Thought-Based Linguistics: How Languages Turn Thoughts into Sounds. Wallace Chafe’s concluding book

The concluding book by an eminent American linguist Wallace Chafe Thought-Based Linguistics: How Languages Turn Thoughts into Sounds presents an introduction to the central agenda of linguistics in the context of neighboring sciences. The present survey briefly explains the ideas presented in the six parts of the book. Chafe offers an original theory of the structure of thought and its step-bystep conversion, via semantics and grammar, to sound. Apart from basic issues in linguistic theory, Chafe also addresses adjacent questions, such as translation processes, peculiarities of literature, emotional components of thought, etc. The survey mentions several linguistic notions that are insufficiently covered in Chafe’s book. The final part of the survey offers general conclusions regarding Chafe’s contribution to linguistics.