PSAT Critical Reading : Specific Words in Humanities Passages
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Example Question #41 : Finding Context Dependent Meanings Of Words In Argumentative Humanities Passages
"Commentaries" by Matthew Minerd (2013)
The idea of a commentary is not anywhere as simple as most people think. To the popular imagination, the commentator makes a few observations based on a text, not going far beyond its contents. This standard opinion completely misses the various types of commentaries that can be written. Indeed, even the notion of “literal commentary” is itself so variegated that it is incorrect to imagine that such “literal” work is merely a slavish repetition of an original text.
Some literal commentaries truly are “literal,” that is, based on the letters and words of the text. Such philological studies investigate the language structures and meanings of a text. The interpretation of the text proceeds based on these linguistic investigations. Often, this process will note the types of rhetoric being used, the dialects utilized, and any odd language structures that might imply something with regard to the text’s meaning. All of these methods remain very concerned with the “letter of the text” in a very direct manner.
Indeed, even the Medieval commentaries on Aristotle’s works could be considered “literal,” though they do differ from such linguistic approaches. Men like Thomas Aquinas would very carefully read Aristotle’s text, giving what was called a divisio textus for every section of the text in question. This “division of the text” sought to provide a succinct but correct outline of the text in question so that its literal meaning might be more easily noticed. Certainly, the commentary that followed this divisio textus did express some aspects of Aquinas’ own thought. However, he (like other literal commentators of this type) would attempt to remain as close to the literal meaning of the text as possible, always using the divisio textus as a guide for understanding the structure of the original author’s thought.
What does the underlined word “philological” mean in context above?
pertaining to love
brotherly or familial
rational or intellectual
pertaining to the study of language
zealous
pertaining to the study of language
The word "philological" is quite a vocabulary word that you might not know at first sight. It means "pertaining to the study of languages (historically, in form, and so forth)." The prefix "phil-" means "love," as is found in the name of the city Philadelphia, which means "The city of brotherly love (phil-)." Philology is the love of languages or the love of learning. (The "-logy" suffix can mean everything from "words" to "reason" to "learning.") From the context, you can likely realize this word's meaning. Note the whole sentence: "Such philological studies investigate the language structures and meanings of a text."
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