bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Ramón Menéndez Pidal as Etymologist
Authors: Malkiel Yakov
Published: November 2010

Like most Romance scholars of his generation, Ramón Menéndez Pidal was an accomplished etymologist. In most instances, his etymological verdicts enter into broader historico-grammatical, dialectological, and narrowly philological investigations, from which they can be laboriously distilled. Nevertheless, one also discovers exercises, of varying length, in ‘pure etymology’. The most important, among these, are (a) a string of etymological notes w>hich appeared as a single article in a French journal, in 1900; (b) the book-length glossary included in his monumental edition of the Cantar de Mio Cid (1908–11); (c) the extended review article (1920) devoted to the original edition of W. Meyer-Lübke’s Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch; and (d) a major section of the Orígenes del español – the book that marks the author’s summit in matters of linguistic analysis and betrays a thoroughly personal style. The material subjected to assessment shows the major progress achieved by the author in a quarter-century of continued growth.
Sprache und Denken Bei Wundt, Paul und Marty Ein Beitrag Zur Problemgeschichte Der Sprachpsychologie
Authors: Knobloch Clemens
Published: November 2010

The paper recaptures, on the basis of one of the central issues of the discussion, namely, the relationship between thought and speech, the psychlin-guistic controversy between Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920), Hermann Paul (1846–1921), and Anton Marty (1847–1914) at the turn of this century. The basic tenets of all three theories are presented, their assumptions analysed, and their respective fruitfulness (or lack of it) put forward. After redressing the distorted picture of Wundt’s position in the recent historiography of psycholingu-istics, it is shown that Wundt’s model of an expression-oriented approach, which in effect identifies categories of linguistic surface structure with those of an inner psychological nature, remains circular and not amenable to further development. Hermann Paul, though making use of a similar procedure, is opposed to Wundt’s (as well as Heymann Steinthal’s (1823–1899) social psychology orVölkerpsychologie), favouring instead the individual as the locus of linguistic events (and hence linguistic analysis), thereby playing down the importance of linguistic intercourse and communication in language acquisition and historical development. Finally, in Marty’s theories the contradiction between his reliance on 19th-century event-directed psychology and a rather modern functional conception of language is most evident. Marty wants, unlike Wundt and Paul, to distinguish clearly between genetic and systematic questions. But while recognizing the complementarity of event expression and control of comprehension on the part of the hearer, he does not do so in the case of the linguistic representation of ‘objects and events’. In an attempt to escape from the naive homology of thinking and grammar, Marty argues in favour of a complete separation of the two mental activities. The paper argues that the common psychological premisses of these authors must be considered if the differences between them are to be understood, since it is just these particular premises that lie in the way of an adequate comprehension of problems of semantics and of communication.
“Etymologia Est Origo Vocabulorum…”
Authors: Schweickard Wolfgang
Published: November 2010

The study wants to contribute to the explication of Isidore of Sevilla’s conception of etymology starting with the definition “Etymologia est origo vocabulorum, cum vis verbi vel nominis per interpretationem colligitur” (Etym.I, xxix, 1). At first sight the problem of interpretation results from the contradiction between the static character of the principal clause (est origo)and the dynamic character of the subordinate clause (colligitur). This contradiction is resolved in favour of the dynamic aspect by changingorigointooriginatioon the basis of a teleological and historical interpretation. In a second step, an attempt has been made to arrive at a comprehensive assessment of the definition by interpreting the constituents of the subordinate clause and by defining its relation with the principal clause. The first question concerns the function of the conjunctioncum(the hypothesis of a conditional nexus is rejected from the first); in the course of the examination of this problem the constituents of the subordinate clause are analyzed (in particularinterpretatioandvis).As tointerpretatioit is shown that it corresponds to the justification of theorigo(“Stellae dictae a stando, quia fixae stant in caelo nec cadunt”);visis then described as a relational notion that is defined by the relation between the semantic contents of theorigoand an actual characteristic property of the thing. Finally an examination of Isidore’s actual proceeding demonstrates that the knowledge ofvisresults immediately from the knowledge of theorigo(originatio) and theinterpretatio.Consequently, the conjunctioncumcan be defined ascum coincidens.
Centenaire D’Une Naissance
Authors: Valin Roch
Published: November 2010

Mettant tous ses soins à ne pas séparer l’homme de l’oeuvre et à suivre rigoureusement l’ordre chronologique des événements, l’auteur de l’article se propose de satisfaire au moins partiellement la curiosité croissante qu’a suscitée, au cours des deux dernières décennies, la vie de ce linguiste pas tout à fait comme les autres qu’a été Gustave Guillaume. Il a pu s’aider dans son travail, pour préciser certains faits et certaines dates, de l’essai inédit de biographie entrepris en 1980, comme mémoire de licence à la Vrije Universiteit Brussel, par Karine Vitrier, sous la direction de Marc Wilmet, auteur de Gustave Guillaume et son école linguistique (1978). Il a aussi tiré parti de la documentation rassemblée au Fonds Gustave Guillaume de l’Université Laval, à quoi il n’a pas hésité à joindre, comme sources, les souvenirs accumulés au cours d’une longue intimité avec le savant et son entourage immédiat, au cours des dix dernières années de sa vie. Ce qui est ici proposé au lecteur n’est en quelque sorte – plus n’étant pas pour l’instant possible – que l’embryon à partir duquel une vraie biographie pourra un jour s’écrire. En attendant mieux, on trouvera dans ces pages un éclairage un peu intimiste sur l’homme, dont on espère qu’il permettra une lecture moins désincarnée d’une oeuvre par maints côtés abrupte, difficile et austère.
A Century of Research in Franco-Provençal and Poitevin
Authors: Klingebiel Kathryn
Published: November 2010

Within the Gallo-Romance domain, Franco-Provençal and its western correlate Poitevin have been variously labeled ‘independent languages’, ‘dialects of French’, or ‘dialects of oc’. At least one attempt has been made to link these two lateral entities against both the north and the south. A historical survey of these conflicting claims encompasses non-partisan methodologies such as dialect geography and linguistic atlases as well as theoretical developments affecting Romance studies during the last one hundred years. Late 19th century research had not yet resolved antinomies between speech and script or between dialect study and historical grammar. Recent research into time and direction of Romanization, significantly clarifying the bi-(or tri-)partitioning of Gaul, has complemented increasingly sophisticated work in all these fields. Yet frequent overemphasis on segmentation, coupled with a failure to distinguish shared linguistic fate from ‘language’ in its general Romance acception, cannot be allowed to obscure the fact that both FP and Poitevin belong to Gallo-Romance; the successful investigation of either must continue to mesh grammar, lexis, scripta, and geohistory.
‘In the interstices of procedure’
Authors: Watkins Calvert
Published: November 2010

“Ancient law is hidden in the interstices of procedure” (Sir Henry Sumner Maine). We examine three Indo-European linguistic and cultural analogs form the sphere of legal language, each illustrating a different approach to comparative Indo-European Law. 1) structural: The forms of oath for the three non-servile castes in Hindu law, satyena, vāhānayudhaih, gobījakāñcanaih (Mn.8.113) reflect the hierarchy of Dumézil’s idéologie des trois functions. Parallels for the second and third are noted in Old Norse, Old Irish, and archaic Latin oaths. 2) lexical: Cretan Greek (peuthen), Germanic (*beudan) and Old Irish (ad-boind) agree in attesting forms of the root *bheudh- in the meaning ‘give legal notice (of), announce, proclaim.’ This meaning is inherited and part of the semantics of Indo-European active transitive *bhunédh-ti (*bhunéddhi). 3) institutional: The ‘Pecularly Roman’ opposition of res mancipi/res nec mancipi reflects a traditional hierarchy in the categories of property which is of Common Indo-European origin: large cattle, man, land. Indian law in the sanctions of false witness (Mn. 13.14–16) and Old Iranian law in the classes of contract (Vd. 4.1–4) both make reference to the identical hierarchy of the categories of property, as a traditional ‘yardstick’. By the tenets of the comparative method, these three traditional hierarchies, all equally arbitrarily within their own culture, require the postulation of a common original.
Apollonius and maximus on the order and meaning of the oblique cases
Authors: Blank David L.
Published: November 2010

Apollonius Dyscolus’ science of syntax examines the expression of meanings and is founded on the assumption that the system of meanings and expressions is well ordered. The order of the various expressions involving cases is based on the logic of what they express, and therefore the order of verbal predicates and of spatial relations must not be confused with the order of the case-forms in which they are expressed. Just such a confusion lies behind the passage in which Maximus Planudes is commonly thought to have originated a “localist” theory of case: a summary of the introduction to Apollonius’ Syntax, in which the order of the cases received a passing mention, is embellished by Maximus with material adapted (by way of Heliodorus) from Apollonius’ discussion of the order of spatial relations, each of which may be expressed by a certain case. Besides being unoriginal and misguided in its interpretation of Apollonius, the resulting exposition of Maximus is not even a “localist” theory of case-meaning, as has often been uncritically claimed.
Late latin grammars in the early middle ages
Authors: Law Vivien
Published: November 2010

The popularity, and hence survival, of certain of the grammars of late Antiquity in the early Middle Ages can to a large extent be described in typological terms. The two principal ancient genres, the Schulgrammatik and the regulae type, were joined in the fifth century by a new genre, the grammatical commentary. The overwhelming importance of Donatus and commentaries on Donatus and the emergence of the elementary foreign-language grammar in the seventh and eighth centuries reveal the subsistence level of language study in early Christendom. The conceptually more challenging grammars of the regulae type, as well as shorter works of the Schulgrammatik type, suffered a temporary eclipse. The greater linguistic confidence of the Carolingian Renaissance shifted the balance toward works of a more varied and demanding nature. Priscian’s Partitiones and Institutiones grammaticae re-entered circulation and in the next few centuries were assiduously excerpted and glossed. Ancient Donatus commentaries were superseded by newly-written ones and were joined by Carolingian commentaries on the principal authors of the regulae type, Phocas and Eutyches. Shorter grammars of the Schulgrammatik type and minor regulae grammars enjoyed a brief return to favour in the first half of the ninth century but failed to establish themselves in the curriculum. Instead, Carolingian teachers devoted themselves to the development of another new genre, the parsing grammar, which was to survive well into the sixteenth century.

The survival pattern of Late Latin grammars thus reflects the priorities of the early Middle Ages. In an environment in which the Latin language, and with it basic literacy, were barely established, the theoretical disquisitions of Varro and Priscian were irrelevant and unhelpful. Many ancient grammatical texts were undoubtedly lost at the end of Antiquity, during the transition from papyrus to parchment; others may well have disappeared in the pre-Carolingian period, when the demands of elementary language teaching were uppermost. This was the final hurdle: those ancient grammars which survived to the Carolingian Renaissance are virtually all available today.
The influence of Pānini on Leonard Bloomfield
Authors: Rogers David E.
Published: November 2010

Leonard Bloomfield’s synchronic grammatical works were heavily nfluenced by the sixth century B.C. Indian grammarian Pānini. Word for-mation, compounds, suppletion, zero, form-classes, and generality and specificity in Bloomfield’sLanguage, Eastern Ojibwa,andThe Menomini Languageare correlated with their counterparts in Pānini’s grammar of Sanskrit. Selections from a manuscript of Bloomfield’s translation and annotation of theKasika, a traditional Sanskrit work on Pānini’s grammar, provide concrete evidence for the influence of Panini on Bloomfield.
Bloomfield as Dialectologist
Authors: Moulton William G.
Published: November 2010

Although Bloomfield published only one article and one book-review devoted specifically to dialectology, the study of dialects and their function in human communication was fundamental in his work. In his 1933 Language, four chapters deal in part or in whole with dialectology: 3, “Speech-communities”, 19, “Dialect Geography”, 22, “Fluctuation in Frequency of Forms”; and 27, “Dialect Borrowing”. In these, he drew extensively on the work of his predeccessors, especially on that of G.G. Kloeke in the Dutch-Flemish area. Furthermore, he made a major, though badly neglected, contribution to the analysis of dialects, by advocating and applying (in his article “Initial [k-] in German”, Language 14.178–186 [1938] a phonemic rather than a phonetic approach to the delimitation of dialect-areas and their historical interpretation.
Quelques remarques sur l’histoire de la linguistique
Authors: Christmann Hans Helmut
Published: November 2010

Le but de ces remarques sur l’histoire de la linguistique est très modeste, – poser quelques questions de principe, discuter quelques points de vue récents et en tirer quelques conclusions, non pas pour trancher les problèmes une fois pour toutes, mais plutôt pour provoquer une discussion méthodologique: L’histoire de la linguistique est-elle une discipline nouvelle? Est-elle bien une discipline proprement dite? Quelles sont les qualités requises pour travailler dans ce domaine? Comment en délimiter le sujet ou les sujets? Et quels sont les buts de celui qui s’occupe de l’histoire de la linguistique?
La Découverte de la Racine Trilitère en Sémitique par L’idéologue Volney
Authors: Rousseau Jean
Published: November 2010

La contribution de Constantin François Volney (1757–1820) aux études sémitiques est plus que négliguée. Malgré ses travers, son analyse morphé-matique de la racine arabe et hébraïque est pourtant la plus élaborée qui ait précédée la mise au point de Franz Bopp. Cette rupture avec une longue, et quasi immuable, tradition est redevable à son expérience de la langue orale, mais surtout à sa méthode, fondée sur les principes de l’Idéologie, et soucieuse de pertinence fonctionnelle comme de la dimension sociale du langage.
Dutch language study and the trivium
Authors: Klifman Harm
Published: November 2010

In the history of European linguistics the 16th century is known as the century in which the vernacular languages of the countries above the Alps and the Pyrenees were discovered as objects of language study. The first grammars of the Dutch language appeared in this period. The study of grammar of the Dutch language took place within the context of a continuation of the Latin trivium tradition in the vernacular. As a consequence the historiographer must take into account this context and the traditional relation of grammar to dialectic and to rhetoric respectively. The first complete trivium in Dutch appeared during 1584–87, the last one in 1648–49. In the period in between, several reprints and editions in the separate disciplines, appeared. The reason for continuation of the Latin trivium tradition in the vernacular should be explained from various circumstances. First, it was the only intellectual tradition on which the contributors to the Dutch trivium could draw. This explains for instance that the structure of the Dutch grammars is based on that of the Latin grammars. Second, Latin grammar was taken to fulfill a heuristic function in the exploration of the vernacular. Not only is the formal context of the Latin trivium model important, but also the historical pedagogical triad of ars, natura and exercitatio played an important role, especially with respect to the criteria of grammaticalness in the Dutch language. The history of the trivium was always strongly connected with the history of education. For this reason it is not surprising to see that the contributors to the Dutch trivium hoped that their work would replace the Latin school curriculum. This did not happen, however. Nevertheless, their work laid the foundations for the study of the Dutch language on which the 18th century grammarians were to build their monumental studies.
19th-century linguistics
Authors: Driel Lodewijk van
Published: November 2010

In this paper an attempt has been made to draw a picture of linguistics in the Netherlands during the 19th century. The aim of this survey is to make clear that the influence of German linguistics on Dutch works of the period is characteristic of the development of Dutch linguistics in that century. Emphasis has been placed on the period 1800–1870; three traditions are distinguished: First of all there is the tradition of prescriptive grammar and language instruction. Next attention is drawn to the tradition of historical-comparative linguistics. Finally, by about the middle of the century, the linguistic views of German representatives of general grammar become prominent in Dutch school grammars. Successively we point to the reception by the schoolmasters of K. F. Becker’s (1775–1849) work; then Taco Roorda (1801–1874) is discussed, and the relationship between L. A. te Winkel (1809–1868) and H. Steinthal (1823–1899) is presented. In conjunction with Roorda’s work on Javanese the analysis of the so-called exotic languages is mentioned, an aspect of Dutch linguistics in the 19th century closely connected with the Dutch East Indies. It is obvious that the German theme is one of the most conspicuous common elements in 19th-century Dutch linguistics, as Dutch intellectuals in many respects took German culture as a model.
The syntax of two Dutch structuralists in its historical context
Authors: Kaldewaij Jelle
Published: November 2010

The syntactic views of two Dutch structural linguists, A. W. de Groot (1892–1963) and P. C. Paardekooper (b.1920) are considered in their historical context. It appears to be possible to connect de Groot’s work with that of the Prague School; the notion of opposition, as developed in the Prague School with respect to phonological phenomena, is applied by de Groot to syntax. Paardekooper’s oeuvre, by contrast, appears to be connected with that of the American structuralists rather than that of their European colleagues, although his bibliographical references suggest otherwise. The notion of ‘distribution’ for instance is fundamental in his work.
The history of the teaching of foreign languages in the low countries
Authors: van Els Theo J. M. , Knops Mathieu F.
Published: November 2010

The history of foreign language teaching in the Low Countries has not received a great deal of attention so far. The Low Countries cannot be said to be exceptional in that respect. Very little study has been made of the many primary and secondary sources that have come down to us from the Renaissance. What we do know of the history of Dutch FLT, shows no fundamental differences with what is known about FLT developments elsewhere. That conclusion holds true for the major issues of what aspects of language should be taught in FLT and how these should be taught, and for the particular role played in these matters by linguistics. The Netherlands, however, might turn out to be an extremely interesting country for the study of the history of FLT. It is a country in which there has always been a great deal of FLT and the country is internationally recognized for the quality of its FLT. On the other hand, there is virtually no Dutch contribution to the great developments in the field, especially with regard to reaching methodology.
Lahontan’s Bestseller
Authors: Wolfart H. Christoph
Published: November 2010

Among the early descriptions of the Algonquian languages of New France, thePetit Dictionaire(1703) of the baron de Lahontan stands out, despite its modest size, as the first vocabulary to appear in print. Thanks to the remarkable success of hisNouveaux Voyages, to which it forms an appendix, Lahontan’s Algonquin (Ojibwa) vocabulary became very widely known, serving as either model or source for many successors (including, it appears, the first printed vocabulary for Cree). On the evidence of a set of verb stems exhibiting a common non-initial morpheme(*-êl-), Lahontan’s analytical approach appears consistent in the segmentation of the inflexional prefixes, but the morpheme which defines this set is variously recorded with eitherlorr. The further variation between the French and English editions of 1703 sheds some light on the editorial process, and the general congruence between the occasional Algonquin word in his travel narratives and those in thePetit Dictionaireseems to corroborate Lahontan’s account of his efforts at language learning. The political establishment and his Jesuit detractors notwithstanding, Lahontan’s Algonquin vocabulary proved to be as influential in its domain as his narrative and philosophical writings were in the intellectual and literary world of the 18th century.
The binarity hypothesis in phonology: 1938–1985
Authors: Gil Juana
Published: November 2010

This paper presents a short history of what has been one of the central hypotheses of phonological theory for many years. The binarity problem has been one of most discussed issues of distinctive feature theory since it was first formulated. In structural phonology (more precisely, the Jakobsonian system) binarism has always been a fundamental concept, and most phonological systems have been based on it. Similarly, all the underlying representations postulated in theSPEframework are thought of as being binary. In current phonology, however, the main interest of many investigators has moved to the suprasegmental level or to metrical phonology, and consequently, the binarity problem remains unresolved. There have been numerous and varied opinions regarding binarism in distinctive feature theory. Some authors argue that binarity proposals are not compatible with phenomena such as coarticulation, but others claim that the non-positivist nature of phonological analysis and the indisputable usefulness of binary features are arguments strong enough to maintain the hypothesis. Finally, other linguists (working from different perspectives) propose a somewhat more relaxed conception of binarity adopting its basic implications. It seems, therefore, time for a review of this classic problem in modern phonology. At the same time, it is also worth restating the question and trying to get some insight into it using the instrumental methods that phonetics provide. This seems to be the construct truly corresponding to the speaker’s mind.
Benedetto Varchi as etymologist
Authors: Ward Michael T.
Published: November 2010

In theErcolano(1570) Benedetto Varchi (1503–1565), an important figure in the linguistic controversies of the Cinquecento, provides etymologies for a significant number of Italian terms, the majority of which are ascribed to three sources: Latin, Latin deriving ultimately from Greek, and Provençal. Study of 233 such word origins from the perspective of modern theory shows Varchi’s general accuracy regarding Latin and Greek elements but an exaggeration of the lexical impact of Provençal. Furthermore, despite his own willingness to offer hypotheses, this philologist ridicules the search for derivations. Examination of certain facets of Varchi’s outlook sheds light on these contradictions. We find him concerned primarily with the language of elite groups. In addition, he employs ‘etymology’ in two different senses, and minimizes the significance of the individual word. An adherent of the Aristotelianad placitumdoctrine, Varchi has an imperfect understanding of sound change. His correctness regarding Classical etyma proceeds from a solid Humanistic preparation, while overestimation of Provençal influence may be associated with his reverence for the tenets of Pietro Bembo (1470–1547) and his obsession with the independence of the Italian vernacular. TheErcolanofails to specify possible sources for Varchi’s etymological views.
Contribution a L’Étude Du Tesoro De La Lengua Española O Castellana (1611)
Authors: Lépinette Brigitte
Published: November 2010

Après avoir envisagé rapidement la postérité lexicographique du Tesoro (1611) de Sebastián de Covarrubias en Espagne, nous étudions la réception de cet ouvrage surtout en France. Nous examinons d’abord en tenant compte d’un ensemble d’études antérieures, quels aspects du Tesoro ont été mis à profit par les lexicographes bilingues: C. Oudin (1616) et L. Franciosini (1620). Nous montrons que Richelet et Furetière ont parfois utilisé le Tesoro pour élaborer leur dictionnaires respectifs, ensuite que les étymologies trouvées par Ménage (1650) dans le Tesoro n’ont pas souvent paru à cet étymologiste dignes de crédit. Dans la seconde partie de cet article, nous énumérons les sources linguistiques de Covarrubias. Nous montrons d’abord quels ont été les ouvrages modernes sur lesquels il s’est appuyé pour les renseignements concernant l’hébreu, le grec, le français, l’italien, l’allemand et le flamand, qu’il fait figurer dans son Tesoro. Nous énumé-rons d’autre part les sources modernes proprement éymologiques aussi bien françaises qu’espagnoles qui figurent dans les articles du dictionnaire de Covarrubias. La considération du choix de ces sources et de leur mode d’utilisation permet d’effectuer une évaluation de la culture de Covarrubias que nous jugeons sinonencyclopédique du moins étendue et des méthodes de travail qui apparaissent comme peu systématisées.
Hugo Schuchardts Beitrag Zur Allgemeinen Sprachwissenschaft
Authors: Baggioni Daniel
Published: November 2010

This article attempts to rehabilitate Hugo Schuchardt (1842–1927) as a general linguist. It tries to show that the many polemics of his take all their source in a rejection of a reifying vision of language, be it his critique of the ‘organicist conception of language’ (largely associated with the work of August Schleicher), of the ‘blind action of phonetic laws concerning any given dialect’ (a position held by the Neogrammarians), or of the Saussurean dichotomies. Instead, Schuchardt prefers a conception of language as a dynamic activity in which the individual and society as well as the mixture of languages play a central part. As a result, Schuchardt’s interest in and focus on (what appeared to many of his contemporaries as) marginal phenomena (creoles, pidgins, language contacts, universal language) is not a matter of accident, but directly related to his permanent and rigorous questioning of the dominant tenets in the field, a position he thought to be essential to any progress in linguistic science.
L’Argumentation Pragmatique Chez Priscien
Authors: Amacker René
Published: November 2010

Des nombreuses formes de l’argumentation grammaticale chez Priscien, celle qui est fondée sur l’acte de parole (situation pragmatique par excellence) occupe une place particulièrement importante. Sans s’attacher à l’ensemble des domaines concernés, on examine seulement les questions relatives à la ‘personne’ (terme qui désigne aussi bien une catégorie grammaticale qu’un individu réel) – à l’exclusion de la transitivité – et celles qui concernent la déixis (demonstratio). On aborde en outre l’impératif et la déixis transposée (dans l’épistolographie). L’étude de différents passages de Priscien montre que ce grammairien utilise une théorie qui n’est pas toujours exempte de contradiction; la comparaison avec sa source principale (Apollonios Dyscole), pour les sujets étudiés, fait apparaître enfin, en quelques occasions, combien l’originalité que Priscien se reconnaît est modeste.
165 Broadway – A crucial node in American Structural Linguistics
Authors: Hall Robert A.
Published: November 2010

During the Second World War, the United States Armed Forces Institute (USAFI) provided language teaching manuals and dictionaries for military and civilian use. From 1 July 1943 through 30 June 1945, this work was concentrated at an office which was located at 165 Broadway, New York City, and which was headed by a group of young, vigorous, and well trained linguists. The author provides a list of the personnel of this group and describes their activities and their relations with other developments in linguistics at that time and thereafter. Emphasis is placed on the crucial rôle of the ‘165 Broadway’ group in the application of structural linguistic analysis to the teaching of foreign languages in the United States in following decades.
Latin grammatical categories in the vernacular
Authors: Poppe Erich
Published: November 2010

The grammatical category ‘declension’ cannot be applied to Welsh substantive nouns since they have one form only for the singular and the plural respectively. But some Welsh grammarians of the 16th and 17th centuries tried to use this category to classify substantive nouns by proposing new definitions, based on the system of plural formation (Robert 1567) or on the system of initial mutations (Rhys 1592; Salesbury 1593). The latter approach formed a short-lived ‘paradigm’ in Welsh grammaticography with a dynamism of its own. It became divorced from the classification of nouns only and was applied to all words which undergo initial mutations (Davies 1621). The history of the definitions of declension in Welsh grammaticography is thus an instructive example of the changes grammatical categories can undergo when applied to a specific vernacular and of the creativity of the vernacular grammarians.
Sprachwissenschaft, Ästhetik und Naturforschung Der Goethe-Zeit
Authors: Romaschko Sergej A.
Published: November 2010

In the emergence of comparative grammar at the beginning of the 19th century, Sanskrit played a crucial role. The manner in which Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) characterized the grammatical structure of this language in his Ueber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier of 1808 was of great importance for the early phases of development of Indo-European linguistics. As is shown in this paper, the characteristics attributed to Sanskrit derived not only from F. Schlegel’s romantic views on language and literature, but were also influenced by his general philosophical and natural-science views which largely reflected the intellectual climate of the late 18th and early 19th century in Germany. During this period biology, physiology, and comparative anatomy experienced rapid progress, and the ‘organic’ concept of nature they espoused provided cognitive models for other disciplines, notably philosophy (cf. Kant’s Kritik der Urteilskraft of 1790), aesthetics, poetics, and linguistics. These natural-science concepts proved particularly fruitful within the romantic movement; they convinced F. Schlegel to see in Sanskrit a language whose organization resembled most perfectly the ideal Ursprache of Indo-European.
Thomas Harriot (1560–1621) and the English origins of Algonkian linguistics
Authors: Salmon Vivian
Published: November 2010

Thomas Harriot (1560–1621) was an outstanding mathematician and astronomer whose scientific writings – had they not been allowed to remain in manuscript – would long ago have earned for him an international esteem comparable with that of Galileo and Kepler. Only in recent decades has his status been recognised by scientists, but not, so far, by linguists. Yet he was the first English traveller to North America known to have recorded an indigenous language, for which he devised a dictionary and a phonetic alphabet. He also recorded a large number of Algonkin words during his stay in North Carolina in 1585–86, some of which are found in the account of his travels which he published in 1588, more than fifty years before Roger Williams’s (1603?-1683) Key into the Language of America (1643), which has often been regarded as the first such work. The manuscripts of the dictionary and the phonetic alphabet were thought to be lost, until a few years ago a sketch of the phonetic alphabet was found; and in 1988 a detailed holograph copy came to light. The present paper, while describing this recent discovery, provides a brief survey of linguistic relationships between speakers of North Carolina Algonkin and English colonists between 1586 and the arrival of the Mayflower pilgrims in 1621, and traces Harriot’s influence on later 17th-century linguists.
A 16th-century case of acquired Dysgraphia
Authors: Cram David , Campbell Ruth
Published: November 2010

The purpose of this article is to draw attention to one of the earliest historical reports, to the authors’ knowledge, of a specific acquired agraphia: the first-hand account of a man who lost his ability to use letters in writing as a result of a battle injury in 1536. The description occurs as an interpolation in Thomas Wilson’s Arte of Rhetorique (1553), in the course of a discussion of the localisation of the memory in the head. The case is described in sufficient detail to allow a tentative identification of the sort of disorder that was involved.
Zur Diskussion Über den Begriff ‘Tochtersprache’ im 19. Jahrhundert
Authors: Veldre Georgia
Published: November 2010

Der Begriff ‘Tochtersprache’ spielt in der Sprachdiskussion des 19. Jahrhunderts eine eher untergeordnete Rolle, seine inhaltliche Bestimmung ist jedoch in Zusammenhang mit dem Orientierungswechsel innerhalb der vergleichenden Sprachbetrachtung von Interesse. Vor allem durch die Abgrenzung gegenüber dem Komplementärbegriff ‘Schwestersprache’ u.a. durch Franz Bopp gewinnt er deutlich an Präzision. Innerhalb des von den beiden Schlegel ausgehenden Sprachenklassifikationsmodells ist insbesondere die Bestimmung des Verhältnisses von ‘Tochtersprachen’ zum analytischen Sprachtyp problematisch. In einem anderen Kontext dient die Bezeichnung ‘Tochtersprache’ in direkter Abbildung politischer Auffassungen auf die Sprachbetrachtung dazu, das Französische als vom Latein abgeleitete Sprache insbesondere dem ‘ursprünglichen’ Deutschen gegenüberzustellen. Die inhaltliche Reduzierung auf den oftmals ideologisch geladenen Begriff des Verfalls, die nach 1850 insbesondere durch Heymann Steinthal erfolgt, führt in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts zu einer kritischen Bewertung des Tochtersprachenbegriffs, der in einem auf nachweisbare ‘Fakten’ orientierten sprachwissenschaftlichen Konzept an Bedeutung verliert. Einen wesentlichen Einfluß auf diese Diskussion haben die Vertreter der in Deutschland noch jungen Neuphilologien.
The biological side of Otto Jespersen’s linguistic thought
Authors: McCawley James D.
Published: November 2010

Central ideas of Darwin’s theory of natural selection figure prominently in the work of Otto Jespersen (1860–1943). As early as 1886, Jespersen treated linguistic change in Darwinian terms: variation in the pronunciation and meaning of the various units, and factors that raise or lower a variety’s viability. His critique of the neogrammarian principle of exceptionlessness of sound change includes the point that phonologically parallel words often differ in the relative viability of their variants. By 1904, Jespersen was using ‘functional load’ in explaining differences in how much resistance each language offers to various natural phonetic tendencies. He argued that conformity to a sound-symbolic generalization raises a form’s viability and can thus exempt some words from sound changes and accelerate the adoption of novel words and of novel meanings for existing words. Natural selection figures even in Jespersen’s papers on international auxiliary languages, as in his account of whybil, the winner in a contest for a word for ‘automobile’, spread so rapidly in Scandinavia. Jespersen’s speculative scenario for language origins is in terms of Darwinian ‘preadaptation’: conventionalized sound/meaning correspondences can arise in numerous ways prior to the development of anything like a language (Jespersen argues that singing, in all its diverse social functions, developed prior to language), and a language would develop notex nihilobut by members of a human community segmenting and imposing arbitrary semantic analyses on some of this large body of meaningful sound, and starting to combine the pieces in novel ways, as modern children do anyway (Jespersen argues) in the course of acquiring a language. Jespersen thereby vindicated his unpopular conclusion that early human languages had highly irregular morphology and syntax.
Paul Hanly Furfey and the origins of American sociolinguistics
Authors: Joseph John E.
Published: November 2010

Although his contributions to the study of language are now all but forgotten, Catholic University of America sociologist Paul Hanly Furfey (b. 1896) gave the first known courses on the Sociology of Language starting in 1943. In 1944, he published articles on language and social class, men’s and women’s language, and the Bloomfieldian method of linguistic analysis, and in the early 1950s, he directed the joint dissertation of two of the very first urban dialect researchers to undertake work sufficiently systematic and socially oriented to merit the designation ‘sociolinguistic’ (Putnam & O’Hern 1955). This article surveys Furfey’s career as well as the work of many other pre-1960 contributors to sociolinguistics, notably in North America, most of which fell into oblivion following the great success of William Labov.
Absoluta
Authors: Hunt R. W.
Published: November 2010

The Absoluta is a Summa on Priscian’s Institutiones grammaticae, Books XVII–XVIII, which deal with syntax, so called from its opening word. The author was probably Petrus Hispanus, who is otherwise unknown. The work was presumably written in Paris in the third quarter of the 12th century. It survives in 14 manuscripts spread widely over Europe, and dating from ca. 1200 to the 14th century. The same author perhaps wrote a Summa on Pris-cian, Books I–XVI, known also from its opening words as Strenuum negotiatorem, of which only a fragment of the beginning survives in a single manuscript. In the Absoluta the author follows the order of treatment of subjects in Priscian, but proceeds chiefly by raising questions on doubtful points. He emphatically distinguishes the tasks of the grammarian and of the dialectician, yet makes much use of the methods of the latter. Thus, in the discussion of the case to be used after the verb substantive, the rule is propounded and argued on logical grounds. His theoretical framework is that of the Summa of Petrus Helias (mid-12th cent.), which he uses freely, and though he makes some advances, as in the use of the term modus significandi and of the concept of suppositio, he is still at the stage where they do not bear their later technical sense.
Early Scholastic Views on Ambiguity
Authors: Rivero María Luisa
Published: November 2010

This article presents a linguistic study of a number of 12th-century logical tracts with respect to their views on fallacies of composition and division. It will be seen that early Scholastic work done in this area was greatly influenced by certain syntactic properties of Latin.

The correlation between meaning and syntactic order came to preoccupy logicians upon the rediscovery and subsequent translation of Aristotle’sDe Sophisticis Elenchisat the beginning of the 12th century. Some logicians of the period felt that a composite syntactic order correlated obligatorily with a composite sense; others thought that order and sense could be independent from each other, and that, consequently, a composite syntactic order could have two readings, a composite one and a divided one. A third opinion expressed was that certain syntactic orders received two interpretations, one considered to be normal (a composite order correlating preferentially with a composite sense), and another one regarded as secondary (the possibility for a composite order to be understood in a divided sense as well).

The ideas which found expression in the 12th century manuscripts discussed in this study influenced logical speculation throughout the Scholastic period.
Sanctius’ Minerva of 1562 and the Evolution of His Linguistic Theory
Authors: Breva-Claramonte Manuel
Published: November 2010

The 1587 edition of Sanctius’ Minerva was not the first edition: a 1562 version has recently been discovered. This paper outlines Sanctius’ linguistic theory as it is advanced in the earlier version and traces its evolution. Some aspects of Sanctius’ system are briefly considered with relation to his immediate predecessors Linacre, Scaliger, and Ramus. I attempt to show that the basic tenets of his theory are already present in the early work: his conception of grammar, the importance of his logical rules (rationes), and his abstract notion of ellipsis as an essential mechanism for positing underlying structures and general rules, as well as for explaining obscure syntactic constructions. His views on the noun and the constructio of nouns, on verbs and the constructio of verbs are presented in an effort to show his evolution towards a more simple and general system of language. No attempt is made to cover those aspects of his theory which appear only in the later Minerva.
The Decade of Private Knowledge
Authors: Ney James W.
Published: November 2010

A review of the dissemination of information among linguists and the epis-temological basis of the transformational movement leads to the suggestion that the decade from the early 1960’s to the early 1970’s was a decade of private knowledge for persons engaged in the theoretical study of human languages. This decade of private knowledge was not caused directly by Chomsky’s disavowal of empiricism and his espousal of rationalism. Rather, it was caused indirectly by the shift from empiricism to rationalism and the subsequent attempt to base the data for theory building on native speaker intuition. The period of private knowledge in linguistics will probably continue until there is a shift in the epistemological basis of transformational thought.
Jeremiah Curtin (1835–1906)
Authors: Olmsted D. L.
Published: November 2010

Jeremiah Curtin (1835–1906) was one of the outstanding linguistic field-workers of the 19th century, though much of his material remains in manuscript form. His scholarly reputation rests primarily on his activity as folklorist and translator of the works of Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846–1916), the Nobel Prize-winning novelist. Curtin was born in Detroit and brought up in the wilds of Wisconsin, where his parents, immigrants from Ireland, made a farm. Leaving home at 21, he worked his way through Harvard, learning new languages at every opportunity. After a brief period as a junior diplomat in St Petersburg, he worked as a journalist and eventually joined the Bureau of American Ethnology as a field worker. His assignments took him to the Seneca, to various tribes in Oklahoma and to California and Oregon, where he gathered folktales, myths, and other linguistics materials from many languages of aboriginal America. Returning to Europe on numerous occasions, Curtin gathered and published folklore from Eastern Europe and Ireland; in addition, he continued his studies of the languages of the Caucasus, of India and Persia. Work in Siberia resulted in two volumes about the Mongols. Throughout much of the latter part of his life he continued his translations from the Russian and Polish.
John Brinsley
Authors: Salmon Vivian
Published: November 2010

John Brinsley (1566-c.1630) seems to have been the first English scholar to publish a comprehensive language-teaching course for students of Latin. His first textbook, which appeared in 1612, was a lengthy discussion of teaching method; it was followed by a grammar, and by translations of Latin texts of varying degrees of difficulty, arranged in a special format to assist private study. His last publication was a dictionary devoted to the kind of vocabulary relevant to the practical needs of the early 17th century, when Latin was still the language of the professions. So valuable did English schoolmasters find his works — which also stressed the necessity of studying the vernacular — that they were reprinted two or three times, and one (the grammar) reached a fifteenth edition. But they did not attain the continuing success which they deserved, because they were superseded from the 1630’s by the textbooks of Jan Amos Comenius (1592–1670) which were more specifically directed towards the growing scientific interests of the seventeenth century. Although the name of Brinsley has long been known to historians of education, no comprehensive account has previously been given of his writings or of his biography. This study is an attempt to supply more detailed information about both, and to assess his importance in the history of applied linguistics.
Schleicher, Čelakovský, and the Family-Tree Diagram
Authors: Priestly T. M. S.
Published: November 2010

The first family-tree diagram in August Schleicher’s (1821–68) published work appeared in 1853, seven years after his first printed discussion of the family-tree concept. In 1853 there also appearedČteni o srovnavaci mluvnici slovanskéby the Czech scholar František Ladislav Čelakovský (1799–1852); this book also contained a family-tree diagram. Since Čelakovský and Schleicher were contemporaries in Prague for over two years, their interrelationship is of interest: was this rivalry of collaboration? At first sight, a coincidence seems improbable.

In the available work on and by Schleicher, Čelakovský is never mentioned; in the writings on and by Čelakovský, Schleicher’s name is never linked to his. However, the two had very many common interests. Apart from being colleagues at Charles University, they shared the same friends and enemies, were both interested in music and botany, and so on. Moreover, both were working on Slavic Historical Linguistics during the period in question. On the other hand, their personalities were such that the possibility of a mutual antipathy must not be excluded.

Given the background to Čelakovský’s life and work, including the legends of the common origin of the Slavs and the obviously close interrelationships of the Slavic languages; the burgeoning of interest in Slavic history and linguistics, and in Panslavicism; the popularity of genealogy; and the developments in classificatory techniques along natural scientific lines, it is argued that Čela-kovský’s depiction of a family-tree for the Slavic languages could be quite naturally expected from him at this point in time, without any influence from Schleicher. On the other hand, Schleicher’s first family-tree diagrams were the next logical step in his own development. Moreover, the actual form of the diagrams in question suggests that they may indeed have been developed independently. This puzzle in the history of linguistics remains unsolved: collaboration, rivalry, and coincidence are all possible.