Případ pirahã

• Authors: František Vrhel

Title variants

EN

Case of Pirahã

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

The article presents in four parts (Problem, Presentation, Polemic, Lesson) ethnolinguistic consequences of the „gaps“ discovered by US linguist Daniel L. Everett in a little-known Amazonian Language Pirahã. The gaps, and in particular the absence of recursion, unique to human language and thus an inherent component of universal grammar, gave rise to a series of polemics without any convincing or decisive result. Anyways, Everett’s claim that language can be culturally constrained remains a chalenge to continuing research in the field of linguistic anthropology, especially with regard to the relation between syntax, its emergence, and language evolution.

Keywords

EN

culture and language; Pirahã; Everett; recursion and universal grammar

Discipline

• ETHNOLOGY: ETHNOLOGY

• Publisher: Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Český lid: etnologický časopis (Český lid: Ethnological journal)
• Year: 2009
• Volume: 96
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 147-163
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

František Vrhel

• Český lid, redakce, Etnologický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i., Na Florenci 3, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic