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Podcast: Exchanges: A Cambridge UP Podcast
Episode: Ryan M. Nefdt, "The Philosophy of Theoretical Linguistics: A Contemporary Outlook" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
Description: Between the study of specific languages and the philosophy of language lies what Ryan Nefdt calls a āGoldilocks zoneā of theoretical issues related to language. InĀ The Philosophy of Theoretical LinguisticsĀ (Cambridge University Press, 2024), Nefdt introduces and explores the elements in this zone, including different theories of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, and differing views of how language evolved, which languages are possible, and what defines language. Nefdt, a professor of philosophy at the University of Cape Town, shows where dominant linguistic theories, such as Chomskian syntactic theory and truth-conditional semantics, fit in a generalized framework where a key theoretical dimens...