Cognitive Linguistics and the Evolution of Body and Soul
in the Western World: from Ancient Hebrew to Modern EnglishVitoEvolaauthorA philological and comparative analysis of the lexical items
concerning personhood in Ancient Hebrew, Ancient Greek and Modern English reveals semantic shifts concerning the relative lexical concepts. Ancient Hebrew presents an essentially holistic idea of personhood, whereas, via Biblical translations and Greek philosophical influences, the Western World has conceptualized humans as being
dualistic in nature. I analyze the polysemy and semantic shifts in the lexicon used for "body" and "soul" in Ancient Hebrew and Ancient Greek, which are the two linguistic systems known by St. Paul of Tarsus, and then confront them with Paul's usage context, and finally with Modern English, hypothesizing a possible case of linguistic relativity.EpistemologyComparative LinguisticsMetaphysicsPsycholinguisticsPragmaticsEvolutionary PsychologyPhilosophy of MindEthicsSemanticsSyntaxSocial PsychologyCognitive PsychologyPhilosophy of LanguageHistorical Linguistics2007-07Conference Poster