Verständigungsdynamik: Bausteine für ein dynamisches Sprachmodell

The major aim of the thesis is the design of an interdisciplinary theory of language based on dynamic systems theory. The first chapter reviews a number of proposals which go beyond modern structural grammars and accommodate variational, probabilistic and fuzziness phenomena. The second chapter gives a sketch of the topology and dynamics of communication and chapter three introduces basic concepts and techniques of catastrophe theory. In chapter four classical models for the semantics of sentences under the aspect of basic gestalts are summarized (from Panini to Fillmore). Chapter five is the central part, where René Thom s proposals for a topologico-dynamic semantics are systematically developed, specified, elaborated, and corrected with reference to mathematical development after 1972. As a result a systematic set of propositional schemata (archetypes) up to valency four is derived geometrically. Chapter six concerns the application in linguistics beyond sentential semantics (nominal composition, reduced communication etc.). The final chapters sketch some applications in the field of neuro- and sociolinguistics.