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    Whorf's claim that the Hopi language lacks tense and temp... — Carmelics
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    Whorf's claim that the Hopi language lacks tense and temporal units is false

    Philosophy of Language
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

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    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Ekkehart Malotki's 1983 linguistic study 'Hopi Time' documented extensive temporal vocabulary in Hopi, directly refuting Whorf's empirical claims.
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    • 2.Malotki identified Hopi verb forms encoding temporal distinctions analogous to tense, demonstrating Whorf's fieldwork was methodologically flawed.
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    • 3.Whorf had limited fluency in Hopi and relied on a single informant in New York, undermining the evidential basis for his sweeping generalizations.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Pinker's analysis in 'The Language Instinct' shows Whorf selectively ignored Hopi temporal expressions that contradicted his Sapir-Whorf hypothesis thesis.
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    • 2.The Hopi word 'talavi' means 'early morning' and similar deictic temporal terms confirm that temporal reference is grammatically encoded in the language.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.The Hopi language does have tense
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    • 2.The Hopi language has units of time such as days, weeks, months, and seasons
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    • 3.The Hopi language has terminology for yesterday and tomorrow
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    Related

    Ekkehart Malotki's 1983 linguistic study 'Hopi Time' documented extensive tempor...Malotki identified Hopi verb forms encoding temporal distinctions analogous to t...Pinker's analysis in 'The Language Instinct' shows Whorf selectively ignored Hop...The Hopi language does have tense
    +4 moreShow less
    The Hopi language has terminology for yesterday and tomorrowThe Hopi language has units of time such as days, weeks, months, and seasonsThe Hopi word 'talavi' means 'early morning' and similar deictic temporal terms ...Whorf had limited fluency in Hopi and relied on a single informant in New York, ...

    Similar

    The Hopi language does have tense81%The Hopi language has units of time such as days, weeks, months, and s...77%Under Goodman and Quine's formalism, such sentences would be neither t...74%Flux does not necessarily exclude the possibility of past-tense or ten...74%

    Source

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    SEP: relativism
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    An influential form of descriptive cultural relativism owes its genesis to linguistics. Benjamin Whorf, inspired by his teacher Edward Sapir, who in turn was supervised by the social anthropologist Franz Boas, used ethnographic evidence from American Indian languages, such as Hopi, to argue that languages mold our views of the world and different languages do so differently, because “we dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages” (Whorf 1956: 213). In the case of the Hopi, the
    Extraction notes

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    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit