Analogy

It is a typological observation in more than 90% of languages where the basic word order is either subject–verb–object (SVO) or subject–object–verb (SOV). Functional typologists believe that the prevalence of these two orders; in which the subject precedes the two other elements, and the verb and the object are contiguous is due to the functions of language in the real world. Hence, the two principles of subject salience and verb-object contiguity have been proposed. The typological explanations put forward for these two principles hold that transitive sentences of a language have come into existence as a result of the encoding of the prototypical transitive action scenario. In such a scenario, subject salience is a result of the fact that the transitive action scenario is started by the doer of the activity. Also, because of the tight causal relationship between the activity and its receiver, the linguistic counterparts of these two elements, too, tend to be contiguous. Since functional pressures can only be manifested in language through human cognition, the present paper looks at the cognitive processes involved in the cross-linguistic prevalence of the afore-mentioned word orders.

The following article discusses the problem of univocity in theology. It considers the classical dilemma that univocal terms used of God and human beings compromise God’s mystery while terms used equivocally of each compromise knowledge of God. One solution is that all terms used of both are analogous. Critical arguments against univocity, equivocity, and analogy are considered. Modern analysis of analogy identifies significant problems with the theory, prompting reconsideration of arguments against univocity since equivocity holds no promise for theological knowledge. Our thesis is that these arguments have plausible responses and propose a way of conceiving univocity in theology.