| 词组 | prolegomenon, prolegomena |
| 释义 | prolegomenon, prolegomena Prolegomenon is the singular and prolegomena the plural form of this scholarly word, which means "prefatory remarks" or, more specifically, "a formal essay or critical discussion serving to introduce and interpret an extended work." It is also used in a broader sense to refer generally to something that serves as an introduction. As is the case with its much commoner brethren criterion and phenomenon, the irregular plural form of prolegomenon may be mistaken for a singular by some English speakers. Another complicating factor is the meaning of the word, which simultaneously encompasses a singular and a plural notion, as you can see from the definitions above. The dual nature of the word is attributable to the use of Prolegomena in the title of noteworthy scholarly and philosophical works, such as Friedrich August Wolfs Prolegomena ad Homerum (1795) and Immanuel Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics Which Will Be Able to Come Forth as Science (1783), which not unnaturally came to be referred to as Kant's Prolegomena. People then started to think of prolegomena as denoting both a single work and the remarks included in it. At the same time, many of these scholarly folk realized that prolegomenon was the singular form of the word. As a result, we find that when the context gives no clue to the singular or plural number of the word, prolegomenon and prolegomena are used with about equal frequency. Some writers hark back to an earlier Prolegomena, others use prolegomenon to show that they recognize it as the singular form, and the rest probably just use the form they happen to know. • ... it provides the best prolegomenon to Comus which any modern reader could have —T. S. Eliot, Sewanee Rev., Spring 1948 • ... Mead has not presented us with a "metaphysic of time"; let us say, instead, that he has given us the prolegomenon to such a metaphysic —Maurice Natanson, Jour, of Philosophy, 3 Dec. 1953 • ... included the following passage in the prolegomenon to his treatise, De Jure Belli ac Pads, written in 1625 —Jon M. Van Dyke, Center Mag., July/ August 1971 • ... a critical and exegetical edition ... with learned prolegomena, critical notes, and ample commentary —Dictonary of American Biography, 1928 • ... whose Art of Spiritual Harmony, written in 1910, is the prolegomena to what ... I am calling metaphysical painting —Herbert Read, The Philosophy of Modern Art, 1952 • The book developed out of the prolegomena to a work on Shakespeare's dramatic structure —E. T. Sehrt, Modern Language Notes, November 1955 And while we do have citations in which prolegomenon is clearly construed as a singular and prolegomena is clearly construed as a plural, we also have a few examples in our files in which prolegomena is used in a singular construction. • Semiotic offers a challenge to philosophy; it is indeed a "prolegomena to any future philosophy," ... — Charles Morris, Signs, Language, and Behavior, 1946 • ... a valuable philosophical prolegomena to a sound theological understanding of* the Christian faith — Theodore M. Greene, Scientific Monthly, May 1954 • The book served as a stepping stone, or as Payne-Gaposchkin preferred to think of it, a prolegomena —Elske V. P. Smith, Physics Today, June 1980 We do not, by the way, have citations for prolegomenon used as a plural or for a plural form prolegomenons. This strengthens the argument that the use of prolegomena as a singular is not merely caused by confusion over a foreign ending but is influenced by the Prolegomena of past writers. So those who use prolegomena as a singular and are accused of ignorance may defend themselves on the grounds that they know too much rather than too little. Those who use prolegomenon as a singular and prolegomena as a plural will be immune from criticism. And those who come across the word and do not have the foggiest notion of what it means will have a lot of company. For other foreign plurals, see Latin plurals. |
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