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Steven C Bonta

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I am an independent researcher with an MA in linguistics (1996, BYU; MA thesis topic: Indus Valley script) and a PhD, also in linguistics (2004, Cornell; topic: Negombo Fishermen's Tamil). My areas of specialization are South Asian languages (both Dravidian and Indo-Aryan), language contact phenomena, semiotics, and the Indus Valley script. I speak Sinhala, Tamil, and some Hindi, as well as a number of non-South Asian languages (Spanish, French, Mandarin, etc.), and have also studied Sanskrit, Pali, and Avestan extensively.
Supervisors: MA advisors: John Robertson (linguist) and Stephen Houston (epigrapher) and PhD advisor: James Gair.
Phone: 814 327 1427
Address: Appleton, Wisconsin, United States

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Papers by Steven C Bonta

A Semiotic Grammar of Vedic Sanskrit

Chinese Semiotic Studies, 2024

In this study, we apply the methodology of semiotic or interpretive grammar, based on the Peircea... more In this study, we apply the methodology of semiotic or interpretive grammar, based on the Peircean ontological Categories and developed in previous work with respect to Mandarin Chinese, to Vedic Sanskrit, a language whose grammar we have previously shown to be constrained by Peircean Thirdness or [+3]. We show the Peircean Category of Thirdness, with all of the paradigmatic and syntagmatic configurations implied thereby, to be richly exemplified throughout Sanskrit grammar, at the morphosyntactic, lexical, and phonological levels. In particular, the Peircean Triad implied by [+3] is found to permeate the syntagmatic structuring not only of clauses, but also of the morphology within both nouns and finite verbs, and even the ordering of phonemes. We also describe the operation of the constraint [+3] paradigmatically in noun declension, verb conjugation, lexical variation, and consonant classification. We conclude that, while "interpretive grammar," as with all other forms of grammatical description, can never be framed in a way that excludes all exceptions and "messiness," a semiotic approach to a systematic description has a significant advantage over conventional "descriptive" grammars in furnishing a unified account of different levels of language, from morphosyntax all the way down to phonology, and of both syntagmatic and paradigmatic structures.

Language Contact in South Asia

The Handbook of Language Contact

Original PowerPoint presentation available upon request.

A Partial Decipherment of the Indus Valley Script: Proposed Phonetic and Logographic Values for Selected Indus Signs and Readings of Indus Texts (2nd ed.)

Towards a Partial Decipherment of the Indus Script: An introduction to methodology, language, and reading

I will be presenting to you today some of the fruits of more than thirty years of research, resea... more I will be presenting to you today some of the fruits of more than thirty years of research, research that was the driving motivation behind my years of graduate studies in linguistics and South Asian languages both ancient and modern. After receiving my undergraduate degree at the end of the 1980s, I was left pondering what to do with the rest of my life, and I concluded that I wanted to make some significant progress toward solving some long-unresolved puzzle. To that end, I began dedicating a considerable part of my free time to the study of certain languages that I suspected would have particular relevance to the problem I wanted to work on: the Indus Valley script. Even then, more than three decades ago, the problem was already a longstanding one, the first significant writings having been brought to the attention of the scholarly world more than 60 years earlier, with the excavations of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa-excavations that remain, all these years later, our two primary sources for Indus inscriptions, despite work at many other sites, and the promise of as-yet-underexplored locales like Ganweriwalla here in Pakistan. After several years of methodical self-instruction in Sanskrit and Tamil, I was fortunate to be admitted to Cornell University's linguistics PhD program, where I took full advantage of their rather welldeveloped South Asian languages program to study Tamil and Vedic Sanskrit, as well as Avestan, Pali, Sinhala, Bengali, and a little Hindi. Having already written a modest MA thesis on the Indus Valley script for my Master's at Brigham Young University, I was keen to further develop my research for my PhD work, but was dissuaded from doing so. Then, as now, this kind of work was regarded as too fringe, too little understood by the gatekeepers, and too apt to attract cranks and shoddy scholarship. So instead, I ended up for my PhD work documenting a dialect of Tamil spoken in coastal Sri Lanka, a project which required me to spend significant time in South India and Sri Lanka improving my Tamil and Sinhala, gathering data, and in general, becoming wellacquainted with the culture in that part of the world. All the while I was pursuing this research, I continued to work on the Indus script, strictly on my own time and with my own resources. In the course of this yearslong labor of love, I learned something very disconcerting: it was virtually impossible to publish anything pertaining to actual claims of decipherment, because, somewhere along the way, it had been decided that either the script was undecipherable, or that, perhaps, it was not even writing at all. The theory of Farmer, Witzel, and Sproat claiming that the Indus inscriptions were not writing but merely non-literate symbols attracted a considerable amount of attention in the early years of this century, possibly because it provided a facile explanation for the abject failure of generations of competent scholars to make any agreed-upon progress towards decipherment. Aside from the general consensus that the canonical direction of Indus writing was right to left, no two experts could agree on the likely underlying language, the nature of the script (aside from that it appeared, on

The Representation of Semiotic Structures in Language

Language and Semiotic Studies, Jun 1, 2021

Based on previous published work on (Mandarin) Chinese, and following a discussion of the propert... more Based on previous published work on (Mandarin) Chinese, and following a discussion of the properties of the Peircean ontological Categories Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness (as well as their "degenerate" or derivative versions) and their applicability to sign systems, in general, I examine evidence for paradigmatic and syntagmatic structuring, conditioned by these Categories, in Mandarin Chinese, Sora, Tamil, and Sanskrit, languages chosen because of the typological divergence amongst them, and because of the author's familiarity with them and with their respective cultural milieus. The paradigmatic and syntagmatic structures identified arise in the presence of what I term positive and negative conditioning constraints arising from the Categories themselves, and which are shown to operate at three different levels in language, the morphosyntactic, the lexical, and the phonological. Because of this, a methodology grounded in Peircean semiotic structures is shown to have the explanatory potential to allow for a unified model of language structure, in general.

The Representation of Semiotic Structures in Language

Language and Semiotic Studies, 2021

Based on previous published work on (Mandarin) Chinese, and following a discussion of the propert... more Based on previous published work on (Mandarin) Chinese, and following a discussion of the properties of the Peircean ontological Categories Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness (as well as their "degenerate" or derivative versions) and their applicability to sign systems, in general, I examine evidence for paradigmatic and syntagmatic structuring, conditioned by these Categories, in Mandarin Chinese, Sora, Tamil, and Sanskrit, languages chosen because of the typological divergence amongst them, and because of the author's familiarity with them and with their respective cultural milieus. The paradigmatic and syntagmatic structures identified arise in the presence of what I term positive and negative conditioning constraints arising from the Categories themselves, and which are shown to operate at three different levels in language, the morphosyntactic, the lexical, and the phonological. Because of this, a methodology grounded in Peircean semiotic structures is shown to have the explanatory potential to allow for a unified model of language structure, in general.

Sri Lanka's Ahikuntika and Kuravar Communities: Language and Culture

Asian Ethnology, 2022

Sri Lanka's small native population of "Ahikuntika" and "Kuravar" itinerant communities continues... more Sri Lanka's small native population of "Ahikuntika" and "Kuravar" itinerant communities continues to be a very visible part of Sri Lankan society, with snake-charmers and monkey dancers a common sight in Sri Lanka's tourist areas. Sri Lanka's Ahikuntikas and Kuravars speak a highly idiosyncratic dialect of Telugu which has never been fully documented.

A Partial Decipherment of the Indus Valley Script: Proposed Phonetic and Logographic Values for Selected Indus Signs and Readings of Indus Texts

We posit values for approximately 60 Indus signs and full or partial readings for many inscriptio... more We posit values for approximately 60 Indus signs and full or partial readings for many inscriptions. Our methodology relied on the database-assisted method of "cross-checking" based on an initial hypothesis of several "anchor values," described in detail in the monograph. This approach yielded many extremely plausible names and titles, and suggests very strongly that the predominant language of the Indus inscriptions is an early form of Sanskrit or India-Aryan.

The Peircean Sign as a Model for Interpreting Semiotic Structures in Mandarin Chinese

Language and Semiotic Studies, Mar 1, 2020

The notion that language is a system of signs is explored in the context of Mandarin Chinese. We ... more The notion that language is a system of signs is explored in the context of Mandarin Chinese. We use the Peircean Sign, derived from the Peircean ontological categories Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness, as an interpretive framework. Because Mandarin Chinese is both well-documented and comparatively opaque to foreign influences, it presents an ideal case study for the formation of semiotic structures based on the operation of a single Peircean Category-sign (in contrast to English, which, with much higher levels of foreign contact-induced change, would be expected to involve a broad mixture of various semiotic influences). We examine semiotic structures in Chinese at the featural/phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic levels, as well as the inventory of written characters. We conclude that the primary constraint that conditions semiotic structures in Chinese is the Peircean category Firstness of Secondness/[12]. We also show how this conditioning constraint imposes a semiotic and structural consistency across different levels of language, and how it helps to explain certain evolutionary characteristics of Chinese.

The Primordiality of Representation

Semiotica, 2023

The ontological implications of the Peircean Categories, as set forth most clearly in Peirce’s su... more The ontological implications of the Peircean Categories, as set forth most clearly in Peirce’s summative architectonic statement, “New Elements,” and referenced elsewhere in Peirce’s body of writings, are examined with reference to the existent or physical universe. The Peircean universal ontological Categories Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness are shown to give rise to a cosmos that is triadic and representational in essence. This immanently representational cosmos, denominated the “Book Universe,” is shown to be evidenced by the representational contours of both the mathematical and of the conceptual framing of the three broad domains of theoretical physics, the quantum, classical, and relativistic domains. This triadic “Book Universe” model is both characterized and also contrasted with the “Block Universe” model, and is seen to incorporate both time and space as emergent representational characteristics, and to be manifest, qua triadic Representamen, in terms of a “foliated e...

The lens of firstness: Shamanic/Aboriginal culture as cosmos-sign

Semiotica, 2017

Having identified previously (Bonta 2015) the Peircean Category Firstness as the semiotic basis (... more Having identified previously (Bonta 2015) the Peircean Category Firstness as the semiotic basis (or cultural Prime Symbol) for Australian Aboriginal culture, this paper examines the "lens" of Firstness as it is manifest in a variety of aboriginal (or "Shamanic") cultures worldwide. By studying the semiotic contours of religion, language, social organization, and art, we find systemic prioritization of Firstness in its various manifestations, across a wide range of aboriginal cultures from Australia to the Indian Subcontinent to aboriginal Siberia and the New World. Shamanic culture, despite its ethnic and geographic variety, may therefore be represented as a semiotic typeand, in addition, one that, in its pristine form, is nearly extinct.

Towards a semiotic theory of historico-cultural cycles: The semiotic contours of Spengler's “prime symbols”

Semiotica, 2014

Abstract Oswald Spengler's theory of historico-cultural cycles is based on the notion of the ... more Abstract Oswald Spengler's theory of historico-cultural cycles is based on the notion of the “prime symbol,” an abstract metaphor for space/extension manifested in the art, science, and religion of a given culture. This paper is a preliminary reconciliation of the Spenglerian semiotic anatomy of culture writ large with a few of the semiotic insights of Peirce. I propose that the developmental cycle of a given culture does not contain the Spenglerian Prime Symbol (Spengler's view) but is instead contained and conditioned by it. Inasmuch as a Culture in the aggregate is also a Symbol in the full Peircean sense of the word, I also propose that the development of each Culture is an effort of the Culture-Symbol to represent itself in terms of its Prime Symbol.

A Peircean typology of cultural prime symbols: Culture as category

Semiotica, 2015

Oswald Spengler first showed that every macroculture can be conceived of as an accretion of signs... more Oswald Spengler first showed that every macroculture can be conceived of as an accretion of signs representing in various contexts a single abstract Prime Symbol. But this semiotic model of culture is not confined to the so-called “great civilizations”; it is applicable to every culture. In seeking a typology of Prime Symbols (and hence, a semiotic typology of cultures), we show that that the Peircean Categories Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness (including the “degenerate” Categories Firstness of Secondness, Firstness of Thirdness, and Secondness of Thirdness) are exemplified in the great range of cultural semiotic types, and that, because of their universality and generality, these Categories are the best semiotic lens through which cultural Prime Symbols can be understood.

The dagoba and the gopuram: A semiotic contrastive study of the Sinhalese Buddhist and Tamil Hindu cultures

Semiotica, 2020

Having shown previously how a culture type can be given a unitary description in terms of a semio... more Having shown previously how a culture type can be given a unitary description in terms of a semiotic “lens” constrained by one of the Peircean Categories (“Shamanic” culture, by Firstness), we apply this methodology to a more “fine-grained” level of analysis, by comparing the Tamil and Sinhalese cultures under the assumption that one of them (Sinhalese) is in fact a “hybrid” culture-sign. Having shown in previous work that the greater South Asian microculture may be characterized as a Firstness of Thirdness (13), in this paper we provide evidence from a variety of semiotic contexts, including language, art, and religion, that the novel or “intrusive” sign in Sinhalese culture is Firstness of Secondness (12), resulting in a hybrid culture sign that may be described as 12 × 13.

Negombo Fishermen's Tamil (NFT) : A Sinhala Influenced Dialect from a Bilingual Sri Lankan Community

Ijdl International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 2008

The Dagoba and the Gopuram

Semiotica

Having shown previously how a culture type can be given a unitary description in terms of a semio... more Having shown previously how a culture type can be given a unitary description in terms of a semiotic "lens" constrained by one of the Peircean Categories ("Shamanic" culture, by Firstness), we apply this methodology to a more "fine-grained" level of analysis, by comparing the Tamil and Sinhalese cultures under the assumption that one of them (Sinhalese) is in fact a "hybrid" culture-sign. Having shown in previous work that the greater South Asian microculture may be characterized as a Firstness of Thirdness (13), in this paper we provide evidence from a variety of semiotic contexts, including language, art, and religion, that the novel or "intrusive" sign in Sinhalese culture is Firstness of Secondness (12), resulting in a hybrid culture sign that may be described as 12 x 13.

The Peircean Sign as a Model for Interpreting Semiotic Structures in Mandarin Chinese

Language and Semiotic Studies, 2020

The notion that language is a system of signs is explored in the context of Mandarin Chinese. We ... more The notion that language is a system of signs is explored in the context of Mandarin Chinese. We use the Peircean Sign, derived from the Peircean ontological categories Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness, as an interpretive framework. Because Mandarin Chinese is both well-documented and comparatively opaque to foreign influences, it presents an ideal case study for the formation of semiotic structures based on the operation of a single Peircean Category-sign (in contrast to English, which, with much higher levels of foreign contact-induced change, would be expected to involve a broad mixture of various semiotic influences). We examine semiotic structures in Chinese at the featural/phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic levels, as well as the inventory of written characters. We conclude that the primary constraint that conditions semiotic structures in Chinese is the Peircean category Firstness of Secondness/[12]. We also show how this conditioning constraint imposes a semiotic and structural consistency across different levels of language, and how it helps to explain certain evolutionary characteristics of Chinese.

Sri Lanka Gypsy Telugu: A Dravidian Dialect from Sri Lanka's Sinhalese Heartland

International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics

Sri Lanka Gypsy Telugu (SLGT) is a dialect of Telugu spoken by a gypsy community in Sri Lanka num... more Sri Lanka Gypsy Telugu (SLGT) is a dialect of Telugu spoken by a gypsy community in Sri Lanka numbering several thousand individuals. This dialect diverges significantly from the Telugu spoken on the Indian mainland and exhibits several significant grammatical features that are best explained as resulting from contact with Colloquial Sinhala. Based on data gathered from gypsies living in the Anuradhapura area of north central Sri Lanka, this paper presents the first comprehensive description of those points of SLGT grammar that distinguish it from other forms of Telugu, including lexical and structural borrowings from Sinhala.

The Lens of Firstness: Shamanic/Aboriginal Culture as Cosmos-Sign

The Peircean Category Firstness having been identified previously (Bonta 2015) as the semiotic ba... more The Peircean Category Firstness having been identified previously (Bonta 2015) as the semiotic basis (or cultural Prime Symbol) for Australian Aboriginal culture, this paper examines the " lens " of Firstness as it is manifest in a variety of aboriginal (or " Shamanic ") cultures worldwide. By studying the semiotic contours of religion, language, social organization, and art, we find systemic prioritization of Firstness in its various manifestations, across a wide range of aboriginal cultures from Australia to the Indian Subcontinent to aboriginal Siberia and the New World. Shamanic culture, despite its ethnic and geographic variety, may therefore be represented as a semiotic type – and withal one that, in its pristine form, is nearly extinct.

A Peircean Typology of Cultural Prime Symbols: Culture as Category

Oswald Spengler first showed that every macroculture can be conceived of as an accretion of signs... more Oswald Spengler first showed that every macroculture can be conceived of as an accretion of signs representing in various contexts a single abstract Prime Symbol. But this semiotic model of culture is not confined to the so-called " great civilizations; " it is applicable to every culture. In seeking a typology of Prime Symbols (and hence, a semiotic typology of cultures), we show that that the Peircean Categories Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness (including the " degenerate " Categories Firstness of Secondness, Firstness of Thirdness, and Secondness of Thirdness) are exemplified in the great range of cultural semiotic types, and that, because of their universality and generality, these Categories are the best semiotic lens through which cultural Prime Symbols can be understood.

A Semiotic Grammar of Vedic Sanskrit

Chinese Semiotic Studies, 2024

In this study, we apply the methodology of semiotic or interpretive grammar, based on the Peircea... more In this study, we apply the methodology of semiotic or interpretive grammar, based on the Peircean ontological Categories and developed in previous work with respect to Mandarin Chinese, to Vedic Sanskrit, a language whose grammar we have previously shown to be constrained by Peircean Thirdness or [+3]. We show the Peircean Category of Thirdness, with all of the paradigmatic and syntagmatic configurations implied thereby, to be richly exemplified throughout Sanskrit grammar, at the morphosyntactic, lexical, and phonological levels. In particular, the Peircean Triad implied by [+3] is found to permeate the syntagmatic structuring not only of clauses, but also of the morphology within both nouns and finite verbs, and even the ordering of phonemes. We also describe the operation of the constraint [+3] paradigmatically in noun declension, verb conjugation, lexical variation, and consonant classification. We conclude that, while "interpretive grammar," as with all other forms of grammatical description, can never be framed in a way that excludes all exceptions and "messiness," a semiotic approach to a systematic description has a significant advantage over conventional "descriptive" grammars in furnishing a unified account of different levels of language, from morphosyntax all the way down to phonology, and of both syntagmatic and paradigmatic structures.

Language Contact in South Asia

The Handbook of Language Contact

Original PowerPoint presentation available upon request.

A Partial Decipherment of the Indus Valley Script: Proposed Phonetic and Logographic Values for Selected Indus Signs and Readings of Indus Texts (2nd ed.)

Towards a Partial Decipherment of the Indus Script: An introduction to methodology, language, and reading

I will be presenting to you today some of the fruits of more than thirty years of research, resea... more I will be presenting to you today some of the fruits of more than thirty years of research, research that was the driving motivation behind my years of graduate studies in linguistics and South Asian languages both ancient and modern. After receiving my undergraduate degree at the end of the 1980s, I was left pondering what to do with the rest of my life, and I concluded that I wanted to make some significant progress toward solving some long-unresolved puzzle. To that end, I began dedicating a considerable part of my free time to the study of certain languages that I suspected would have particular relevance to the problem I wanted to work on: the Indus Valley script. Even then, more than three decades ago, the problem was already a longstanding one, the first significant writings having been brought to the attention of the scholarly world more than 60 years earlier, with the excavations of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa-excavations that remain, all these years later, our two primary sources for Indus inscriptions, despite work at many other sites, and the promise of as-yet-underexplored locales like Ganweriwalla here in Pakistan. After several years of methodical self-instruction in Sanskrit and Tamil, I was fortunate to be admitted to Cornell University's linguistics PhD program, where I took full advantage of their rather welldeveloped South Asian languages program to study Tamil and Vedic Sanskrit, as well as Avestan, Pali, Sinhala, Bengali, and a little Hindi. Having already written a modest MA thesis on the Indus Valley script for my Master's at Brigham Young University, I was keen to further develop my research for my PhD work, but was dissuaded from doing so. Then, as now, this kind of work was regarded as too fringe, too little understood by the gatekeepers, and too apt to attract cranks and shoddy scholarship. So instead, I ended up for my PhD work documenting a dialect of Tamil spoken in coastal Sri Lanka, a project which required me to spend significant time in South India and Sri Lanka improving my Tamil and Sinhala, gathering data, and in general, becoming wellacquainted with the culture in that part of the world. All the while I was pursuing this research, I continued to work on the Indus script, strictly on my own time and with my own resources. In the course of this yearslong labor of love, I learned something very disconcerting: it was virtually impossible to publish anything pertaining to actual claims of decipherment, because, somewhere along the way, it had been decided that either the script was undecipherable, or that, perhaps, it was not even writing at all. The theory of Farmer, Witzel, and Sproat claiming that the Indus inscriptions were not writing but merely non-literate symbols attracted a considerable amount of attention in the early years of this century, possibly because it provided a facile explanation for the abject failure of generations of competent scholars to make any agreed-upon progress towards decipherment. Aside from the general consensus that the canonical direction of Indus writing was right to left, no two experts could agree on the likely underlying language, the nature of the script (aside from that it appeared, on

The Representation of Semiotic Structures in Language

Language and Semiotic Studies, Jun 1, 2021

Based on previous published work on (Mandarin) Chinese, and following a discussion of the propert... more Based on previous published work on (Mandarin) Chinese, and following a discussion of the properties of the Peircean ontological Categories Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness (as well as their "degenerate" or derivative versions) and their applicability to sign systems, in general, I examine evidence for paradigmatic and syntagmatic structuring, conditioned by these Categories, in Mandarin Chinese, Sora, Tamil, and Sanskrit, languages chosen because of the typological divergence amongst them, and because of the author's familiarity with them and with their respective cultural milieus. The paradigmatic and syntagmatic structures identified arise in the presence of what I term positive and negative conditioning constraints arising from the Categories themselves, and which are shown to operate at three different levels in language, the morphosyntactic, the lexical, and the phonological. Because of this, a methodology grounded in Peircean semiotic structures is shown to have the explanatory potential to allow for a unified model of language structure, in general.

The Representation of Semiotic Structures in Language

Language and Semiotic Studies, 2021

Based on previous published work on (Mandarin) Chinese, and following a discussion of the propert... more Based on previous published work on (Mandarin) Chinese, and following a discussion of the properties of the Peircean ontological Categories Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness (as well as their "degenerate" or derivative versions) and their applicability to sign systems, in general, I examine evidence for paradigmatic and syntagmatic structuring, conditioned by these Categories, in Mandarin Chinese, Sora, Tamil, and Sanskrit, languages chosen because of the typological divergence amongst them, and because of the author's familiarity with them and with their respective cultural milieus. The paradigmatic and syntagmatic structures identified arise in the presence of what I term positive and negative conditioning constraints arising from the Categories themselves, and which are shown to operate at three different levels in language, the morphosyntactic, the lexical, and the phonological. Because of this, a methodology grounded in Peircean semiotic structures is shown to have the explanatory potential to allow for a unified model of language structure, in general.

Sri Lanka's Ahikuntika and Kuravar Communities: Language and Culture

Asian Ethnology, 2022

Sri Lanka's small native population of "Ahikuntika" and "Kuravar" itinerant communities continues... more Sri Lanka's small native population of "Ahikuntika" and "Kuravar" itinerant communities continues to be a very visible part of Sri Lankan society, with snake-charmers and monkey dancers a common sight in Sri Lanka's tourist areas. Sri Lanka's Ahikuntikas and Kuravars speak a highly idiosyncratic dialect of Telugu which has never been fully documented.

A Partial Decipherment of the Indus Valley Script: Proposed Phonetic and Logographic Values for Selected Indus Signs and Readings of Indus Texts

We posit values for approximately 60 Indus signs and full or partial readings for many inscriptio... more We posit values for approximately 60 Indus signs and full or partial readings for many inscriptions. Our methodology relied on the database-assisted method of "cross-checking" based on an initial hypothesis of several "anchor values," described in detail in the monograph. This approach yielded many extremely plausible names and titles, and suggests very strongly that the predominant language of the Indus inscriptions is an early form of Sanskrit or India-Aryan.

The Peircean Sign as a Model for Interpreting Semiotic Structures in Mandarin Chinese

Language and Semiotic Studies, Mar 1, 2020

The notion that language is a system of signs is explored in the context of Mandarin Chinese. We ... more The notion that language is a system of signs is explored in the context of Mandarin Chinese. We use the Peircean Sign, derived from the Peircean ontological categories Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness, as an interpretive framework. Because Mandarin Chinese is both well-documented and comparatively opaque to foreign influences, it presents an ideal case study for the formation of semiotic structures based on the operation of a single Peircean Category-sign (in contrast to English, which, with much higher levels of foreign contact-induced change, would be expected to involve a broad mixture of various semiotic influences). We examine semiotic structures in Chinese at the featural/phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic levels, as well as the inventory of written characters. We conclude that the primary constraint that conditions semiotic structures in Chinese is the Peircean category Firstness of Secondness/[12]. We also show how this conditioning constraint imposes a semiotic and structural consistency across different levels of language, and how it helps to explain certain evolutionary characteristics of Chinese.

The Primordiality of Representation

Semiotica, 2023

The ontological implications of the Peircean Categories, as set forth most clearly in Peirce’s su... more The ontological implications of the Peircean Categories, as set forth most clearly in Peirce’s summative architectonic statement, “New Elements,” and referenced elsewhere in Peirce’s body of writings, are examined with reference to the existent or physical universe. The Peircean universal ontological Categories Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness are shown to give rise to a cosmos that is triadic and representational in essence. This immanently representational cosmos, denominated the “Book Universe,” is shown to be evidenced by the representational contours of both the mathematical and of the conceptual framing of the three broad domains of theoretical physics, the quantum, classical, and relativistic domains. This triadic “Book Universe” model is both characterized and also contrasted with the “Block Universe” model, and is seen to incorporate both time and space as emergent representational characteristics, and to be manifest, qua triadic Representamen, in terms of a “foliated e...

The lens of firstness: Shamanic/Aboriginal culture as cosmos-sign

Semiotica, 2017

Having identified previously (Bonta 2015) the Peircean Category Firstness as the semiotic basis (... more Having identified previously (Bonta 2015) the Peircean Category Firstness as the semiotic basis (or cultural Prime Symbol) for Australian Aboriginal culture, this paper examines the "lens" of Firstness as it is manifest in a variety of aboriginal (or "Shamanic") cultures worldwide. By studying the semiotic contours of religion, language, social organization, and art, we find systemic prioritization of Firstness in its various manifestations, across a wide range of aboriginal cultures from Australia to the Indian Subcontinent to aboriginal Siberia and the New World. Shamanic culture, despite its ethnic and geographic variety, may therefore be represented as a semiotic typeand, in addition, one that, in its pristine form, is nearly extinct.

Towards a semiotic theory of historico-cultural cycles: The semiotic contours of Spengler's “prime symbols”

Semiotica, 2014

Abstract Oswald Spengler's theory of historico-cultural cycles is based on the notion of the ... more Abstract Oswald Spengler's theory of historico-cultural cycles is based on the notion of the “prime symbol,” an abstract metaphor for space/extension manifested in the art, science, and religion of a given culture. This paper is a preliminary reconciliation of the Spenglerian semiotic anatomy of culture writ large with a few of the semiotic insights of Peirce. I propose that the developmental cycle of a given culture does not contain the Spenglerian Prime Symbol (Spengler's view) but is instead contained and conditioned by it. Inasmuch as a Culture in the aggregate is also a Symbol in the full Peircean sense of the word, I also propose that the development of each Culture is an effort of the Culture-Symbol to represent itself in terms of its Prime Symbol.

A Peircean typology of cultural prime symbols: Culture as category

Semiotica, 2015

Oswald Spengler first showed that every macroculture can be conceived of as an accretion of signs... more Oswald Spengler first showed that every macroculture can be conceived of as an accretion of signs representing in various contexts a single abstract Prime Symbol. But this semiotic model of culture is not confined to the so-called “great civilizations”; it is applicable to every culture. In seeking a typology of Prime Symbols (and hence, a semiotic typology of cultures), we show that that the Peircean Categories Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness (including the “degenerate” Categories Firstness of Secondness, Firstness of Thirdness, and Secondness of Thirdness) are exemplified in the great range of cultural semiotic types, and that, because of their universality and generality, these Categories are the best semiotic lens through which cultural Prime Symbols can be understood.

The dagoba and the gopuram: A semiotic contrastive study of the Sinhalese Buddhist and Tamil Hindu cultures

Semiotica, 2020

Having shown previously how a culture type can be given a unitary description in terms of a semio... more Having shown previously how a culture type can be given a unitary description in terms of a semiotic “lens” constrained by one of the Peircean Categories (“Shamanic” culture, by Firstness), we apply this methodology to a more “fine-grained” level of analysis, by comparing the Tamil and Sinhalese cultures under the assumption that one of them (Sinhalese) is in fact a “hybrid” culture-sign. Having shown in previous work that the greater South Asian microculture may be characterized as a Firstness of Thirdness (13), in this paper we provide evidence from a variety of semiotic contexts, including language, art, and religion, that the novel or “intrusive” sign in Sinhalese culture is Firstness of Secondness (12), resulting in a hybrid culture sign that may be described as 12 × 13.

Negombo Fishermen's Tamil (NFT) : A Sinhala Influenced Dialect from a Bilingual Sri Lankan Community

Ijdl International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 2008

The Dagoba and the Gopuram

Semiotica

Having shown previously how a culture type can be given a unitary description in terms of a semio... more Having shown previously how a culture type can be given a unitary description in terms of a semiotic "lens" constrained by one of the Peircean Categories ("Shamanic" culture, by Firstness), we apply this methodology to a more "fine-grained" level of analysis, by comparing the Tamil and Sinhalese cultures under the assumption that one of them (Sinhalese) is in fact a "hybrid" culture-sign. Having shown in previous work that the greater South Asian microculture may be characterized as a Firstness of Thirdness (13), in this paper we provide evidence from a variety of semiotic contexts, including language, art, and religion, that the novel or "intrusive" sign in Sinhalese culture is Firstness of Secondness (12), resulting in a hybrid culture sign that may be described as 12 x 13.

The Peircean Sign as a Model for Interpreting Semiotic Structures in Mandarin Chinese

Language and Semiotic Studies, 2020

The notion that language is a system of signs is explored in the context of Mandarin Chinese. We ... more The notion that language is a system of signs is explored in the context of Mandarin Chinese. We use the Peircean Sign, derived from the Peircean ontological categories Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness, as an interpretive framework. Because Mandarin Chinese is both well-documented and comparatively opaque to foreign influences, it presents an ideal case study for the formation of semiotic structures based on the operation of a single Peircean Category-sign (in contrast to English, which, with much higher levels of foreign contact-induced change, would be expected to involve a broad mixture of various semiotic influences). We examine semiotic structures in Chinese at the featural/phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic levels, as well as the inventory of written characters. We conclude that the primary constraint that conditions semiotic structures in Chinese is the Peircean category Firstness of Secondness/[12]. We also show how this conditioning constraint imposes a semiotic and structural consistency across different levels of language, and how it helps to explain certain evolutionary characteristics of Chinese.

Sri Lanka Gypsy Telugu: A Dravidian Dialect from Sri Lanka's Sinhalese Heartland

International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics

Sri Lanka Gypsy Telugu (SLGT) is a dialect of Telugu spoken by a gypsy community in Sri Lanka num... more Sri Lanka Gypsy Telugu (SLGT) is a dialect of Telugu spoken by a gypsy community in Sri Lanka numbering several thousand individuals. This dialect diverges significantly from the Telugu spoken on the Indian mainland and exhibits several significant grammatical features that are best explained as resulting from contact with Colloquial Sinhala. Based on data gathered from gypsies living in the Anuradhapura area of north central Sri Lanka, this paper presents the first comprehensive description of those points of SLGT grammar that distinguish it from other forms of Telugu, including lexical and structural borrowings from Sinhala.

The Lens of Firstness: Shamanic/Aboriginal Culture as Cosmos-Sign

The Peircean Category Firstness having been identified previously (Bonta 2015) as the semiotic ba... more The Peircean Category Firstness having been identified previously (Bonta 2015) as the semiotic basis (or cultural Prime Symbol) for Australian Aboriginal culture, this paper examines the " lens " of Firstness as it is manifest in a variety of aboriginal (or " Shamanic ") cultures worldwide. By studying the semiotic contours of religion, language, social organization, and art, we find systemic prioritization of Firstness in its various manifestations, across a wide range of aboriginal cultures from Australia to the Indian Subcontinent to aboriginal Siberia and the New World. Shamanic culture, despite its ethnic and geographic variety, may therefore be represented as a semiotic type – and withal one that, in its pristine form, is nearly extinct.

A Peircean Typology of Cultural Prime Symbols: Culture as Category

Oswald Spengler first showed that every macroculture can be conceived of as an accretion of signs... more Oswald Spengler first showed that every macroculture can be conceived of as an accretion of signs representing in various contexts a single abstract Prime Symbol. But this semiotic model of culture is not confined to the so-called " great civilizations; " it is applicable to every culture. In seeking a typology of Prime Symbols (and hence, a semiotic typology of cultures), we show that that the Peircean Categories Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness (including the " degenerate " Categories Firstness of Secondness, Firstness of Thirdness, and Secondness of Thirdness) are exemplified in the great range of cultural semiotic types, and that, because of their universality and generality, these Categories are the best semiotic lens through which cultural Prime Symbols can be understood.

An Overview of Peircean Semiotics

Sri Lanka Telugu Speakers and their Language: The Kuravars of Sri Lanka

Lecture at the South and Central Asia Fulbright Conference, Hyderabad, India, March 2015.

Language Contact in South Asia

Original PowerPoint presentation available upon request.

Roman Catholicism and Bilingualism among Tamil-speaking Karavas and Chettis

32nd Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, Wisconsin, October 2003

Negombo Fishermen’s Tamil: A Sinhala-Influenced Dialect from a Bilingual Sri Lankan Community

Conference on South Asian Languages Analysis (SALA) XXIII, Austin, Texas, October 2003

Contact-Induced Morphosyntactic Realignment in Negombo Fishermen’s Tamil

South Asian Language Analysis Roundtable XXIII (October 12, 2003) The University of Texas at Austin

Modals in Negombo Fishermen’s Tamil: A Case of Paradigmatic Diffusion from Sinhala

Linguistic Society of America 2003 Annual Meeting, Atlanta

Decipherment of the Indus Valley Script: In Search of an “Entering Wedge”

***Draft - Not for Citation***

“Decipherment” of the Indus Valley script: Expectations and Outcomes

***Draft - Not for Citation***

The Indus Valley Fish Signs

The Indus Valley Script: A New Interpretation

Lecture at the First Annual South Asian Epigraphy Conference, Victoria, BC, March 2014

New Directions in the Indus Valley Script

Series of lectures on the Harappan/Indus Valley writing system, delivered by invitation in July a... more

Interpreting the Harappan Fish Signs

Harvard University Annual South Asian Antiquities Roundtable (paper given by special invitation),... more

Seven Penn State faculty receive Fulbright Scholar awards

April 2, 2015 http://news.psu.edu/story/351327/2015/04/02/research/seven-penn-state-faculty-recei... more

Bonta receives Fulbright grant to study Sri Lanka language dialect

Penn State News, Nov 10, 2014

ALTOONA, Pa. — Steven Bonta, instructor in Spanish at Penn State Altoona, has been selected to re... more ALTOONA, Pa. — Steven Bonta, instructor in Spanish at Penn State Altoona, has been selected to receive a 2014-15 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Grant to Sri Lanka.

Bonta will travel during the first half of 2015 to begin documentation of Sri Lanka Gypsy Telugu, a dialect of the Telugu language. This language, otherwise spoken on the Indian mainland, is used by several thousand Sri Lankans belonging to the Kuravar caste, informally known as gypsies. Many of its speakers still live an itinerant lifestyle and make their living snake-charming and fortune-telling. This dialect is endangered, and has not been studied in any depth.

The Fulbright Program, America's flagship international educational exchange program, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Workplace: A brief look at hires, promotions, awards and honors

November 23, 2014 The Altoona Mirror Excerpt: Steven Bonta, instructor in Spanish at Penn State... more November 23, 2014
The Altoona Mirror
Excerpt: Steven Bonta, instructor in Spanish at Penn State Altoona, has been selected to receive a 2014-15 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Grant to Sri Lanka. Bonta will travel during the first half of 2015 to begin documentation of Sri Lanka Gypsy Telugu, a dialect of the Telugu language. This language, otherwise spoken on the Indian mainland, is used by several thousand Sri Lankans belonging to the Kuravar caste, informally known as gypsies.

Bonta selected to receive 2014-2015 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Grant

NOW - News on the Web, Nov 11, 2014

Steven Bonta, instructor in Spanish, has been selected to receive a 2014-2015 Fulbright U.S Schol... more Steven Bonta, instructor in Spanish, has been selected to receive a 2014-2015 Fulbright U.S Scholar Grant to Sri Lanka.

Bonta will travel during the first half of 2015 to begin documentation of Sri Lanka Gypsy Telugu, a dialect of the Telugu language. This language, otherwise spoken on the Indian mainland, is used by several thousand Sri Lankans belonging to the Kuravar caste, informally known as gypsies. Many of its speakers still live an itinerant lifestyle and make their living snake charming and fortune-telling. This dialect is probably severely endangered, and has never been studied in any depth.

The Fulbright Program, America's flagship international educational exchange program, is sponsored by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Bonta quoted in article about decoding ancient scripts

NOW - News on the Web, Mar 26, 2014

Steven Bonta, instructor in Spanish, is quoted in a recent article in the Deccan Herald. The arti... more Steven Bonta, instructor in Spanish, is quoted in a recent article in the Deccan Herald. The article, "Cracking the Indus Valley Script," takes a look at the latest discoveries surrounding a decoding of ancient scripts from the Indus Valley. Read the entire article at www.deccanherald.com/content/19758/cracking-indus-valley-script.html online.

Roja Muthiah Research Library Trust Annual Report 2009-2010

Excerpt: "Indus Script research is multi-disciplinary in nature and involves diverse fields such ... more Excerpt: "Indus Script research is multi-disciplinary in nature and involves diverse fields such as archaeology, linguistics and statistics. During the year IRC collaborated with researchers at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences as well as the visiting researchers at the institute, including Prof. Michael Witzel, Prof. Romila Thaper, Dr. Bryan Wells, Dr. Steve Bonta and Dr. Andreas Fuls. IRC set up lectures and discussions with these
researchers to understand the current trends in Indus Script analysis, status of research on other undeciphered scripts and possible courses for future research on Indus Script."

Scientists inch closer to crack Indus Valley script

The Times of India, Aug 6, 2009

Steve Bonta and Bryan Wells, Senior Visiting Scholars to the Institute of Mathematical Sciences o... more

Indus Civilisation Reveals Its Volumetric System

The Hindu, Nov 15, 2009

by T. S. Subramanian Combination of `V' signs and linear strokes were used to indicate volumes ... more

Indus Script May Soon Give Up Its Secrets

Hindustan Times, Aug 6, 2009

by Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times New Delhi, August 06, 2009

Spl: Will the script be revealed soon?

The Times of India: The Newshour, 2009

Arnab Goswami of Times Now interviews Nisha Yadav, Bryan Wells and Steve Bonta. 4000 yr old sc... more Arnab Goswami of Times Now interviews Nisha Yadav, Bryan Wells and Steve Bonta.

4000 yr old script never cracked before Westerners have debunked an Indus script Complex maths used to uncode Indus script.

One of history's greatest mysteries is on the verge of being explained. Scientists are close to decoding the script of the Indus Valley civilisation. Almost 4,000 years after it was written, the Indus valley script is on the verge of being deciphered. Scientists claim they will unlock the secrets of one of the most urban and ancient civilisation by studying a whopping 650 signs.

Not much remains of the Indus Valley civilisation which flourished 4000 years ago. This region lies between what is modern day India and Pakistan an area extending more than half a million square miles.TIMES NOW's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami debates whether the Indus script will be soon revealed, a script that could not be decoded for 4000 years, with Nisha Yadav, Scientist, TIFR and Key Member of Indus Script, Dr Bryan Wells, Senior Researcher, Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai and Dr Steve Bonta, Linguist and Researcher, Pennsylvania University.

Cracking the Indus Valley Script

The Deccan Herald, Aug 15, 2009

by Hema Vijay Ancient Civilization Journalist The men whose hands etched out these rather lin... more by Hema Vijay
Ancient Civilization Journalist

The men whose hands etched out these rather linear signs on soapstone and terracotta tablets along the valleys of the mighty Indus river some 4000 years ago, would have had no inkling that they were leaving such an enduring and tantalizing puzzle for men of the 20th and 21st centuries.

A Partial Decipherment of the Indus Valley Script: Proposed Phonetic and Logographic Values for Selected Indus Signs and Readings of Indus Texts

We posit values for approximately 60 Indus signs and full or partial readings for many inscriptio... more We posit values for approximately 60 Indus signs and full or partial readings for many inscriptions. Our methodology relied on the database-assisted method of "cross-checking" based on an initial hypothesis of several "anchor values," described in detail in the monograph. This approach yielded many extremely plausible names and titles, and suggests very strongly that the predominant language of the Indus inscriptions is an early form of Sanskrit or India-Aryan.

The Peircean Sign as a Model for Semiotic Structures in Mandarin Chinese

The notion that language is a system of signs is explored in the context of Mandarin Chinese, usi... more The notion that language is a system of signs is explored in the context of Mandarin Chinese, using the Peircean Sign, derived from the Peircean ontological categories Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness, as a theoretical framework. Mandarin Chinese being an unusual example of a well-documented language that has been remarkably opaque to foreign influence, it presents a relatively uncomplicated case study for the formation of semiotic structures based on a the operation of a single Peircean Category-sign (as opposed to an admixture of two or more such signs, as would be expected in a language, like English, with higher levels of foreign influence). We examine semiotic structures in Chinese at the featural/phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic levels, as well as the inventory of written characters, and conclude that the primary semiotic constraint conditioning semiotic structures in Chinese is the Peircean category Firstness of Secondness/[12]. We also show how this conditioning constraint imposes a semiotic and structural consistency across different levels of language, and also helps to explain certain evolutionary characteristics of Chinese.

The Peircean Sign as a Model for Semiotic Structures in Mandarin Chinese

The notion that language is a system of signs is explored in the context of Mandarin Chinese, usi... more The notion that language is a system of signs is explored in the context of Mandarin Chinese, using the Peircean Sign, derived from the Peircean ontological categories Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness, as a theoretical framework. Mandarin Chinese being an unusual example of a well-documented language that has been remarkably opaque to foreign influence, it presents a relatively uncomplicated case study for the formation of semiotic structures based on a the operation of a single Peircean Category-sign (as opposed to an admixture of two or more such signs, as would be expected in a language, like English, with higher levels of foreign influence). We examine semiotic structures in Chinese at the featural/phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic levels, as well as the inventory of written characters, and conclude that the primary semiotic constraint conditioning semiotic structures in Chinese is the Peircean category Firstness of Secondness/[12]. We also show how this conditioning constraint imposes a semiotic and structural consistency across different levels of language, and also helps to explain certain evolutionary characteristics of Chinese.

The Dagoba and the Gopuram: A Semiotic Contrastive Study of the Sinhalese Buddhist and Tamil Hindu Cultures

Semiotica

Having shown previously how a culture type can be given a unitary description in terms of a semio... more Having shown previously how a culture type can be given a unitary description in terms of a semiotic "lens" constrained by one of the Peircean Categories ("Shamanic" culture, by Firstness), we apply this methodology to a more "fine-grained" level of analysis, by comparing the Tamil and Sinhalese cultures under the assumption that one of them (Sinhalese) is in fact a "hybrid" culture-sign. Having shown in previous work that the greater South Asian microculture may be characterized as a Firstness of Thirdness (13), in this paper we provide evidence from a variety of semiotic contexts, including language, art, and religion, that the novel or "intrusive" sign in Sinhalese culture is Firstness of Secondness (12), resulting in a hybrid culture sign that may be described as 12 x 13.

Sri Lanka Gypsy Telugu: A Dravidian Dialect from Sri Lanka's Sinhalese Heartland

Sri Lanka Gypsy Telugu (SLGT) is a dialect of Telugu spoken by a gypsy community in Sri Lanka num... more Sri Lanka Gypsy Telugu (SLGT) is a dialect of Telugu spoken by a gypsy community in Sri Lanka numbering several thousand individuals. This dialect diverges significantly from the Telugu spoken on the Indian mainland and exhibits several significant grammatical features that are best explained as resulting from contact with Colloquial Sinhala. Based on data gathered from gypsies living in the Anuradhapura area of north central Sri Lanka, this paper presents the first comprehensive description of those points of SLGT grammar that distinguish it from other forms of Telugu, including lexical and structural borrowings from Sinhala.