bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Friedrich Engels Zwischen Anthropologie und Sprachwissenschaft
Authors: Ramat Paolo
Published: November 2010

The author aims to show that Friedrich Engels’ linguistic researches, especially in his Der fränkische Dialekt, are to be considered within the same theoretical framework of historic materialism which underlies his more comprehensive studies on the history of primitive peoples, such as the ancient Germanic or Celtic tribes. The main difference, however, between Engels’ so-cio-anthropological and his linguistic studies is that for the latter he did not elaborate an evolution model based on the theories of Darwin or L. H. Morgan, for instance, which clearly underlie the former. On the contrary, Engels’ linguistic investigation of his own dialect is ‘data-oriented’ in a very pragmatic way. This is to be seen also as a reaction against the rigid schematism of the neogrammarian school; thus Engels polemicizes against Wilhelm Braune who took the second consonant shift as the only and conclusive criterion for classifying the German dialects. Nevertheless repeated statements in Engels’ correspondence and other writings make it clear that he was fully aware of the fact that historical linguistics – and especially the comparative method – had inaugurated a new chapter in the history of language study. Parallels between Engels’ linguistic investigations and his socio-anthropological studies can be shown to exist not at the more superficial level of techniques of analysis, but rather at a deeper one: both are part of a global ‘science of man’ and to be based on a materialistic and dialectic point of view.
Beatus quid est and the study of grammar in late anglo-saxon England
Authors: Bayless Martha
Published: November 2010

Beatus quid est, a Latin grammar of English origin, found in an eleventh-century manuscript, has much to tell us about the pedagogy of elementary grammar in the classroom. The text is assembled from a number of grammmatical authorities, foremost among them Donatus and Priscian, uses the framework of a parsing-grammar, and attempts to forge these contradictory authorities into a coherent practical teaching-text. In particular elaborate glosses, annotations and conventions of capitalization and layout reflect the practices of the classroom. The text emphasizes morphology and supplies illustrations of grammatical points from verse. Glosses suggest paraphrases and serve as a reference-tool for many points not formally discussed in the main text. These features most likely reflect standard pedagogical practice in the classroom; the chief innovation of the manuscript is that such practices appear in written form.
Priscian’s institutio de nomine et pronomine et verbo in the ninth century
Authors: Passalacqua Marina
Published: November 2010

The Institutio de nomine et pronomine et verbo by Priscian enjoyed, unlike the Institutiones grammaticae of which it is a summary, vast popularity in the early Middle Ages, because it provided the basic elements of Latin morphology and swiftly taught students how to decline and conjugate. In the eighth and ninth centuries we find 24 manuscripts in which the text is contaminated to such an extent that it prevents the charting of any stemma codicum, although it is possible to identify the influence of particular codices on one another. The text was well known in France, but there are copies also in Bavaria, in the Abruzzi and in Spain. Only four of these manuscripts contain the Institutiones grammaticae as well: the two works were destined for two very different kinds of public. Their coexistence in Paris, BN, lat. 7498 comes as a response to the need to have the complete corpus of Priscian in Saint-Amand; in Paris, BN, lat. 7503 the position occupied by the treatise suggests that it was felt as a summary of the first section of the Institutiones which deals with the noun, and as a preparation to the second section which concerns verbs; in Reims 1094 didactic considerations appear to predominate; in Wolfenbüttel 64, a witness to the presence of grammatical texts in Lyon, the fragment of the Institutio gives the impression of being a scholastic exercise. It has to be noted, however, that in three manuscripts out of four, the text is inserted into the first seven books of the Institutiones.

The authors whose works most frequently occur together with Institutio are Isidore, Bede, Donatus, Servius’s De finalibus, Sergius’s De littera, Phocas, Sedulius, St. Jerome, Eutyches, Agroecius, Consentius, the Liber de finalibus metrorum, Maximus Victorinus’s De ratione metrorum and Servius’s Commentum in Artem Donati.

The richest manuscripts in terms of texts are the great scholastic manuals Bologna 797, Orléans 295 and St. Gall 878 by Walahfrid Strabo.
A proposito delle dottrine grammaticali di Virgilio Marone
Authors: Polara Giovanni
Published: November 2010

Riassunto

Il confronto fra le teorie grammaticali di Virgilio Marone e quelle correnti nella tarda antichità e nell’alto medioevo è cosa non facile: a differenza degli altri trattati dell’epoca, le sue opere non seguono (e non tentano di seguire) un’organica linea di esposizione, ma procedono per singole osservazioni, ed alternano a parti che possono sembrare riprese dai grandi autori come Donato ed Isidoro, per riaffermare o più spesso per confutare le posizioni da essi espresse, altre e più ampie sezioni completamente innovative, che rispondono solo alle imperscrutabili scelte di Virgilio, quali che ne siano le recondite motivazioni.

In questa nota si è cercato di riordinare, nei limiti del possibile, alcuni aspetti delle trattazioni contenute nelle due opere virgiliane, allo scopo di operare un primo confronto con il modello dell’Ars maior, certamente non ignoto al grammatico medievale, che dà il nome di Donato ad uno dei personaggi presenti nelle sue opere e quello di Don, abbreviazione di Donato, al fratello. Ci si è attenuti alla disposizione delle singole parti del discorso, così come sono elencate nell’Arsmaior, nelle Epistole e nella parte centrale delle Epitomi, per distribuire la materia in forme più omogenee e più agevolmente sovrapponibili.

In alcuni casi è possibile individuare affinità di argomenti (ma assai meno di teorie o di esposizione) che non sono certamente casuali, e potranno essere oggetto di utili ulteriori approfondimenti tendenti ad individuare la tecnica secondo cui ha operato lo scrittore; in altri invece non si è potuto far altro che esporre sinteticamente le sue posizioni, tralasciandone comunque gli aspetti più personali ed anomali. Si è ritenuto comunque che anche questo potesse riuscire utile ai fini di ulteriori ricerche che puntino a delineare con maggiore precisione i suoi rapporti con i testi grammaticali canonici.
Die verbalmodi in den grammatiken von manuel alvares (1572) und Bento Pereira (1672)
Authors: Schäfer Barbara
Published: November 2010

Der Artikel beschäftigt sich mit zwei Grammatiken portugiesischer Autoren, der Lateingrammatik De institutione grammatica libri tres von Manuel Alvares (1526–1583), die erstmals 1572 erschien, und der genau 100 Jahre später veröffentlichten lateinisch verfaßten Portugiesischgrammatik Ars grammaticae pro lingua lusitana addiscenda von Bento Pereira. Obwohl die Institutio, die als Lehrwerk der Jesuiten in ganz Europa Verbreitung fand, eine einsprachige Grammatik ist und als solche in Portugal schon seit dem 17. Jahrhundert kritisiert wurde, enthält zumindest die erste, in Lissabon erschienene Auflage zahlreiche Kommentare zum Portugiesischen, und zwar besonders im Kapitel über die Verbalmorphologie, wo Alvares sieben Modi ansetzt, denen er die lateinischen Verbformen und ihre portugiesischen Entsprechungen zuordnet. Bento Pereira (1605–1681), dessen Arte in erster Linie als Portugiesischlehrbuch für ausländische Missionare und Kaufleute, in zweiter als normative Grammatik für Portugiesen gedacht war, übernimmt weitgehend die Darstellung Alvares’, wobei nun die lateinischen Formen zur Übersetzung der portugiesischen dienen. Untersucht werden die Herkunft der Alvares’schen Moduskategorien und ihre Definitionen sowie die Zuordnung der lateinischen und besonders der portugiesischen Formen. Weiteres Interesse gilt den objektsprachlichen Informationen zum Portugiesischen des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts.
The origin and developmemt of generative semantics
Authors: Harris Randy Allen
Published: November 2010

Against the background of the controversial and polarized work of Frederick Newmeyer and Robin Tolmach Lakoff, this paper chronicles the early development of generative semantics, an internal movement within the transformational model of Chomsky’sAspects of the Theory of Syntax. The first suggestions toward the movement, whose cornerstone was the obliteration of the syntax-semantics boundary, were by George Lakoff in 1963. But it was the work conducted under the informal banner of “Abstract Syntax” by Paul Postal that began the serious investigations leading to such an obliteration. Lakoff was an active participant in that research, as were Robin Tolmach Lakoff, John Robert (“Háj”) Ross and James D. McCawley. Through their combined efforts, particularly those of McCawley on semantic primitives and lexical insertion, generative semantics took shape in 1967: positing a universal base, importing notions from predicate calculus, decomposing lexical structure, and, most contentiously, rejecting the central element of the Aspects model, deep structure.
An 18th-century Missionary Grammarian
Authors: Hewson John
Published: November 2010

Until the publication of the Micmac grammar of Father Pacifique (1939, 1990), the only published grammar of Micmac was that of Father Pierre-Antoine Maillard (c. 1710–1762), which although it was written early in the 18th century, was not published until the middle of the 19th century (1864). This work has formed the basis of all subsequent linguistic analysis of Micmac, since the missionary priests used it to help them learn the language, and Father Pacifique, in his 1939 grammar (which is today used as a handbook by those learning the language) acknowledges his profound debt to his distinguished predecessor.
Johann Michael Schmid und Die Pasigraphie
Authors: Sondermann Ernst F.
Published: November 2010

Das pasigraphische System von Johann Michael Schmid (1767–1821) ist zu Recht vergessen, da es zu willkürlich, folglich unhandlich war – wie die vielen Vorläufer-Modelle. Allerdings muß ihm bescheinigt werden, daß er länger und intensiver als die meisten Vorgänger um Anerkennung und Verbreitung seines Systems gerungen, also den Schritt von der Theorie zur Praxis gesucht hat. Doch zog er aus massiver Kritik nicht die nötigen Konsequenzen. Sein Scheitern markiert das Ende einer etwa 15-jährigen Periode verstärkter Anstrengungen mit verschiedenen universalsprachlichen Projekten in Deutschland. Wie alle Pasigraphen erlangte er keine öffentliche Unterstützung, so daß sein System mit ihm ein Ende fand und rasch in Vergessenheit geriet. Dennoch sollte sein Wirken für die Dokumentierung historischer Quellen zur Pasigraphie in seiner Zeitschrift, einschließlich der Würdigung von Leibniz durch den Abdruck aller zugänglichen Belege, erinnernswert bleiben.
Laura Soames’ contributions to phonetics
Authors: MacMahon Michael K. C.
Published: November 2010

Laura Soames (1840–1895) came to the attention of the teaching and phonetics professions through her work in applying phonetic principles to the teaching of reading and to the pronunciation of English and foreign languages. Lauded by many European phoneticians, she was despised by Henry Sweet – much to his discredit. Her publications, especially theIntroduction to Phonetics (English, French and German)(1891) andThe Child’s Key to Reading(1894) reveal a capacity to simplify the more technical expositions of phonetic theory in order to achieve a popular and readable exposition of the subject. Together with a number of other phoneticians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, she represents the bridge between the work of Henry Sweet (1845–1912) and Daniel Jones (1881–1967).
La grammaire contrastive franco-espagnole de la première moitié du xviiie siècle
Authors: Lépinette Brigitte
Published: November 2010

Nous analysons dans cet article six grammaires françaises éditées en Espagne dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle. Ces ouvrages pédagogiques, qui n’avaient pas jusqu’à maintenant, retenu l’attention des chercheurs modernes, sont étudiés ici, de façon parallèle, de la manière suivante. Tout d’abord, nous apportons des données biographiques sur l’auteur de chacune de ces grammaires. Nous présentons ensuite les titres complets des œuvres ainsi qu’une analyse de leurs parties préliminaires. Nous procédons alors àl’analyse proprement dite des contenus de la grammaire, tenant compte des informations concernant lettres et sons, morphologie, syntaxe et lexique, et replaçant l’ensemble de ces dernières dans le contexte de la grammaire pédagogique française de l’époque et par rapport à leurs sources. Nous nous arrêtons ensuite aux applications pédagogiques. En conclusion, nous soulignons la mutation subie par la grammaire française pédagogique dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle en Espagne. Sa visée et ses contenus se feront, de manière progressive plus spécifiquement contrastifs. D’autre part, en opposition avec la grammaire qui se développe en France à la même époque, elle n’acquerra pas de fonction formatrice pour les apprenants, et restera une activité considérée purement utilitaire.
Arte de hablar y pragmática
Authors: Mesa Joaquín
Published: November 2010

This paper deals with the work of the Spanish polygraph Eduardo Benot (1822–1907) and aims at an explanation of some the basic concepts of his grammatical theories. In particular, Benot’s choice of concepts (system, sign, and illocutionary function) is discussed from a modern functional and pragmatic perspective without, however, erasing the linguistic tradition of philosophical and ideological thought that informed his argument. Benot perceives ‘system’ as relational, the opposite of a mere composite of elements. His focus on relationships remains salient throughout his works; for instance, the concept of case, his classification of parts of speech, the fact that the clause is understood as the nuclear grammatical unit are evidence of his approach. Moreover, his particular view of sign and illocutionary function are evidence of his understanding of language as a socially interactive device. Indeed, it is argued that ‘intention’ is at the bottom of his analysis of the linguistic sign: two human minds are required for the linguistic sign to be fully realized. Whereas the first one exhibits and expresses communicative and informative intention, the second understands it. The author finds an astonishing similarity between Benot’s theories and those of modern-day language philosophers like H. P. Grice and others and their concepts of ‘illocutionary function’ and ‘illocutive force’. This similarity, the author holds, is not merely one of terminology, but of the notions of truth conditions and illocutive force within a proposition which were were handled quite similarly by Benot several generations earlier.
19th and 20th century theories of case
Authors: Cienki Alan
Published: November 2010

This article considers the similarities and differences between two types of semantically-based approaches to the study of grammatical case. One approach, which views the basic meanings of cases as spatial, stems from the localist hypothesis, which claims that spatial expressions serve as structural templates for other expressions. This view was most strongly espoused by certain German linguists in the 19th century, but has found support in the 20th century as well. The range of localist theories of case and the extent of the claims made by different localists are considered. These are compared and contrasted with contemporary approaches subsumed under the banner of ‘cognitive linguistics’. Research in this vein has focussed on the role of spatial notions in the semantics of case, but within a broader framework of human conceptualization. According to this view, space is only one of several domains which are basic to cognitive representation.
Daniel Jones, Paul Passy, and the development of the cardinal vowel system
Authors: Collins Beverley S. , Mees Inger M.
Published: November 2010

Developed in the first quarter of the present century, Daniel Jones’s (1881–1967) Cardinal Vowel theory has proved for many years to be the most popular and enduring model of vowel description. Only relatively recently have doubts about its shaky theoretical foundations – first expressed as early as 1928 by G. Oscar Russell – begun to impinge on the linguistic world. Paul Passy (1859–1940) emerges as the most significant direct influence on Jones, who modified Passy’s ideas and transformed them into a model for vowel description with notionally universal application. For some years, Jones appeared curiously reluctant to release full information about his scheme, probably because he was unable to obtain sufficient hard evidence in the form of radiological data to support his principle of equidistant articulatory steps between the Cardinal Vowels. Eventually, Jones was forced to retreat to a weaker version of his theory based on a combination of articulatory and auditory criteria.
Apprendre à Parler Une Langue Étrangère à la Renaissance
Authors: Caravolas Jean Antoine
Published: November 2010

À la Renaissance la pédagogie des langues est fortement influencée par l’Institution Oratoire de Quintilien. En règle générate, on apprend à parler le latin au collège, de manière formelle, par les règles, sans grand succès, semble-t-il. On apprend à parler les langues vivantes, d’habitude, hors de l’école, de manière informelle, par l’usage, mieux et plus rapidement. Àvec le recul du latin la conversation entre étrangers se déroule, de plus en plus, en une langue vivante. Vers la fin du XVIIe siècle, dans certains collèges, les langues modernes, étudiées jusque-là comme option, entrent dans le programme. Les maîtres qui les enseignent ajoutent alors à leur enseignement l’étude systématique de la grammaire. De leur côté, beaucoup de professeurs de collège, pour rendre l’étude du latin plus attrayante, accordent une plus grande place àl’enseignement de l’oral. L’introduction de cette méthode ‘mixte’ ou de ‘compromis’ mène rarement àl’amélioration de la compétence orale des élèves, en latin ou en langue vivante. Apprendre àparler une langue étrangère reste l’habileté la plus difficile à acquérir en milieu scolaire, peu importe la méthode utilisée.
Roman Jakobson and the history of Saussurean concepts in North American Linguistics
Authors: Falk Julia S.
Published: November 2010

Leonard Bloomfield was the major force in the initial dissemination of Saussurean concepts in North America (Joseph 1989a, Koerner 1989), but his role was limited to his middle years from 1922 to 1933, and for some time thereafter American linguists paid little attention to Saussure’sCours. In fact, studies on Saussure tend to move directly from Bloomfield to Noam Chomsky (e.g., Gadet 1989, Joseph 1990), with little discussion of the intervening quarter century in American linguistics. However, when Roman Jakobson arrived in New York in 1941, he brought with him a long record of commentary and criticism on Saussure’s ideas, and through his American teaching and publications, Jakobson became the next major source of attention to Saussure’s work. In this paper, I examine Jakobson’s complex positions on Saussure, with special attention to his first two decades in the United States. I then briefly consider Jakobson’s role in a third period of Saussurean concepts in the history of American linguistics, a period of revived interest that began in the late 1950s, engaging linguists from a diversity of theories and coinciding in the next decade with the republication of Jakobson’s European writings and with the rise of North American interest in the history of linguistics.
John Wallis on adjectives the discovery of phrase structure in the Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae (1653)
Authors: Isermann Michael
Published: November 2010

One of the typical features of the early grammars of European vernaculars is their sketchy treatment of syntactic phenomena. The reason for this neglect is obvious: The steady orientation of grammarians towards the traditional word-class approach virtually necessitated the persistence of the view of a sentence as a linear arrangement of words. Though historians of grammar have acknowledged John Wallis’(1616–1703) attempt at freeing the grammar of English from the strait jacket of Latin grammar, they have seen his Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae (1653) in the word-based grammar tradition. In this paper I argue that beyond the fairly traditional organization and terminology of Wallis’ grammar lies a fundamentally different approach: Instead of basing his description of English on a fixed word-class system, Wallis seems to arrive at syntactic categories via the criteria of distribution and substitution. It is these criteria (which are constantly applied rather than stated) that lead Wallis to the discovery of phrases and their internal structure. Especially consistent and concise in this regard is Wallis’ description of the structure of the noun phrase in the chapter on “The adjectives”.
The interjection as a grammatical category in John Wilkins’ philosophical language
Authors: Nate Richard
Published: November 2010

Considering the fact that John Wilkins (1614–1672) constructed his artificial language as a mirror of reality, which should be based on logical principles, the incorporation of the interjection into his Natural Grammar seems surprising. It is probable that Wilkins kept the interjection as a grammatical category because it belonged to the fixed canon of the eight parts of speech in traditional Latin grammars. Moreover, interjections were conceived of as immediate, i.e., natural, expressions of feelings and were held to be universal. Wilkins’ description of interjections shows that he is aware of their pragmatic functions. His classification is based on communicative principles. In constructing his artificial writing system, however, Wilkins adheres to his rationalistic position and transforms the interjections into purely referential signs. Thus, his grammatical analysis reveals insights into the pragmatic functions of language for which there was no room in an artificial language based on logical principles.
The Linguistic Naturalism of Theophrastus Redivivus (1659?)
Authors: Gensini Stefano
Published: November 2010

This paper deals with the linguistic subjects in Theophrastus redivivus (1659?), an anonymous masterpiece of French Free-thinkers movement. Attention is paid, firstly, to the criticism of the concept of god, whose existence is denied mainly on linguistic grounds; secondly, to the anti-Cartesian discussion of the alleged ‘primacy’ of humans, which also is denied with the argument that all animals share both reason and extrinsic discourse, although in forms different from ours. Particular attention is given to the argumentative structure of TR, which reveals an original fusion of Epicurean epistemology and of suggestions borrowed from the ancient Naturalism, notably as found in Aristotle’s Historia animalium
‘Innere Sprachform’ Humboldts Grenzbegriff, Steinthals Begriffsgrenze
Authors: Di Cesare Donatella
Published: November 2010

Der vorliegende Aufsatz untersucht die Frage nach dem besonderen Beitrag Heymann Steinthals (1823–1899) zur Interpretation der Sprachauffassung Wilhelm von Humboldts (1767–1835). Er argumentiert, daß bei seinem fast lebenslänglichen Bemuhen, den wirklichen hinter dem idealen, ‘mystischen’ und genialen Humboldt zu erhellen, Steinthal den Versuch untemimmt, Humboldts Gegensatz zwischen Empirie und Theorie zu iiberwinden. Dies soil auf dem nach seiner Begegnung mit Moritz Lazarus (1824–1903) eingeschlagenen sprachpsychologischen Weg geschehen. Humboldts ‘mystischer Dualismus’ – für Steinthal ein Überrest der kantischen Philosophic – wird aber einfach durch einen herbartisierten Hegelismus ersetzt: In seinem Versuch, Humboldt dialektisch zu vollenden, seinen Dualismus dadurch aufzulösen, daß er die Empirie gegenüber der Theorie die Oberhand gewinnen läßt, um Humboldt einen guten empirischen Schritt weiterzubringen, fällt Steinthal im Endergebnis einen ganzen metaphyischen Schritt zurück, indem er das trennt, was Humboldt zusammenhält, und dabei zu einem substantiellen Dualismus zwischen Außerem und Innerem, ja zu einem Vorrang des Inneren, Geistlichen vor dem Außeren, Sinnlichen gelangt. Hauptpunkt der unuberbrückbaren Distanz zwischen Steinthal und Humboldt ist der Begriff der ‘inneren Sprachform’. Während die ‘innere Sprachform’ bei Humboldt einen Grenzbegriff darstellt, so erweist sie sich paradoxerweise bei Steinthal als eine Begriffsgrenze, die letzlich der Grenze seines Psychologismus gleichkommt.
From Maine de Biran to the ‘Motor Theory’ of speech
Authors: Albano Leoni Federico , Dovetto Francesca M.
Published: November 2010

The basic idea of the modern Motor Theory of Speech Perception (Liberman et al. 1963) is that “the perception of speech is tightly linked to the feedback from the speaker’s own articulatory movements”. In this paper we try to show how the same idea was already formulated by the French philosopher Maine de Biran (1805) and taken up in the second half of the 19th century by psychologists (like Steinthal) and linguists (like Kruszewski and Paul). However, whereas in the 19th century the articulatory point of view was not only dominant, but also the only one incorporated in a general theory of language, in the 20th century the articulatory perspective is supplemented by the acoustic one (cf. Malmberg 1967). This was only hinted at by Ferdinand de Saussure in the Cours, but fully expressed in Jakobson & Halle (1956). In this respect, Liberman’s Motor Theory is to be considered much less original than it has been claimed.
The immediate sources of the ‘Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis’
Authors: Joseph John E.
Published: November 2010

A scholarly consensus traces the roots of the ‘Sapir-Whorf hypothesis’ to German language theory of the late 18th to early 19th century, which connects the ‘inner form’ of a language with the potential for cultural achievement of the nation that speaks it. This paper attempts to complexify that genealogy by exploring more immediate sources of the idea that one’s native language determines individual and cultural patterns of thought. In the version of this idea held by Herder and Humboldt, called here the ‘magic key’ view, language is seen as embodying the national mind and unfolding in line with the Romantic (Hegelian) theory of history. But there is another version, here dubbed ‘metaphysical garbage’, which envisions language developing within an evolutionary view of history and introducing obstacles to logical thought. This view was a commonplace of Cambridge analytical philosophy (Whitehead & Russell) and Viennese logical positivism (Carnap). A key Cambridge-Vienna link was C. K. Ogden, whose series included books by the leaders of both groups, and whose own bookThe Meaning of Meaning(with I. A. Richards, 1923) – the subtitle of which beginsThe influence of language on thought – synthesizes many of their positions. Sapir’s positive review of this book marks a turning point from his view of language as a cultural product (as inLanguage, 1921) to a sort of template around which the rest of culture is structured, as in his “The Status of Linguistics as a Science” (1929). This paper, like others of Sapir’s writings from 1923 on, takes up the rhetoric of metaphysical garbage almost exclusively. Whorf, drawn by Sapir to structuralism from originally mystical interests in language, likewise takes up the ‘garbage’ line, interweaving it with ‘magic key’ only in the two years between Sapir’s death and his own. Other influences on Whorf s views are examined, including Korzybski’s General Semantics, to which he has intriguing connections.
Wilhelm von Humboldt, Edward Sapir, and the constructivist framework
Authors: Erickson Jon , Gymnich Marion , Nünning Ansgar
Published: November 2010

Striking similarities between Edward Sapir’s views on language and those of Wilhelm von Humboldt have long been apparent. Because of the avoidance of documentation in his writings, however, it has proved to be impossible to demonstrate the extent of Sapir’s direct familiarity with the works of Humboldt and his commitment to a Humboldtian language philosophy. Rather than pursuing the question of how Sapir might have been influenced by Humboldt, the present article explores the Sapirian philosophical framework for the treatment of both language and culture in comparison with that found in the works of Humboldt. It is shown that even without direct evidence of the influence of the works of Humboldt on Sapir it is possible to see in Sapir’s writings on language, cultural anthropology, and even aesthetics a commitment to a general constructivist philosophical framework remarkably similar to that found in Humboldt.
Andrés Bello
Authors: Obediente Enrique , D’Introno Francesco
Published: November 2010

In this article we will analyze two aspects of Andrés Bello’s (1781–1865) grammatical thought: its relation to the English empiricists and its similarity with generative grammar. His relation to the English empiricists is due to the fact that Bello spent 19 years in London, where he became familiar with the work of Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Reid. In fact his philosophical work, Filosofía del entendimiento, sounds like some of those philosophers’ essays. From the empiricists Bello derives the idea that there is no innate universal grammar with rules present in all languages, as well as his concept of language as an independent system of arbitrary and conventional signs. From Reid he derived his interpretation of the evolution of the language: signs start as ‘natural’ (i.e., they allow humans to communicate without any particular language), and then they become ‘artificial’, i.e., arbitrary and conventional, particular to each grammatical system. Because of his philosophical position, Bello has been compared to structuralist linguists. Here we will show that some of Bello’s grammatical thoughts can be compared with those of Chomsky. The reason for this is that in his grammatical analysis Bello uses concepts reminiscent of generative grammar. For example, Bello proposes the notion of an ‘latent proposition’ similar to that of ‘deep sttaicture’. And when he analyzes for example relative clauses and elliptical constructions, he uses concepts that are familiar to generative grammarians. In other words, the paper tries to show that methodologically and analytically Bello shares some concepts present in Chomsky’s linguistic theory. It also shows differences between Bello and Chomsky, and concludes by pointing out that the major difference between the two linguists is that Bello assumes language can be learned through a symbolic system, while Chomsky assumes language to be innate and independent of other cognitive systemsof the mind.
Polysemy
Authors: Nerlich Brigitte , Clarke David D.
Published: November 2010

40 years ago Stephen Ullmann wrote that polysemy was the pivot of semantics. He was referring then to traditional synchronic and diachronic semantics. Nowadays, some 40 years later, polysemy has again become a central topic in cognitive semantics. This article traces the history of this important concept, from Antiquity to the first half of the 20th century. Bréal’s treatment of polysemy is the pivot around which the article itself turns, as it was Bréal who invented the term ‘polysemy’ a century ago.
Lexicography in Poland
Authors: Piotrowski Tadeusz
Published: November 2010

The paper sketches the history of Polish lexicography and the most important dictionaries of Polish from the beginnings in the late Middle Ages, until the present. The focus is on monolingual dictionaries, while bi- and multilingual publications are touched upon only insofar as they constitute significant contributions to the development of monolingual dictionaries. The paper stresses the continuity of some solutions which relate above all to the opposition between prescriptivism and liberalism. Individual dictionaries are discussed against a wide cultural background. The evolution of lexicographic methods and techniques too is treated. Much space has been given to the discussion of the situation after 1990, the year when Poland re-gained its sovereignty, and when dictionary publishers, like other entrepreneurs, endeavoured to adjust to new market conditions. The pros and cons of the impact of such commercial behaviour on dictionary production are touched upon, and an attempt is made to predict the near future of dictionary-making in Poland.
Jan Baudouin De Courtenay’s contribution to Linguistic Theory
Authors: Adamska-Sałaciak Arleta
Published: November 2010

The extent of Jan Baudouin de Courtenay’s (1845–1929) contribution to general linguistic theory is still hard to assess. He never wrote a major synthetic work, nor has the bulk of his production been translated into English. Thanks primarily to Jakobson, at least his formative influence on modern phonology is generally acknowledged. Fewer linguists are aware of the relevance of Baudouin’s teaching for the study of language change. His conceptualisation of the nature of change, its causes and goals, and the role played in it by the language system, all seem of more than merely historical interest to the theoretically-minded diachronic linguist.
Onomastics in Poland
Authors: Gala Sławomir
Published: November 2010

The paper deals with onomastics as a branch of linguistics, its subject matter, scope of research, methodology, and relations to other branches of linguistics, such as language history, dialectology, as well as other fields, for example, history. The second part of the paper presents particular periods of onomastic research in chronological order. A systematic development of the discipline is shown through bibliographic examples and mention of the most important scientific organizations and institutions. The essence of the qualitative development of Polish onomastics consists in undertaking ever new problems which attest to the broadening of the scope of research to include new classes of speech signs recognized as nomina propria. Also essential is undertaking theoretical issues – the place and function of proper names in the system of language. A list of research desiderata concludes the discussion.
Jerzy Kuryłowicz (26 August 1895 – 28 January 1978)
Authors: Rusek Jerzy
Published: November 2010

This biographical sketch of the life and work of Jerzy Kuryłowicz (1895–1978) is followed by appraisals by two other former students of his, one devoted to his contribution as an Indo-Europeanist, the other to his work as a general linguist. A select list of Kuryłowicz’s publication rounds out the picture of this century’s greatest Polish scholar in the science of language.
Logic of language and philosophy of language in 20th-century Poland
Authors: Pelc Jerzy
Published: November 2010

The logic of language and the philosophy of language in 20th-century Poland ran in two mainstreams, the so-called Lvov-Warsaw school and and that of phenomenological thought. The former was dominant, the latter was represented mainly by the work of Roman Ingarden (1903–1970). Among works of the Lvov-Warsaw school, the present paper considers the most important achievements of its founder, Kazimierz Twardowski (1866–1938), and the oldest generation of his disciples: Leśniewski (1886–1939), Kotarbiński (1886–1981), Ajdukiewicz (1890–1963), and Izydora Dąmbska (1904–1983), as well as Alfred Tarski (1902–1983) who, in philosophy, was a disciple of Jan Łukasiewicz (1878–1956), Leśniewski and Kotarbiński. The paper is limited to the discussion of the most important of their reflections on natural language, in particular to what is most characteristic of them: elaborated and deep analyses of semantic sections connected with epistemological ones, and pragmatic sections connected with psychological ones, all presented with great attention to clarity, precision and comprehensibility of formulations. Major semantic conceptions of Ingarden were also mentioned: the theory of meaning as a relation between an intending object and an intentional object, as well as semantic differences between a name, verb and sentence.
Die Semantischen Kasustheorben von Louis Hjelmslev und Roman Jakobson und Ihre Herkunft
Authors: Bartschat Brigitte
Published: November 2010

In den dreißiger Jahren dieses Jahrhunderts erarbeitete die strukturelle Linguistik Methoden für die sprachinterne, typologische und universalistische Forschung. Im Zentrum standen dabei Untersuchungen an je einem Sprachsystem, in diesem Beitrag wird jedoch den ‘allgemeinen Kasustheorien’ mit universalistischem Anspruch nachgegangen. Ausgangspunkt sind die Publikationen von Louis Hjelmslev (1899–1965) und Roman Jakobson (1896–1982). Beide Forscher beschrieben ‘Kasus’ in den dreißiger Jahren semantisch, indem sie unterschiedliche (aber kompatible) Mengen semantischer Merkmale ansetzten. Diese semantische, nicht morphologische Herangehensweise markierte den Beginn der Semantik der Grammatik.
Un Problème de Phonologie en 1922
Authors: Patri Sylvain
Published: November 2010

Une lettre inédite adressée par Jakobson à Meillet à l‘occasion de la parution, en 1922, duVers tchèque(ouvrage en réalité inachevé) apporte un nouvel éclairage sur les conditions d’élaboration de la notion de phonéme. Elle permet de vérifier qu’au début de ses recherches, en dépit de son adhésion déclarée aux vues des ‘linguistes français contemporains (i.e., saussuriens)’, Jakobson, en accord – implicite – avec les thèses des élèves pétersbourgeois de Baudouin de Courtenay, a longtemps conçu le phonème comme une entité strictement différentielle, sans prendre en compte sa dimension relationnelle ou son intégration dans un système fini. En suivant les applications concrètes dérivant de cette conception, d’ailleurs largement partagée par Troubetzkoy (loi sur quantité syllabique et mobilité accentuelle, notamment), jusqu’à leur dépassement, au début des années 1930, on discerne que le problème central de la théorisation phonologique au long des années 1920 aura consisté à élaborer la relation entre unité (le phonème) et structure en niveaux hiérarchiques (le système phonologique).
On comparing linguistic theories
Authors: Huck Geoffrey J. , Goldsmith John A.
Published: November 2010

The article examines several issues raised in recent critiques ofIdeology and Linguistic Theory(Huck & Goldsmith 1995) and finds no reason either to reject or to revise the original conclusion that Interpretivist arguments purporting to establish the superiority of Interpretive Semantics over Generative Semantics were weak and were justifiably dismissed by proponents of the latter. It also briefly discusses the particular use of the term ‘ideology’ and its application in an analysis of linguistic thought.
L’universalité de la Langue Française dans les Grammaires de Français pour les Espagnols et dans les Dictionnaires Bilingues Antérieurs à 1815
Authors: Cuevas Manuel Bruña
Published: November 2010

Nous avons cherché des commentaires relatifs au caractère universel de la langue française dans le corpus constitué par les grammaires de français pour Espagnols et par les dictionnaires français-espagnol publiés avant 1815. Notre analyse nous a révélé que, lorsqu’ils apparaissent dans un de ces ouvrages (ce qui n’est pas toujours le cas, notamment aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles), l’enthousiasme dont fait preuve l’auteur du commentaire dans la défense de la suprématie du français sur les autres langues varie de façon significative selon qu’il est espagnol ou français et selon le lieu d’édition de l’oeuvre. Les ouvrages d’auteurs espagnols publiés en Espagne montrent souvent (surtout au XVIIIe siècle) un souci de défense des mérites de la langue espagnole, visant à équilibrer la reconnaissance avouée de l’universalité de la langue française. La recherche de cet équilibre finira par donner lieu, à la fin de notre période d’étude, notamment chez Antonio de Capmany (1742–1813), à une défense farouche de l’espagnol, accompagnée d’attaques directes contre le français.
Le dictionnaire de l’abbé de l’épée et les ‘signes méthodiques’
Authors: Fischer Renate
Published: November 2010

L’objectif de cette contribution est d’examiner le statut linguistique des ‘signes méthodiques’ de l’abbé de L’Épée (1712–1789), son dictionnaire à l’appui. Ces signes apparaissent comme la tentative d’établir un code visuogestif dont la tâche essentielle est de rendre les ‘idées’ et qui, du point de vue de sa fontion et de sa structure, ne saurait être identifié au français, au français signé ou à la langue des signes française.
Franz Boas’ early northwest coast alphabet
Authors: Mackert Michael
Published: November 2010

During his work for the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS), Franz Boas (1858–1942) designed a phonetic alphabet for the Native American languages of British Columbia in his correspondence with Horatio Hale (1817–1896), who had been entrusted with the supervision of Boas’ activities. This correspondence is of importance because it provides a record of the formation of Boas’ alphabet and documents Hale’s role in this process. Boas’ correspondence and linguistic publications on Inuftitut and Bella Coola which preceded his BAAS reports show that he was already familiar with the conventions used in the alphabets of Kleinschmidt (1851), Lepsius (1863), and Rink (1884, 1887–1891) when he began fieldwork for the BAAS. His letters to John W. Powell (1834–1902) and Hale give further testimony that he was also acquainted with the alphabets of F. M. Müller (1854), Powell (1880), and Techmer (1884). In his dialogue with Hale, Boas expressed his dissatisfaction with the existing transcription systems, which he considered impracticable or deficient. Boas envisioned a scientific phonetic alphabet based on his psycholinguistic theory of phonetics. He was particularly concerned with the accurate representation of schwa, of different series of fricatives and stops, and of so-called synthetic or alternating sounds, which he encountered in the Native American languages of British Columbia. Both Boas and Hale believed future work would not corroborate the existence of surd-sonants (voiceless-voiced sounds) as members of triple series of consonants consisting of surds, surd-sonants, and sonants. Boas did not deny the existence of surd-sonants, but, within his theory of phonetics, he considered them as sounds that were alternately apperceived as being voiced and voiceless. Boas’ first version of his BAAS alphabet and his introductory remarks to the phonetics of the Native American languages described in his BAAS reports show that practical considerations (simplicity, readability, quotability, and availability of types) and Boas’ psycholinguistic interpretation of surd-sonants took priority over the latter’s concerns for an accurate scientific transcription system.
Floyd Glenn Lounsbury, 1914–1998
Authors: Chafe Wallace
Published: November 2010

Floyd G. Lounsbury (1914–1998), one of the 20th century’s most influential anthropological linguistics, will be remembered especially for his contributions to three major areas of scholarship: Iroquoian linguistics, the analysis of kinship systems, and the decipherment of Mayan hieroglyphs. His earliest Iroquoian work was with the Oneida language in Wisconsin, and his description of the verb morphology of Oneida became the basis for all future studies of Iroquoian languages, many of them carried forward by his students. His analyses of Native American and other kinship systems in terms of semantic ‘components’ were central to the development of componential analysis in linguistic anthropology during the 1950s and 1960s. He was a pioneer in the phonetic interpretation of Mayan hieroglyphs, relating them to the grammatical structures of Mayan languages as well as to the astronomical and mathematical systems that formed much of the content of Mayan texts.
More on gatekeepers and Noam Chomsky's writings of the 1950s
Authors: Murray Stephen O.
Published: November 2010

According to the author’s findings, the only rejection of an article that Noam Chomsky submitted to a linguistics journal came from the senior editor ofWord, André Martinet (1908–1999), who was an adamant foe of neo-Bloomfieldianism, while leading neo-Bloomfieldians, particularly the key gatekeeper, Bernard Bloch (1907–1965), the editor ofLanguage, welcomed his early work and a momentous explication of it by Robert B. Lees (1922–1996). The present paper reveals documentary evidence that the alleged ‘main work’ that ‘couldn’t get published’ was actively sought by at least two book publishers early on, and that if it was blocked, it was blocked by Chomsky’s failure to deliver the contracted manuscript ofThe Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory(LSLT) at the time.
Syntactic concepts and terminology in mid-20th century American Linguistics
Authors: McCawley James D.
Published: November 2010

This paper deals with the notions and terminology that figure in the syntactic works of Bloomfield, Fries, Hockett, Gleason, and early Chomsky. Notwithstanding Bloomfield’s commitment to constituent structure and his profound influence on syntactic research in the United States, constituency had a surprisingly peripheral role in such works as Fries (1952) “Immediate constituents” (is the last of its syntactic chapters) and notions of dependency structure a much more central role. Many false generalizations by descriptivists (e.g., treatments of Therer-insertion as inversion) result from a failure to consider complex expressions as constituents of the various constructions. Notwithstanding descriptivists’ denunciations and generativists’ endorsements of traditional grammar, it is the descriptivists whose syntactic category notions came closer to those of traditional grammar. The unusual category scheme of Fries did not deviate all that much from traditional schemes, and its innovations were not applied consistently. 1960s generative syntax shared with Fries’s approach a conception of gender features and referential indices in English as borne by Ns rather than by NPs, and a failure to treat inter- and intra-saentential anaphora uniformly. Gleason (1965) is the most honorable exception to the dismal quality of this era’s literature on parts of speech.
Samuel Greene
Authors: Perlman Alan M.
Published: November 2010

In his studies of the structure of the English language, Samuel Green, a 19th-century grammarian and educator, made extensive use of paraphrase as a descriptive device. This paper argues that in doing so, Greene anticipated some of the methods and concepts of early transformational theory — and even some of the transformations themselves. It first presents a short history of the concept “transformation”, then discusses the transformations in four of Greene’s works. Greene’s use of transformations follows plausibly from his view of language, as is shown by excerpts from the prefaces to his books. Greene’s status as a transformationalist is then reconsidered with reference to the characteristics of transformations as inferred in the early part of this paper. Comparisons with other 19th- and early 20th-century grammarians demonstrate that Greene was unusual in his concern for underlying meaning and in his use of process in linguistic description.