine letters and four discs. What was the purpose of this apparatus?

  • Chapter 5 - The Monogenetic Hypothesis and the Mother Tongues

  • Most of the Church fathers assumed that one language in particular was the primordial language. Which language was it?

  • What was the opinion of Guillaume de Postel on the monogenetic hypothesis?

  • Despite the many variant theories on the perfect language and how to revitalize its use, all of these theorists had one common motive for resurrecting the 'mother tongue.' What was their reasoning?

  • Chapter 10 - A Priori Philosophical Languages

  • What are the differences between a priori and a posteriori philosophical languages?

  • How are primitives defined by Eco (pages 221-227)?

  • Why is the formulation of primitives a prerequisite for having an a priori philosophical language?

  • Chapter 14 - From Leibniz to the Encyclopédie

  • What was the I Ching?

  • How has Leibniz's misinterpretation of I Ching affected modern society? (i.e. What is the modern application of Leibniz's misinterpretation?)

  • What did Leibniz's description of 'an ideal library' have to do with the writing of the Encyclopédie?

  • Define ontology? How did was Leibniz's idea an example of an ontology?

  • Chapter 16 - The International Auxiliary Languages

  • Are International Auxiliary Languages (IALs) a priori or a posteriori? Explain.

  • Is Esperanto an IAL? Explain.

  • From where did Zamenhof pull the syntax and morphology of Esperanto?

  • From where did Zamenhof pull the semantics (lexicon) of Esperanto?

  • What is a major limit of an IAL, according to Eco (pages 335-336)?

  • Chapter 17 - Conclusion

  • According to Eco (pages 344-351), what characterizes the conflict involved in deciding whether a common language is right for European culture?


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