Moment Of Utterance Research Articles

The evidential meaning of presupposition and implicature between retractability and deniability of information

Abstract The relation evidentiality bears on the coding of some information as presupposition or as implicature is still an underexplored research field. In this paper, such an interplay is addressed by looking into how presupposed and implied contents (differently) respond to contexts of challenge and deniability. As taken for granted information (Stalnaker, Robert. 1973. Presuppositions. Journal of Philosophical Logic 2(4). 447–457), presupposition is more resistant to both challenging and retracting conversational moves, since it conveys content the speaker does not commit to. By contrast, implicature – characterized as intentional meaning (Grice, Herbert P. 1975. Logic and conversation. In Peter Cole & Jerry Morgan (eds.), Syntax and semantics 3: Speech acts, 41–58. New York: Academic Press) – allows both challenging and retracting conversational moves, because it is information the speaker commits to the most, similarly to what happens with plain declarative sentences. Building on this account, it is suggested that the higher challenging and deniability status cued by implicature is related to its function of encoding a direct type of evidentiality (Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2004. Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press), namely a condition in which the speaker presents herself as the first-hand source of some information. Conversely, the weaker challengeability and deniability associated to presupposition hinges on its property of encoding a mutual type of evidentiality (Hintz, Daniel J. & Hintz Diane M. 2017. The evidential category of mutual knowledge in Quechua. Lingua 186. 88–109), that is, a state in which information is construed and conveyed as already shared by all participants at the moment of utterance.

Perfective, performative and present: Some non-standard combinations in Slavic and beyond

The combination of perfective aspect and present tense is frequently considered as an example of semantically incompatible grams. If verbal forms including markers of both perfective aspect and present tense do exist in a language, they tend not to express present resp. perfective in the strict sense. Thus, in Russian such forms usually convey the future, as in napishu ‘I will write’. The article discusses a specific type of contexts where these forms develop a less trivial meaning of what can be called “prospective present”. Obligatory components of these contexts are first person of the verb and negation. We focus on three instances of this kind : ne skazhu (lit. ‘I won’t tell’), ne dam (lit. ‘I won’t give’) and ne pushchu (lit. ‘I won’t let’)’. With the data of Russian National Corpus (RNC) and notably of the parallel corpora within RNC, we demonstrate that in certain uses, these constructions correspond to speech acts of refusal or prohibition and can be viewed, accordingly, as expressing a kind of performative meaning. As performatives, these verbs refer to a present situation: the speaker’s refusal or prohibition comes into operation at the moment of utterance, and not at some point in the future. The present-tense reference is corroborated by the translational counterparts of ne skazhu / ne dam / ne pushchu from parallel corpora, as other languages regularly use present forms in these contexts. Thus, performative-like constructions provide new data on potential non-future meanings of perfective present forms.

The Wound of Time

The Wound of Time

Mood and force in defeasible arguments

Argumentation schemes bring artificial intelligence into day to day conversation. Interpreting the force of an utterance, be it an assertion, command, or question, remains a task for achieving this goal. But it is not an easy task. An interpretation of force depends on a speaker’s use of words for a hearer at the moment of utterance. Ascribing force relies on grammatical mood, though not in a straightforward or regular way. We face a dilemma: on one hand, deciding force requires an understanding of the speaker’s words; on the other hand, word meaning may shift given the force in which the words are spoken. A precise theory of how mood and force relate helps us handle this dilemma, which, if met, expands the use of argumentation schemes in language processing. Yet, as our analysis shows, force is an inconstant variable, one that contributes to a scheme’s defeasibility. We propose using critical questions to help us decide the force of utterances.

양태접속부사 ‘하기는’의 의미

This paper aims to investigate the meaning of a modal-conjunctive adverb ‘Hagineun’ in detail considering its preceding and following contexts. The meaning of ‘Hagineun’ is closely related to the logic of expectation, a semantic category concerning whether a given state of affairs accords with the speaker’s original expectation or prediction or not. It is required for characterizing semantics of the adverb to take account of different aspects such as the semantic relation of the preceding and following sentences, ontology and epistemology of the sentence meaning, and the discourse type. When the S1 denotes a state of affairs, it represents a situation which does not accord with the speaker’s expectation and the S2 expresses his/her acception of the situation. In the case of the S1 denoting the speaker’s opinion, his/her own original claim is expressed in the S1 and then his/her admission of the opposing one is conveyed in the S2. In an integrated viewpoint, the speaker can be seen to express his/her original thoughts in the S1 and then change his/her mind to accept the opposite thoughts in the S2. The relevant meaning for the interpretation of ‘Hagineun’ may be conveyed either in a direct or indirect way. Besides, the speaker’s thoughts should be changed in the flow of the discourse, and the grounds for the acception showed in the S2 should be a part of the speaker’s internalized knowledge at the moment of utterance.

Od „nie-miejsca” do „heterotopii”. Zagrożenie jako czynnik zmieniający status przestrzeni w "Dżumie" Alberta Camusa

Words can create reality which is why they sometimes arouse fear in people, especially when they are denominations of threatening forces, unfavourable to men.
 In my article, I would like to discuss the problem of pestilence and the utterance hereof in Albert Camus’ Plague. Why did Dr. Rieux hesitate to clearly utter the threat? Why did other characters in the novel have no problem voicing “epidemic” out loud? And above all, what are the consequences of uttering a disease? How the word “plague” destroyed the existing spatial status of Oran as a non-place; how it became a gate to building a new spatial status structure based on a heterotopic labyrinth, which, from the moment of utterance of this terrible term, was completely subjugated to the plague. How does the word escape the doctor’s room? What is the role of the figure of window in the process of the name overcoming barriers and passing from the level of language to the level of reality? And finally, whether the rhythm analysis can become an answer, deafening and counteracting the still resounding threat contained in the word.

El proclítico verbal a: el vínculo entre el Poqomchi’ y los idiomas mayas cholanos

Some missionary texts written during the Colonial period in the Poqomchi’ language (Mayan family, K’ichean subgroup) attest the verbal proclitic a, that is being lost in the modern language. It was added to verb forms in the completive aspect marked by the prefix x- and indicated, roughly speaking, the relevance of a past event at the moment of utterance. The same proclitic with similar meaning is also registered in two Mayan languages of the Cholan subgroup: Chontal of Tabasco and Chontal of Acalán. The Poqomchi’ people, despite their origin in the Guatemalan highlands, were neighbors of the Cholan groups for a considerable period of time. It is probable that the proclitic a was introduced to Poqomchi’ during the Postclassic period thanks to language contacts with some Cholan group, possibly the Acalá, who spoke a variety of Chontal, that is, a western Cholan language.

AN ANALYSIS OF DEIXIS EXISTED ON ARTICLES AT JAKARTA POST

The use of deixis on every language has different forms including English because of the various different context, such as grammatical rules and also background of culture or custom in society. This research is conducted to identify and analyze the forms of Deixis existed on Articles at Jakarta Post as contextual information. Research method of analyzing data used was descriptive qualitative research. Human instrument and text analysis are used as instruments of collecting data. Based on the data analyzed, it was found that pronoun of person deixis was most frequently used (existed) as second person deixis, third person deixis, possessive personal plural person deixis, and reflective personal person deixis that was used as reference to participant role of a referent for describing the speaker, the addressee and referent which are neither speaker nor addressee in written forms. In addition, the deixis with focus on time was also existed on Jakarta Post’s articles as the moment of utterance which is the coding time (the time of utterance conveyed by informants) and receiving time (the time of recovery of information by the hearer who got the information). The deixis of place that was existed on articles of Jakarta Post, was deictic reference to describe the current locations of informants indicated.

Future Contingents, Indeterminacy and Context

AbstractIn Facing the Future, Belnap et al. reject bivalence and propose double time reference semantics to give a pragmatic response to the following assertion problem: how can we make sense of assertions about future events made at a time when the outcomes of those events are not yet determined? John MacFarlane employs the same semantics, now bolstered with a relative‐truth predicate, to accommodate the following apparently conflicting intuitions regarding the truth‐value of an uttered future contingent: at the moment of utterance, if asked to evaluate the truth‐value of the asserted future contingent one has the intuition that the assertion is neither true nor false, yet later, at the moment of the predicted event, one has the intuition that the assertion was, already, either true or false. Both MacFarlane and Belnap assume that assertions of future contingents have complete propositional content – the traditional propositional contents that, according to him ‘are the contents of assertions and beliefs’. This assumption is challenged.

Harwood's Monster: “Walter Lehmann” and the Embodied Subject

TO SAY THAT THE POET GWEN HARWOOD WAS A PROLIFIC writer early in her career would be a vast understate- ment; in truth she was several. Employing a number of artfully crafted personas, all with his or her own distinct style and agenda, Harwood became so deft at employing these masks that each existed long enough to be established as a new voice in Australian poetry before the revelation of their true identity dissolved them-occasionally with some ironic complication- back into her greater canon. Indeed, Australian Poetry 1961 in- cludes work from two of the pseudonyms she employed, Fran- cis Geyer and alongside Harwood herself (who, in an act if ingenious play submitted the work Alter Ego under her own name). Miriam Stone, meanwhile, was likewise confirming herself as a bold new voice at the forefront of a school of feminist writings; and Timothy Kline still await- ed birth into the incendiary protest poetry that would arise at the end of the decade. Harwood was a masterful mimic and an unsurpassed puppeteer of these false identities, enabling each poet to leave an indelible influence upon the history of Austra- lian poetry; and it is in exploring the work, the birth, and the destruction of her first revealed mask, Walter Lehmann, that we can glimpse the subtlety of her creation, and the genius of her grammatical play.Despite being one of the most expansive and influential poets of modern history, Gwen Harwood (born Gwendoline Nessie Foster in 1920) to this day remains an inventive, inspired oddity in the canon of Australian literature. Her verse is lyri- cal, emotive, and fundamentally concerned with the intangible bonds that exist in the human experiences of love, death and dreams; and yet it can simultaneously be irreverent and play- ful, wielding comic absurdity and parody to acerbic effect, able even to turn profanities into art (as her Bulletin scandal would prove). Although publishing consistently throughout the sec- ond half of the 20th century, she belonged to no acknowledged schools of Australian writers and produced the majority of her work from the then relative isolation of Tasmania. By the time of her death in 1995, she had published several collections of poetry including Poems (1963), Poems/Volume Two (1968), The Lion's Bride (1982), Bone Scan (1988), and The Present Tense (1995); she had produced countless uncollected verse, works of criticism, and letters; written celebrated libretti for composers such as James Penberthy and Larry Sitsky; had won an array of literary awards (including the Robert Frost Award of 1977, the Patrick White Award of 1978, and the Victorian Premier's Literary Award of 1989); been awarded three Honorary Doctor- ates (La Trobe, Tasmania, and Queensland universities); and in her later years enjoyed delivering speeches-written wholly in verse-to celebrations that spoke to her experience of the history of literature, Australian history, and the expressive po- tential of language. Indeed, her work effortlessly recalibrates itself in each moment of utterance: from intensely intimate and heartfelt verse explorations of her battle with cancer, to gleeful parody of fellow poets and biting satire of literary movements; from tender love poetry, to measured pastorals; from deep phil- osophical pondering, to the pseudonymous works that made her both famous and infamous.Why Harwood should have chosen to use these mask identi- ties has been argued over since their first reveal. Some interpret- ers, like Jennifer Strauss, have posited that they were merely a pragmatic means for Harwood to increase her extensive out- put,1 while others have reasoned that they allowed her verse to be accepted on its merits.2 There have been critics who have argued that they were designed to exploit the hypocrisy of edi- tors who favored male names (although this would not explain Stone's existence); while still others, such as Cassandra Ather- ton, see these personas as glimpses into legitimate sub-psyches of Harwood's own personality (see Atherton). …

Tense in Ancient Greek Reports

AbstractThis paper shows that tenses in Ancient Greek reports have both an anaphoric and a shifted-indexical component. It develops a new account of Ancient Greek tenses that deals with this combination of features. Following Klein's (1994) semantics of tense, I claim that tense indicates the relation between an anaphoric topic time and the moment of utterance, the now. As for Ancient Greek indirect discourse, I argue that the anaphoric component works exactly the same as in non-embedded discourse (contra von Stechow 1995). The indexical component, however, is di ferent in that the now is not provided by the actual context of utterance, but by the reported context. The DRT account developed models this combination of features, taking also into account the role of aspect.

Branching with Uncertain Semantics

Branching with Uncertain Semantics

On trying and lying: Cultural configurations of Grice's Maxim of Quality

Gricean communication takes place when an audience recognizes an utterer’s intention to communicate some specific content by producing a particular locution. This general view is discernible in Grice’s wording of the maxim of Quality, which pivots on the idea of utterer ‘‘trying’’ to avoid falsehood. The cultural model of utterance interpretation among the Mopan Maya of Eastern Central America however, does not refer to the intentions of the utterer. For example, falsehoods are categorized by Mopan as blameworthy violations of Quality (‘‘lying’’) whether or not the utterer was aware of the falsehood at the moment of utterance. Ethnographic evidence suggests that even mutually known falsehoods are not interpreted figuratively among traditional Mopan, who do not produce or recognize fiction. But since Mopan conversation otherwise proceeds in general very much as it does in other languages, the Mopan findings suggest that intention-seeking must not in fact be necessary to most ordinary conversational interaction. This conclusion supports post-Gricean views in which routine conscious interrogation of interlocutors’ intentions are not necessarily required for the conduct of ordinary conversation in any society. Overall, the data suggest that Grice was perhaps right that the figurative interpretation of novel flouts requires intention-seeking on the part of audiences. It also suggests, however, that intention-seeking in conversation may be reserved for cases in which a maxim violation is suspected, and may be confined to those cases in which the status of utterer’s intentions is culturally understood to be relevant to the question of whether a violation has indeed taken place. Intercultural Pragmatics 7-2 (2010), 199–219 DOI 10.1515/IPRG.2010.01

Interjections in literary readings and artistic performance

Numerosity and privileges of occurrence of various types of interjections (primary conventional, primary non-conventional, secondary, and onomatopoeic) were investigated in three different literary readings ofWinnie-the-Pooh(Milne 1926), in one reading ofUlysses(Joyce 1960), and in an artistic performance by actors (the filmThe third man, Korda, Selznik, & Reed 1949). The spoken corpora, based on printed texts as source, consisted of 667 interjections. Ameka’s (1992 b, 1994) hypothesis that, parallel to their independence from ambient grammar, interjections would also be isolated temporally by preceding and following pauses, was not confirmed; for the entire corpus, only 39% of all interjections were thus isolated. However, an alternative hypothesis, that interjections serve an initializing function, was confirmed: Altogether, 77% of the interjections were found to be initializing, i.e., were preceded by a pause, introduced a speaking turn, introduced an utterance, and/or introduced a citation. Primary conventional interjections constituted the majority of interjections (overall 56%), but only two of these were common to all the corpora (ohandah). By far the highest percentage (28 %) of primary non- conventional interjections occurred in the artistic performance ofThe third man. None of these occurred in either the novel or the screenplay ofThe third man, unlike the primary non-conventional interjections throughout the text of the literary readings. Functions of interjections are discussed in terms of Goffman’s (1981: 226)animators(literary readers, 26% of whose spoken interjections were added to those in the printed text) and principals (actors, 79% of whose spoken interjections were added to those in the printed text), in terms of literacy and orality, and in terms of the emotional stance and perspective of a speaker at the very moment of utterance.

"Whirr" is King: International Capital and the Paradox of Consciousness in Typhoon

Much critical reception of Typhoon—which pits ship's captain inca- pable of figurative speech against wind that disintegrate(s) linguistic economy of his vessel into shreds and fragments of for- lorn shouting—has focused on its remarkable, and perhaps prototypi- cally modernist, insight into twentieth century's theoretical interest in contingency of linguistic sign (Conrad 31). As Sooyoung Chon notes, story can be read as a parable about art wherein Captain MacWhirr's effort to (...) civilized order on ship in crisis reflects how imaginative language (of) good narrative struggles to maintain contact with humane and real that lie at elusive heart of what endeavors to convey (34-5). Similarly, for Joseph Kolupke, Typhoon is about a ship of state, political microcosm whose pragmatic leader arrests the natural drift to nihilism and anarchy in universe (in which) there is no transcen- dental signifier (81-3). Such interpretations are well deserved, for text clearly demon- strates Conrad's effort to draw an extended parallel between great storm encountered by unimaginative and literal Captain MacWhirr and turbulent, knowledge-threatening slippage between utterance and understanding (Typhoon 19). After all, at height of storm at sea, fierce swirling winds fragment dialogue (at times stealing speech at moment of utterance), leave crew whirled great distance from their central voice of authority, and cause first mate to consider the very thought of action utterly vain until he hears

The expressivity of grammar: Grammatical devices expressing emotion across time By Axel Hübler (review)

198 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 76, NUMBER 1 (2000) plete structural understanding of the language since it soon becomes apparent that Nateni has a very complicated system of tonal alternations and verb-stem allomorphy underlying the expression of tense, aspect , and modality. N states, however, that the original focus of this project was primarily to provide a description ofthe verbal morphology and verb phrase syntax, so it is not surprising that phonology receives only brief mention. The following chapter is a thorough description of the verbal structure and verb phrase syntax with many examples (14-105). This chapter includes a number of tables and schematic diagrams which help to visually orient the reader to the complexities of the morphophonemic and tonal aspects ofthe language. Though it is unclear whether the examples in this section are from texts or elicitation , they are nonetheless very useful in demonstrating the functional explanations for the categories described. This chapter on the verb represents the aspect ofNateni most thoroughly analyzed by N. The following sections on nomináis (106-26) and clauselevel syntax (127-87) are somewhat smaller though still quite informative. The final section (189-244) contains 10 texts and a dialogue which provide a very useful introduction to the language as it functions in a discourse context. Morpheme-by-morpheme glossing and translation are provided throughout. N's account of Nateni is a concise description of the syntax of a language from a not-so-well-documented subbranch of the Niger-Congo family. As such it is a welcome addition to the linguistic knowledge ofthese languages. [Jonathan Banks, University of California, Santa Barbara.] The expressivity of grammar: Grammatical devices expressing emotion across time. By Axel Hübler. (Topics in English , 25.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1998. Pp. vii, 253. Here, HUbler studies six grammatical devices which communicate expressivity, specifically, the speaker's attachment to the proposition and/or the receiver. H argues that traditional linguistics has failed to provide an adequate framework for understanding the expressive function of language implicit in such structures as the ge?-passive and the periphrastic do. Following an introductory chapter, the author proceeds to devote one chapter each to the possessive dative, ethic dative, expanded form (progressive ), present perfect, periphrastic do, and getpassive . The conclusion places H's findings in a histoncal perspective. H's overview affirms expressivity as one of the key charactenstics of human communication. He draws on theories from numerous fields, beginning with Charles Bally's division of expressivity into mode vécu (e.g. Damn it) and mode pur (e.g. / am getting mad). The mode vécu, in which the emotion is lived or relived at the moment of utterance, becomes a focus ofthe work. Another key conceptfrom this chapter is Harald Weinrich's distinction between Besprechen (discussing) and Erzählen (storytelling); the former generates an adoptive attachment to the proposition (based on the speaker's needs) while the latterresults in an adaptive attachment (empathy with what or whom the speaker is addressing). Finally, the devices studied are all indexed, or 'meaningrich ' . Since an alternative is clearly available to the speaker, H argues that the use of the 'heavier' form marks an attachment to the proposition. Each device is studied in a similar fashion. H first defines the problem, then reviews past and current theory and points out limitations. He outlines his methodology and employs examples from representative works, ranging from Beowulf to Studs Terkel's Working. Among the expressive devices analyzed is the possessive dative (as studied in Beowulf), where the attachment is toward the person to which the dative refers. Similarly, the use ofthe expanded form allows for both an attachment to the proposition and preaching (discussing) in the midst ofnarrating (e.g. Bede's Ecclesiastical history). Furthermore, H asserts that the present perfect reflects an adoptive attachment (related to speaker needs), especially in statements containing 'now' adverbials. Similar arguments are developed for the ethic dative, the periphrastic do, and the gei-passive (the last being common in present -day English). H concludes by showing how the various devices studied have fared over time, noting periods of peak usage and decline. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that many of the devices have resurfaced...

Oscar Wilde, Victorian Fairy Tales, and the Meanings of Atonement

In 1889 W. B. Yeats was invited to the Wildes's house at Chelsea. The young poet, whose Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888) was reviewed that year by Wilde, was asked by Oscar to tell his son a fairy tale. Yeats got as far as Once upon a time there was a giant, when the little boy ran screaming out of the room. Wilde looked grave and I was plunged into the shame of clumsiness, the poet recalled in his autobiography (91). This act of storytelling seduction that backfired dramatizes how the verbal formulas of adults can pale before the authorial divinity of the very young. Even as they conjure ghosts of the punitive father, such sensitive listeners seem to determine the fate of adult words at their moment of utterance. As William Blake's Songs suggest, the literal-minded innocent can be a creative visionary as well. Children are never earnest in the way that adults are, Dusinberre states, which is why they became Wilde's most explosive weapon in attacking Victorian earnestness (261). The self-authorizing world of children, like the self-referential work of art, embodied Wilde's esthetic credo that [i]t is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors (17) and that self-realization is the aim of life.

Sensing the Stutter: A Stammerer's Perception of Lorca

Communication is a complex affair, yet the difficulties and inaccuracies intrinsic to the communicative process are not faithfully represented by terms such as "speaker", "writer", "listener" or "reader" which are readily associated with the notional condition of being apt rather than the inherent quality of being inept. Ease in communication cannot be taken for granted. Indeed, given the numerous possible restraints upon it – be they psychological, social, political or ultimately linguistic –, communication is fundamentally an achievement and always a compromise. Whether it be due to the constraints of (self-)censorhip or to the fact that the speaking or writing subject can never say what they actually mean to say, fluency is always much more (or less) than what it seems to be at the moment of utterance and hearing or as the written word is read. Fluency, in this sense, is at best disfluency managed, contained or concealed. The aim of this essay is to approach reading and, in particular, a reading of Lorca's poetry from the stammerer's perspective and frame of reference in the belief that everyone, including the poet, is in some way or other orally and literately challenged. It is hoped that the poet's own "stammer" – or at least his strategies for managing or addressing it – may be intuited, if not seen and heard, and that consequently new meanings will emerge from beneath the text's fluent veneer.

Toward a pedagogy of the enthymeme: The roles of dialogue, intention, and function in shaping argument

teach composition using an enthymematic approach. Or I might say, teach composition from the or the enthymeme. Unfortunately, the word enthymeme is more likely to alienate composition teachers than to attract their interest and attention, despite growing body of scholarship that positions the enthymeme at the very heart of the composing process. According to the viewpoint that emerges from this scholarship, enthymematic reasoning is fundamental to cognition and discourse, and hence to writing. If so, then talking about the enthymeme ought to be an essential and powerful way of talking about the composing process, and of it (Grimaldi, Gage, Green, Walker, Porter, Hood, Emmel, among others). Part of the difficulty of explaining what is meant by teaching enthymematically resides in the word enthymeme itself, which, unlike more familiar composition terminology (thesis, evidence, conclusion), lacks common and shared meaning, even recognition, for both students and teachers alike. As one of my students complained, couldn't even find it in the dictionary! Other students have been perturbed when their other teachers do not recognize the word. As means of understanding and discussing composition, the term enthymeme is still in the process of gaining definition and application-that is, of becoming grounded in composition theory, apart from the realms of formal logic and classical rhetorical theory. The age-old tendency to reduce the enthymeme to a truncated syllogism, or to mere figure of speech with little rhetorical potential beyond the moment of utterance, robs it of the fullness from which its pedagogical potential derives (see, for example, Conley's and Poster's surveys of ancient and modem interpretations of the enthymeme). Yet the enthymeme is not just logical paradigm (statement 1 is true because statement 2 is true) but also conceptualization of rich set of relationships with the potential of being expressed in multitude of ways, of which the enthymematic and syllogistic paradigms are only the most schematic and thesis-like. A successful essay is no less enthymematic for not being

Mythistory, or Truth, Myth, History, and Historians

Myth and history are close kin inasmuch as both explain how things got to be the way they are by telling some sort of story. But our common parlance reckons myth to be false while history is, or aspires to be, true. Accordingly, a historian who rejects someone else's conclusions calls them mythical, while claiming that his own views are true. But what seems true to one historian will seem false to another, so one historian's truth becomes another's myth, even at the moment of utterance. A century and more ago, when history was first established as an academic discipline, our predecessors recognized this dilemma and believed they had a remedy. Scientific source criticism would get the facts straight, whereupon a conscientious and careful historian needed only to arrange the facts into a readable narrative to produce genuinely scientific history. And science, of course, like the stars above, was true and eternal, as Newton and Laplace had demonstrated to the satisfaction of all reasonable persons everywhere. Yet, in practice, revisionism continued to prevail within the newly constituted historical profession, as it had since the time of Herodotus. For a generation or two, this continued volatility could be attributed to scholarly success in discovering new facts by diligent work in the archives; but early in this century thoughtful historians began to realize that the arrangement of facts to make a history involved subjective judgments and intellectual choices that had little or nothing to do with source criticism, scientific or otherwise. In reacting against an almost mechanical vision of scientific method, it is easy to underestimate actual achievements. For the ideal of scientific history did allow our predecessors to put some forms of bias behind them. In particular, academic historians of the nineteenth century came close to transcending older religious controversies. Protestant and Catholic histories of post-Reformation Europe ceased to be separate and distinct traditions of learning-a transformation nicely illustrated in the Anglo-American world by the career of Lord Acton, a Roman Catholic who became Regius Professor of History at Cambridge and editor of the first Cambridge Modern History. This was a great accomplishment. So was the accumulation of an enormous fund of exact and reliable data through painstaking