bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Langue and Parole Since Saussure
Authors: Hewson John
Published: November 2010

It is not possible and in fact not necessary to review everything that has been written since the publication of Saussure’s Cours de linguistique générale concerning the langue / parole diachotomy. What is attempted in the present article is first of all a concrete analogy for langue and parole, so that these two notions, which have been so often misunderstood, can be presented in as concrete a manner as possible, and secondly to follow certain interesting developments of the basic Saussurian notions. The concrete analogy which is used is that of the child’s construction set, such as a Meccano set for example. The set itself is an analogy for langue, and the models, such as planes, cars, machines, etc., that the child makes are a model for parole or discourse. This concrete analogy also serves to illuminate ‘the infinite use of finite means’, the finite means being langue, and the infinite use parole. Next an examination is made of certain of the Saussurean notions that have provoked discussion over the years:

(1) langue as a pure ίοrm; (2) psychologism; (3) the sociological notions; (4) synchrony as static linguistics. Subsequent to (4) the notions of process and generation are examined, and this leads first of all to a critical examination of the terms competence and performance, along with their underlying notions, and then to a discussion of the psychomechanics of Gustave Guillaume. It is pointed out that Guillaume’s theory is an interesting development’ of the Saussurian notions and that some of the criticisms by Wunderli in HL 1:1/1974 are based upon a fundamental misapprehension of the notion of parole in Guillaume.
Teaching Grammars of the Middle Ages
Authors: Bursill-Hall G. L.
Published: November 2010

Grammar enjoyed a privileged position in the medieval curriculum; along with the other members of the Trivium it provided a thorough foundation which probably accounts for much of the intellectual success of the medieval schoolmen. This article discusses the material used in the Middle Ages for the teaching of grammar and aims at an exhaustive list of pedagogical material which can still be found, for the most part unedited, in European manuscripts collections; this material served not only for the teaching of Latin grammar to students whose mother tongue was not Latin but also as an introduction to the study of grammatical theory. The article refers to the changes that took place in grammar, i.e., from being a literary discipline it became a logical, speculative discipline, which is reflected in this pedagogical material. Furthermore, this material provides important indications of developments in grammatical theory and their effect on grammatical pedagogy. What is very striking is that certain text-books which enjoyed a widespread influence were written when there was not only a greatly increased demand for text-books but also when every discipline was undergoing radical change.
An Ergative Historiography
Authors: Seely Jonathan
Published: November 2010

The most widely accepted definition of ‘ergative’ is in terms of a grammatical case, namely, the subject of a transitive verb, wherein that case is opposed to a second case, the ‘absolutive’ (‘nominative’), which includes both the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive. Languages which have been referred to as ‘ergative’ or as containing ‘ergative constructions’ include Basque, Eskimo, most languages from the Caucasus and from Australia, some Polynesian languages, Burushaski, the Paleosiberian languages, Sumerian, Hittite, some Papuan languages, Tibetan, most members of the Indic branch of Indo-European, and many American Indian languages.

Insight into speculation on the nature of the ergative leads to a study of the terminology applied before the coinage of the term ‘ergative’ in 1912 (by Adolf Dirr). The term itself has been given varied definitions. Fillmore pictured the ergative as a causative construction; John Anderson suggested ‘ergative’ as a semantic marker; John Lyons describes an ‘ideal ergative’ which is agentive in nature. The bizarre conjecture surrounding the study of ergative languages has included a long debate as to the active or passive nature of the ergative construction and, secondly, the fantasy that an ergative language was a ‘primitive’ one whose speakers had a ‘Weltanschauung’ opposed to that possessed by speakers of a nominative-accusative language.

Rather than either active or passive it has also been postulated that the verb is bidirectional and that verb and nouns in some ergative constructions are in a kind of apposition with each other; in addition, these often occur in sets of relationships which are determined by the semantic nature of the nouns and verb. The term ‘semantic ergative’ is suggested here to describe the presence of the ergative marker due to semantic features as +movement, +voluntary, or + emphasis. Although found most commonly as subject of a transitive verb, this semantic ergative may nevertheless also be found as subject of an intransitive.
The Concept of Articulatory Settings
Authors: Laver John
Published: November 2010

‘Articulatory setting’ is a modern term for the component of a speaker’s voice quality that derives from a habitual muscular adjustment (such as tending to keep the tongue low in the mouth). The general concept of settings, as long-term tendencies underlying the momentary segmental and suprasegmental articulations of speech, however, has been the subject of discussion in writings on phonetics since the middle of the 17th century. The article explores aspects of the historical development of the concept, particularly with regard to the aspect of voice quality that characterizes the pronunciation of different languages, usually referred to as ‘basis of articulation’. The writings of Wallis, Wilkins, Holder and Cooper in the 17th century, Bayly, Herries and Webster in the 18th, Sweet in the 19th, and Heffner, Honikman and Abercrombie in the 20th, are discussed.
Condillac, Mandeville, and the Origin of Language
Authors: Schreyer Rüdiger
Published: November 2010

The study of 18th-century theories on the origin of language offers interesting insights into history of linguistics. These theories are intimately linked with 17th-century inquiries into the social and intellectual nature of man, and particularly with the views of Hobbes, Locke, and the Cartesians. 18th-century thinkers analyse these problems from a genetic viewpoint. Condillac in his Essai sur Vorigine des connoissances humaines (1746) tries to solve them by advancing a theory of the progress of the operations of the mind, a theory in which a central role is attributed to language. This theory has recently attracted the attention of historians of linguistics, since it is considered the main source of an international debate on the origin of language culminating in Herder. It can be shown, however, that a large number of Condillac’s ideas were anticipated in Bernard Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees (1729). The present study suggests that Condillac was very likely familiar with the theses of the Fable and that he made use of them in his Essai. This suggestion is supported by an anlysis of the arguments and of certain fundamental concepts common to both works and by an account of the influence of Mandeville’s theses in France during the first decades of the 18th century. But, as Condillac mentions neither Mandeville nor his Fable, his indebtedness to his precursor cannot be proved once for all. Nevertheless, the evidence presented makes it very plausible that Condillac profited from the original and innovative ideas of Mandeville.
Andreas Kempe (1622–89) and the Languages Spoken in Paradise
Authors: Elert Claes-Christian
Published: November 2010

Several textbooks in general linguistics (by Crystal, Fromkin & Rodman, and Waterman) mention a 17th-century Swede who maintained that, in Paradise, God spoke Swedish, Adam Danish, and the serpent French. The name of this Swede is Andreas Kempe (not Kemke, as given in the above-mentioned books), a religious dissenter, persecuted in his Lutheran homeland. In this paper it is shown that the view that Swedish was the original language agrees with that of his contemporary scholars. The statement on Danish and French, however, appears in a context where it is clear that it was to be interpreted as an expatriate’s attempt to ridicule his adversaries among the Swedish clergy, and should not, therefore, be quoted as a serious opinion.
Theme, Rheme, and Word Order
Authors: Adjémian Christian
Published: November 2010

Henri Weil’s thesis, published in Paris during the first half of the 19th century, is the first cogent theory of word order in European linguistics. Weil’s work is the first to argue that discourse structure has an effect on the internal structure of the sentence. His ideas are the direct ancestors of the concepts ‘psychological subject’ and ‘psychological predicate’ which so highly influenced stylistic work into the 20th century. Weil’s insights had very little direct influence on French linguistics but are the source of V. Mathesius’ ‘theme’ end ‘rheme’ and the subsequent Prague School theory of word order. This paper presents an overview of Weil’s thesis, followed by a critical evaluation, in the light of Weil’s work, of a sample of later studies on French word order. The fundamental concepts of Weil’s theory are traced into 20th-century linguistics, with particular attention to their evolution in Prague School theory. Finally, a brief survey of work in generative grammar on discourse and the sentence is presented. In conclusion it is claimed that the rediscovery in formal grammar of the role of discourse structure in shaping the internal structure of the sentence is a comtemporary confirmation of Weil’s thesis.
Some Notes on Trubetzkoy’s Abandonment of Disjunctive Oppositions
Authors: Eramian Gregory M.
Published: November 2010

In the earliest days of the Classical Prague School, Jakobson and Trubetzkoy held essentially the same views on phonological oppositions which they divided into ‘correlations’ and ‘disjunctions’. The former are binary oppositions which are shared by more than one pair of phonemes, while the latter include all other kinds of oppositions obtaining in a given language. Although Jakobson abandoned the dichotomy in his published works after 1931, Trubetzkoy retained it until his article of 1936, when he explicitly rejected the disjunction as too simplistic to account accurately for the more complex oppositions in the languages which he had studied. The gradual process whereby Trubetzkoy discarded the disjunction in favor of the more precise kinds of oppositions expounded inGrundzügehas remained unclear to historians of linguistics. The recent publication of Trubetzkoy’s letters, although somewhat disappointing on this matter, makes possible a more accurate reconstruction of Trubetzkoy’s theory of phonological oppositions.

Examination of the relevant letters suggests that Trubetzkoy had begun considering the problems associated with the disjunction no earlier than May, 1933, and no later than the end of the summer of the same year. The letters also suggest that by Nov. 1935, in an outline for his 1936 article, Trubetzkoy had finally rejected the disjunction and had arrived at a new classification of phonological oppositions, which is basically retained with a few terminological changes inGrundzüge(1939). Unfortunately, the letters offer no evidence on the reasons for Trubetzkoy’s abandonment of the disjunction beyond the explanations in his published works (1936; 1939) which are reviewed in this article. Finally, the letters reveal that the final split between Jakobson, with his theory of strictly binary oppositions, and Trubetzkoy, with his theory of both binary and non-binary oppositions, occurred soon after Trubetzkoy (1936) and not after Jakobson (1938)as Vachek (1968) has suggested.

As recent publications in phonological theory have shown, the question as to the difference between Jakobson’s and Trubetzkoy’s theories is by no means of purely historical interest. While Jakobson’s binarism and the distinctive feature approach have greatly influenced the Chomsky-Halle School and generative phonology, there has recently been a renewal of interest in certain aspects of ‘Trubetzkoyan’ phonology. The most important proponent of this new trend is P. Ladefoged who, like Trubetzkoy, bases his arguments on empirical grounds and allows multivalued as well as binary features. A few references to Ladefoged’s extensive publications reveal interesting parallels with Trubetzkoy’s views and show that the issue of strictly binary vs. multivalued oppositions is not yet resolved in modern phonological theory.
A Seventeenth-Century Polyglot Grammar
Authors: Sundby Bertil
Published: November 2010

Jean Sterpin was a Frenchman who flourished in Copenhagen in the mid-nth century. His claim to recognition rests on his polyglot grammar, Institu-tiones Glotticæ (c. l668). Sterpin was acquainted with the language philosophy of Comenius, whose Janua Linguarum (1631) had set the pattern of the polyglot genre, with the work of Nathanael Duёz (fl. 1640–78), the polyglot lexicographer-grammarian, and with Erik Eriksen Pontoppidan’s Grammatica Danica (1668). The way in which Sterpin tackles the problem of teaching the grammar of three languages (French, English and Danish) and proficiency in four (incl. Latin) is superior to the schemes employed by Beyer (1661), Howell (1662), Smith (1674), and Colsoni (1688). His method of presentation is a skilful combination of typographic variation, Vertical alternation’, and the use of parallel texts. More important still, his description of the three languages involved is effected by interlanguage comparisons. The article touches on the parts of speech, case and gender distinctions, word-order, etc, but the strong and weak points of Sterpin’s contrastive-polyglot approach are best studied in his survey of English speech-sounds. Sterpin is sparing in his use of illustrative examples, the parallels he draws are not free from ambiguity, and his sound descriptions suffer from an imperfect understanding of the organs of speech. On the other hand, he shows practical skill in tongues, and his transliterations and ‘names’ of the letters of the four alphabets are no less ingenious than the contrastive layout as a whole. Especially helpful is a table of ‘diphthongues’ and ‘triphthongues’ on the basis of which it has been possible to assign the English long vowels their relative position in the vowel tract. In addition, there are comments on vowels in weak position and on consonants.
British Phonetics in the 1880s
Authors: MacMahon M. K. C.
Published: November 2010

The work of the Irish-born phonetician James Lecky (1855–90) has been unjustly neglected. A summary is given of his life and work, especially his work in phonetics, which covered descriptive phonetics, verse rhythm and phonetic notation.
Modus Significandi
Authors: Kelly L. G.
Published: November 2010

During the Middle Ages, the various sciences shared both basic concepts and terminology without losing their autonomy. Between 1260 and 1330 grammatica speculativa, which had evolved under the influence of dialectic, asserted its independence while keeping the terminology common to philosophy and theology. This mixed autonomy and interdependence is demonstrated by the evolution and use of the term, modus significandi. The term was not proper to grammar: it is found in discussions of the sign in theology and philosophy. In these discussions, the philosopher or theologian in question often rested his case on grammatical considerations. At the beginning of our period, modus significandi is opposed in grammar to significatum, while, after 1280 or thereabouts, the significatum is termed modus significandi passivus and the modus significandi becomes modus significandi activus. It would seem that this change is due to certain implications in the way in which the Latin gerund was employed by scholastic theologians. In any case, the term, modus significandi, undergoes a parallel development in grammar, theology and philosophy; and, at the same time, is studied under different aspects according to the discipline in question. In grammar at the beginning of our period, in appearance modus significandi is a morphological concept, while, in the work of Gerson (1426), it is certainly of syntactic relevance.
Some Trends in Norwegian Linguistics 1800–1850
Authors: Hertzberg Frøydis , Hovdhaugen Even
Published: November 2010

The first Norwegian university was founded in 1811; in 1814 Norway became independent from Denmark. These two factors were decisive for the establishment of a linguistic milieu in Norway and for the development of linguistics in that country during the 19th century. Three scholars of very different backgrounds and interests dominated Norwegian linguistics in the first half of the 19th century: One, Christopher Holmboe (1796–1882) was a pupil of A. I. Silvestre de Sacy in Paris and from 1825 on Professor of Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo (Christiania). The main bulk of his linguistic production lay within comparative Indo-European philology, but in some minor works he also made interesting observations on various non-Indo-European languages and on topics within general linguistics. The second, Ludvig Caesar Martin Aubert (1807–87), became professor of Latin in 1840. Besides writing important works concerning Latin syntax and general syntactic theory, he introduced comparative Indo-European linguistics to Norway in a series of lectures from 1843 on. His sober and critical attitude concerning language study made him much more influential than Holmboe, whose somewhat oldfashioned preconceptions made him an outsider on the scientific (though not on the organizational) level of the discipline. The third figure was Ivar Aasen (1813–96), who never held a university position, but who as the founder of landsmål (nynorsk), the initiator of Norwegian dialectology, and the author of the first grammar of modern Norwegian had a tremendous impact both on Norvegian linguistics and on the socio-cultural development of Norway in the 19th and 20th century. The paper attempts to depict the intellectual background and the relations between these three men, their relationship to previous and contemporary European linguistics, to some basic trends of Norwegian society of their time as well as to the subsequent development of Norvegian linguistics.
The History of General and Comparative Linguistics in 19th Century Russia
Authors: Berezin F. M.
Published: November 2010

The article attempts to demonstrate how problems in general and historical-comparative linguistics were worked out and developed during the 19th century in Russia. Largely following the tradition established by 18th-century Russian scholars, especially M. V. Lomonosov (1711–65), who is regarded as the founder of Russian linguistics, 19th-century linguists displayed a lively interest in investigating the social nature of language. Other key interests of these scholars were the study of the systematic character of language, the development of the phonemic principle (including the distinctive feature concept), the typological study of related and unrelated languages, etc. It is shown that their work generally mirrored the intellectual trends of their period, with biologistic views giving way to sociological and psychological ones, as is evident in the work of N. I. Greč, A. X. Vostokov, A. A. Potebnja, J. Baudouin de Courtenay, F. F. Fortuna-tov, and many others. The intellectual climate of 19th-century Europe allowed for a free exchange of scientific information; thus, in its earlier stages, the Russian scientific scene was sometimes influenced by ideas from the West, whereas it can be said that Russian scholars working in linguistics paid back toward the end of the 19th and in the earlier 20th centuries by furthering research leading to a structural concept of language, the study of morphophonology, typology and language universals as is evident in the theories advanced by members of the Prague and Copenhagen schools.
Beauzée, Behaghel, and J. R. Ross on Heavy-NP Shift
Authors: Scaglione Aldo
Published: November 2010

J. R. Ross’ rule of Complex (or Heavy) NP Shift acquires a further dimension by tracing its background, first through the stylistic-grammatical tradition harking back to Etienne-Simon de Gamaches (1672–1756) and Nicolas Beauzée (1717–89), and then through the linguistic hypotheses of Henri Weil (1818–1909) and Otto Behaghel (1854–1936). Transformational linguists have not yet tackled the challenging problems raised by this universal rule as it becomes complicated by interference from intonation and sentence accent (bearing on the ordering of atonic particles).
F. Max Müller and the Development of Linguistic Science
Authors: Jankowsky Kurt R.
Published: November 2010

The article examines the voluminous work of Friedrich Max Müller (18231900), a German scholar who had chosen England as his home in 1846 and lived there for 54 years until his death. Basically a Sanskritist, whose studies, however, spilled over into numerous adjoining disciplines, Müller was both highly praised and severely criticized during his life-time. Almost immediately after his death silence settled upon him.

The author argues that Müller’s outstanding achievements, firmly acknowledged by authoritative critics in his time, should make him important enough for us to study his amazingly wide-ranging work very carefully again. Müller’s contribution to linguistic science and to human knowledge is particularly significant. He began his work in the pioneering stage of linguistics and, for fear of losing sight of the larger framework, deliberately avoided concentrating on one single specialty of study. Instead, starting with books, translations, and editions involving Sanskrit, he enlarged his scope into Indian history, philosophy and religion. He conducted, and published extensively on, comparative studies in philology, religion and mythology and undertook to explore the interrelationship of thought and language. His writings on German literature and his translation of Kant’s “Kritik der reinen Vernunft” were acclaimed as solid accomplishments, no less thorough than his many volumes dealing with a large variety of aspects concerning Indian language, literature, history, and religion.

Müller never thought of himself as a linguist in the technical sense of the word. Instead, he attempted to apply his linguistic knowledge within the larger framework of the “science of man”. He worked to achieve an overall foundation, for which it became necessary to transcend disciplinary boundaries. Such an objective was unavoidably accompanied by the risk of spreading oneself too thin. At least part of the criticism he drew was on that score. The author concludes that, if we would ask not so much for what Müller did as a linguist but what he did for linguistics, we would even today gain significant insights from his work.
Is “Canis Currit” Ungrammatical?
Authors: Ebbesen Sten
Published: November 2010

The main theme of Aristotle’s Sophistici Elenchi is false but apparently valid reasoning. Aristotle operates with a special class of fallacies depending on features of language. In that connection he touches on many questions of relevance to the grammarian. In their commentaries on the Elenchi, medieval scholars develop the hints given by Aristotle and introduce new problems of their own invention. Thus they discuss the generic use of singular nouns, the scope of conjunctions and modal expressions, suprasegmental phonemes, constructional ambiguities, the tense of participles, and parsing. Discussions of the last-named point revolve around the example canis currit. Canis is an equivocal term. Is it then one constituent of a sentence (one pars orationis) or is it more than one pars orationis? If it is several partes orationis, why is canis currunt ungrammatical? To save the grammatically of canis currit modistic logicians split the modi significandi into modi significandi ‘activi’ and modi significandi ‘passivi’, the latter attaching to the ‘things’ qua conceptualized in a certain way and signified as such by means of words, the former attaching to the words qua significative in some definite way. By letting the active modi significandi be the basis of construction they could save the grammaticality of canis currit. But the solution breaks with the fundamental idea of modistic grammar, the derivation of grammatical categories relevant to syntax from the conceptualized reality, and introduces an explanation of syntax founded on surface categorization of words. There was a reaction against this about 1300. Later Elenchi commentators seem to have lost interest in the subject.
Universal Grammar According to Some 12th Century Grammarians
Authors: Fredborg Karin Margareta
Published: November 2010

As early as the 12th century the concept of universal grammar became a commonly discussed and accepted doctrine among the Latin grammarians. Universal grammar is discussed within the context of whether grammar (and the other Liberal Arts) could be diversified into species, i. e., the grammar of the individual languages. Some grammarians accepted the existence of ‘species grammaticae’ but only with the proviso that there were to be two kinds of grammarians: the teacher of grammar expounding the universal grammar and the person exercising his linguistic competence in the individual languages. Along with the interest in the ‘species grammaticae’ grew a continuous interest in crosslinguistc analysis by appeal to the vernacular on matters of pronunciation, semantics and syntax. By the end of the century more determined efforts were made to solve the questions of the identity of words in different languages. These attempts proved abortive with respect to the precise description of pronunciation, orthography and morphosyntactical features, whereas a more dialectically orientated analysis of requirements for sentence-constituents is handled successfully. Further, a good deal of the upsurge of cross-linguistic analysis is hampered by the stricter adherence to the formal features as found in the established theoretical framework of Latin grammar, to the detriment of linguistic description of the vernacular, to which no theoretical foundation is conceded.
Albert the Great on the Semantics of the Categories of Substance, Quantity, and Quality
Authors: McMahon William E.
Published: November 2010

The underlying theory for modistic grammar is Aristotelian metaphysics, especially the theory of the categories. This paper deals with the semantics of the categories as viewed by one of the most important medieval commentators, Albert the Great. Albert’s comments on the categories of substance, quantity, and quality are considered, and the relation of these to the other seven categories is also discussed. The categories are modes of predicating with respect to what the predicates signify. Substance words are predicated univocally while terms signifying accidents are predicated paronymously. Secondary substance signifies quale quid; hence common nouns are names of kinds. Primary substance signifies hoc aliquid, the concrete individual; for this reason proper nouns are grammatical subjects but not genuine predicates. Quantity and quality are simple and absolute modes or predication. They are intrinsic accidents because they are based on the matter-form composition of substance. An interesting aspect of the Aristotelian conception of quantity is the view that speech is a discrete quantity. Quality words signify quale rather than quale quid; hence the distinction between sortal and characterizing predicates is a basic idea of Aristotelian ontology. As for the other categories, relation is a simple but not an absolute mode of predication. The other six categories all express some mode of relatedness and thus are regarded as extrinsic principles of being.
The Teaching of Latin as a Second Language in the 12th Century
Authors: Murphy James J.
Published: November 2010

One of the most obvious, yet little studied, facts about Europe of the High Middle ages is that Latin was in all times and all places a foreign language. It had to be learned as an overlay on some other native language like Old French, Irish, or Middle High German. How was this second language acquired? A survey of textbooks and teaching methods indicates that by the 12th-century European schoolmasters had evolved an effective, commonly-used mode of instruction utilizing the best elements of ancient, patristic, insular, and Carolingian programs. At the heart of the system was a sequence of Christian (or Christianized) progymnasmata. Both dialectic and rhetoric were elementary subjects along with grammar until the burgeoning university structure preempted dialectic and displaced rhetoric to leave grammar the basic subject for elementary education. In 12th-century schools pupils started with sounds, not rules, with writing and speaking skills taught together. This carefully devised educational plan contributed a good deal to the quality of Latin literature of the period.
Adam Wodeham on the Meaning of Declarative Sentences
Authors: Nuchelmans Gabriel
Published: November 2010

In the Middle Ages, the view that complexa or declarative sentences, mental, spoken, or written, have a peculiar significate which is fundamentally different from the significate of simple acts of apprehending with their corresponding expressions had as its most notable defenders Peter Abelard and Gregory of Rimini. The question whether there was a continuous line of thought connecting these two authors has become susceptible of a somewhat less speculative answer since relevant texts of William Crathorn and Adam Wodeham, who advocated a similar doctrine several years before Gregory of Rimini, have been made available. In this article, it is submitted that Wodeham’s theory should be viewed in the light of the debates concerning the identity of the articles of faith and the immutability of God’s knowledge that had begun in the course of the twelfth century. Wodeham rejected both the view that the object of assent is the complexum whose formation is presupposed by the act of assenting and the view that it is the thing signified by the subject-term of such a complexum. Instead, he argued for a theory according to which the object of assent is the total significate of a proposition and according to which this significate is a mode of being that essentially includes a complexio or predicative combination and the time consignified by the copula, and cannot, therefore, be subsumed under any of the Aristotelian categories. Nearly all the crucial theses and arguments involved in this position can be traced back to the traditional debates concerning the articles of faith and God’s knowledge. So, if there is a connection between Abelard’s doctrine and the views defended by 14th-century authors, it is most likely to lie in the writings containing those debates.
Can constructions be construed?
Authors: Pinborg Jan
Published: November 2010

The syntactical theory of the Medieval speculative grammarians is based on the concept of syntactical features (modi significandi) and their interdependence. A construction is defined as a combination of two words by reason of at least one pair of corresponding syntactical features. This conception makes it difficult to account for constructions between compound constituents. The paper is an attempt to account for this phenomenon which involves the status of phrases and propositions and the possibility of syntactical features belonging to this kind of construct. Texts by Boethius of Dacia, Radulphus Brito and an Anonymus Norimbergensis are discussed. An appendix adds a summary description of the Anonymus Norimbergensis.
Each Man’s Ass is not Everybody’s Ass
Authors: Rijk L. M. De
Published: November 2010

The well-known controversy about the (supposed) difference between sentences such as “cuiuslibet hominis asinus currit ”and “asinus cuiuslibet hominis currit ”is delineated and discussed. It is argued that the issue involved is entirely focused on the question whether or not nouns (names), by their own nature (secundum propriam inventionem), refer to existing things alone. The different answers to this problem (by Bacon, William of Sherwood, and others against certain Parisian masters, among others) are placed within the general framework of medieval semantic thought.
Richard Lavenham and the Cambridge Logic
Authors: Spade Paul Vincent
Published: November 2010

This paper argues that the 14th-century Oxford Carmelite Richard Lavenham was the author of the treatise De syncategorematibus that was used as a textbook in 15th-century Cambridge, a version of which was printed several times in the late 15th and early 16th centuries in the Libellus sophistarum ad usum Cantabrigiensium. The manuscript versions of this treatise differ significantly from one another and from the printed editions, so that the claim of Lavenham’s authorship needs to be carefully considered. The evidence for this claim is described briefly. The identification of the De syncategorematibus in the Cambridge Libellus as Lavenham’s provides the first real indication that Lavenham, whose works testify to the influence of other authors on logico-linguistic studies in late 14th-century Oxford, was himself not without influence as late as the early 16th century. On the other hand, the De syncategorematibus is not a very competent treatise, so that its inclusion as a textbook in the Libellus sophistarum is an indication of the decline of the logical study of language in England during this period. A brief analysis of the contents of the treatise supports this observation.
The Canadian ‘Winter’ of Edward Sapir
Authors: Murray Stephen O.
Published: November 2010

Contrary to the commonly-held view advanced in the literature and by Edward Sapir (1884–1939) himself that he hibernated in Canadian exile, most of the linguistic work and the initial culture and personality theorizing upon which his reputation rests were done while he was head of the Division of Anthropology within the Canadian Geological Survey, Ottawa (1910–25). Despite personal tragedy and successful competition for funds with the (World War I) effort, Sapir professionalized ethnolinguistic work on Canadian native languages, co-ordinated and did fìeldwork, and published more than he had or would in positions he held in the United States (University of Chicago, 1925–31, and Yale University, 1931–39)
Thomas stackhouse’s theory of linguistic rhetoric
Authors: Subbiondo Joseph L.
Published: November 2010

Thomas Stackhouse’s (1657–1752) Reflections On the Nature and Property of Languages (1731) was directly concerned with two areas critical to an understanding of 18th century English linguistic theory: the nature and origin of language, and rhetorical grammar. Stackhouse’s method was as follows: he defined language according to its origins and history, and he identified those rhetorical universals which he believed were essential for the refinement of language. Assuming that all languages were equal in their capacity to communicate, Stackhouse argued that perspicuity, purity, copiousness, neatness, energy, sublimity, and number increased the effectiveness of language. A study of Reflections suggests that theories of language, thought, and society must dovetail if we are to ever explain communication.
Medieval donatus commentaries
Authors: Bursill-Hall G. L.
Published: November 2010

The rich treasure-house of unedited grammatical material, some of which has already been reported, held in various manuscript collections dating from the Middle Ages contains a number of versions of the grammatical works of Donatus and more than 200 commentaries, most of them anonymous, on various aspects of the Donatus corpus. The purpose of these notes is to draw attention to these commentaries dating from the period 11th – 15th centuries and to suggest that a reappraisal of Donatus’s status in medieval grammatical study is needed.
Observations Sur La Genèse De La Signification Générale Et Particulière Dans Une Épître De Al-Marzuqi
Authors: Anghelescu Nadia
Published: November 2010

L’auteur de l’épître “Les mots qui expriment la globalité et la généralité et la différence entre tes deux”, un grammairien arabe du V/XI siècle assez peu connu, al-Marzūqī, se propose de montrer comment fonctionnent les éléments se rapportant à la totalité (la globalité) et à l’espèce, en partant du postulat que la langue doit posséder des moyens pour exprimer les “espèces intelligibles” (al-’ajnās al-maclūma), tout comme elle possède des moyens pour exprimer les “choses concrètes perceptibles” (al-’acyān al-makhṣūṣa). Ces significations sont étudiées par rapport à d’autres, telles que le défini/l’indéfini, l’unité/la pluralité, etc. Ce qui confère un intérêt spécial à cet opuscule qui sort, d’une certaine manière, du cadre de la problématique traditionnelle des ouvrages grammaticaux arabes, n’est pas seulement le groupement de certains éléments que la linguistique moderne envisage comme ‘quantitatifs indéfinis’, mais aussi la position adoptée par le philologue arabe, qui examine le rapport entre le général et le particulier dans une perspective dynamique, comme un mouvement de la pensée déterminée par la norme, l’usage, la raison. De ce point de vue, l’analyse que l’auteur propose pour une série d’éléments qui servent à l’interrogation — par exemple kayfa “comment” — est très significative. Ces éléments sont, par eux-mêmes, généraux et indéfinis dans la ‘langue’ et deviennent particuliers dans la ‘parole’, dans le cadre de l’interaction des interlocuteurs qui se connaissent, qui partent de certaines présuppositions en laissant de côté ‘exception faite’ (dit al-Marzūqī) de tout ce qui ne les intéresse pas. Par l’analyse nuancée du fonctionnement des éléments de la langue dans le cadre d’une stratégie de la conversation, par l’attention prêtée à la constitution de la signification dans le cadre d’une situation donnée, l’épître se situe dans une direction de pensée qui aboutit aux théories modernes des actes de langage.
The Treatment of Nasal Elements by Early Arab and Muslim Phoneticians
Authors: Bakalla M. H.
Published: November 2010

This article attempts to give a summary of the contribution made by early Arabs and Muslims in the field of phonetic sciences. Works by scholars like al-Khalīl (d.175/791), Sībawayhi (d.177/793), Ibn Jinnī (d.392/1002), Ibn Sīnā or Avicenne (d.428/1037) and others will be given special attention in this connection. In particular, it presents the various treatments of the Arabic nasal sounds and the phenomenon of nasalization. As a term of reference, the Arab and Muslim phoneticians divided the Arabic phonemes into categories such as: glottals, pharyngeals, palatals, dentals /l, r, n/, and labials /f, b, m, w/. Al-Khalīl is one of the first Arab phoneticians to order the Arabic phonemes in terms of place of articulation along the vocal tract from the glottis upward to the lips. His student, Sībawayhi, and later phoneticians also recognized other categories in terms of manner of articulation such as: voiced/voiceless, stop/ non-stop, rolled, lateral, nasals/m, n/, including variants, e.g. [ŋ, N]. Further, Sībawayhi and Ibn Jinnī seem to lay more emphasis on treating ghunna or nasality and other features in terms of binary distinctive feature analysis. The Muslim phoneticians also recognized that in certain contexts /n/ and /m/ may influence non-nasals, both vowels and consonants. In sum, a close look at the early Arab grammatical works reveals an underlying systematic approach and a rich mine of terminology which are relevant both to modern Arabic phonetics and general phonetics. Some instrumental (spectographic and mingo-graphic) data are included at the end of the article in order to support some of the descriptive techniques used in early phonetic heritage.
Arabic Grammatical Terminology in Pedro De Alcalá
Authors: Cowan William
Published: November 2010

In 1505 a Spanish priest, Pedro de Alcalá, published a short descriptive grammar and a dictionary of the Arabic dialect spoken in Granada. Although most of the grammatical concepts and terminology he used in this description were those of Latin grammar, he did use some concepts and terms taken from the tradition of the Arab grammarians in their analysis of Classical Arabic. These terms are presented here with commentary on Pedro de Alcalá’s use of them.
A Dissenting Grammarian Qutrub on Declension
Authors: Versteegh C. H. M.
Published: November 2010

This paper is concerned with a theory held by the Arab grammarian Qutrub (d.206/821) with regard to the inflectional vowels of the noun in Arabic. Contrary to what most grammarians believed, he asserted that these vowels do not serve to indicate (syntactic) functions, but to prevent the combination of two consonants. We examine the methodological background of this theory and argue in particular that (1) Qutrub’s theory about the inflectional vowels is connected — both substantially and terminologically — with his ideas about speech in general. He regards the Arabic language as essentially flexible, since speakers are allowed to choose among alternatives; (2) this same idea is reflected by Qutrub’s interest in ‘addād, i.e., homonyms with contrary meanings, and in mutashābihāt, i.e., Qur’ānic verses which seemingly contradict each other; (3) the clue to his theory is the term
cilla “cause”. Basing himself on the doctrine of his Muctazilite teacher al-Nazzām, Qutrub argues that in order to be valid linguistic reasoning must meet certain logical conditions, in particular the condition of reversibility: unless cause and effect, or sign and referent, coexist they cannot be regarded as such. As there is no one-to-one relation between the inflectional vowels and the alleged cause, the accepted opinion about declension cannot be correct; (4) Qutrub’s own solution — the inflectional vowels are used for euphonic reasons — coincides with his interest in phonetic variants and pausal phenomena.
Royal investigations of the origin of language
Authors: Campbell Robin N. , Grieve Robert
Published: November 2010

One method applied to the problem of language origins has been an experimental one: to examine the speech produced by a group of children who have been isolated from exposure to language at birth and cared for by (usually) dumb foster-mothers. Three such early investigations are acknowledged — those of Psamtik I of Egypte (663–610 B.C.), Frederick II of Sicily (1192–1250), and James IV of Scotland (1473–1513). A fourth such royal investigation by Akbar the Great (1542–1605) is less well-known. Historical evidence pertaining to each of these investigations is located and analysed, and an estimate is made of their authenticity and plausability. It is concluded that the experiments attributed to Psamtik I and James IV very probably did not take place and that, while Frederick II’s experiment may very well have occurred, nothing can be learned from it. The remaining experiment, that of Akbar the Great, almost certainly did occur, but its outcome remains ambiguous. Finally, the question asked by these ancient experiments is treated as a special limiting case of a more general question, namely, what are the characteristics of the function which relates properties of the child’s language to properties of the language to which he/she is exposed? Some evidence from more recent ‘natural’ experiments is reviewed and it is concluded that there are some grounds for supposing that this function may be augmentative. That is, it may alter or add to the properties of the language to which the child is exposed.
Philosophical Motives in Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Defense of the Inflectional Superiority Thesis
Authors: Manchester Martin L.
Published: November 2010

Wilhelm von Humboldt, like many other linguists in the early 19th century, claimed that inflectional languages are superior to non-inflecting languages. This thesis waned in popularity after the middle of the century, and the reasons why the claim was made have become historically obscured. The tendency in many modern accounts is to view the inflectional superiority thesis (IST) as a cultural or literary prejudice typical of the nationalism and romanticism of Humboldt’s period (Sapir 1921, Hönigswald 1937). Against this account I argue that, in Humboldt’s case at least, the IST followed consistently from two philosophical assumptions that were axiomatic in his philosophy of language. (A) Humboldt distinguished between the conceptual constituents of thoughts (Gedankeneinheiten) and their grammatical inter-relationships. The former are the units of ‘meaning’, the latter only modifications of the former and thus in themselves ‘meaningless’ (bedeutungslos). (В) Grammatical relations, further, never stand alone in a thought but are always ‘attached’ to concepts. Operating with (A) and (B) Humboldt argued that the ideal symbolic (linguistic) representation of thought will indicate grammatical relations by affixes which are (A) meaningless in their own right, having no meaning beyond their grammatical significance, and (B) are always attached or ‘fused’ to the radical words being grammatically modified. Highly inflectional languages come closest to this ideal. They represent thought in a more isomorphic fashion than languages using other grammatical methods. Thus the IST, in Humboldt’s version, is a semiotic claim. As such it should be understood as a result not of nationalism or Indo-European cultural prejudice but rather of Enlightenment philosophy and psychology.
Benjamin martin the linguist
Authors: Tieken-Boon van Ostade Ingrid
Published: November 2010

Benjamin Martin (1704–82) was a versatile character whose interests and abilities were varied and wide-spread; moreover, he was reasonably successful in practically everything he undertook. However, in a biography by John R. Millburn, Benjamin Martin: Author, Instrument-maker, and ‘Country Showman’ (Leyden, 1976), his linguistic career is not treated as fully as it might have been. In a period of almost 20 years (1748–66) Martin published one dictionary and two works on English grammar, all of which were later reprinted. Towards the end of his linguistic career he was still regarded as an authority on matters of lexicography, and his three works on language are discussed in several modern works on the history of linguistics. This paper, therefore, aims at completing the picture drawn by Millburn as far as Martin’s linguistic work is concerned but it also accounts for certain aspects about his workson language that have so far remained unexplained.
Materialisme et linguistique chez Leopardi
Authors: Piparo Franco Lo
Published: November 2010

Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837), bien plus connu comme poète et homme de lettres que comme linguiste, dit dans plusieurs de ses lettres qu’il est en train d’écrire un livre sur la théorie et l’histoire du langage. Le titre en devait être: Parallelo delle cinque lingue. En fait, Leopardi ne rédigea pas l’ouvrage en question, mais il laissa un nombre considérable de notes dans son Zibaldone, journal intellectuel qu’il tint de 1817 à 1832. Notre article étudie les relations entre la théorie linguistique de Leopardi et sa philosophie matérialiste. Leopardi, qui connaissait les théories de Locke, Condillac et Destutt de Tracy, envisageait la formation des mots comme une partie, inséparable, de la formation des idées en tant que dérivant des sensations. A cet égard, le sensualisme et la théorie générale du langage partagent le même object: l’histoire philosophique et matérialiste de l’esprit. Dans cette histoire, le langage joue un rôle très important. Nous examinons ici les notes de Leopardi dans son Zibaldone, expliquant dans quelle mesure la matérialité du signe verbal constitue une aide pour le calcul, la mémoire et même les idées spirituelles et abstraites.