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Finnish linguist From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Esa Itkonen (born January 3, 1944) is a Finnish linguist, philosopher and language theorist. He is professor emeritus of general linguistics at the University of Turku.[1][2] Itkonen has authored several publications on linguistic methodology, philosophy of linguistics, history of linguistics, and linguistic typology. He has defended a humanist approach to linguistics, criticising sociobiology, generative grammar, and Cognitive Linguistics.
Esa Itkonen earned his PhD at the University of Helsinki in 1974.[3] He was Professor of general linguistics at the University of Turku from 1982 to 2012 and Docent of philosophy at the University of Jyväskylä from 1988 to 2012.[2]
In his 2005 book Analogy as Structure and Process, Itkonen argues that analogy is the most central concept in language formation. He proposes a distinction between analogy as structure, referring to a static relation between different systems; and analogy as process, or a dynamism which produces analogical structures. According to Itkonen, various forms of analogical reasoning are hidden behind other terminology in the study of language and other cognitive domains.[4]
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