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Studies in the History of the Language Sciences
The companion series to the journal Historiographia Linguistica has been established to meet the revival of interest in the field and to provide an organized reservoir of information concerning the heritage of linguistic ideas of more than two millennia.
1 - 50 of 129 results
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200 Years of Syntax
Author(s): Giorgio GraffiPublication Date April 2001More LessThis book argues convincingly against the widespread opinion that very few syntactic studies were carried out before the 1950s. Relying on the detailed analysis of a large amount of original sources, it shows that syntactic matters were in fact carefully investigated throughout both the 19th century and during the first half of the 20th century. Moreover, it illustrates how the enormous development of syntactic research in the last fifty years has already condemned even several recent ideas and analyses to oblivion, and deeply influenced current research programs. The wealth of research undertaken over the last two centuries is presented here in a systematic way, taking as its starting point the relationship of syntax with psychology throughout this period. The critical ideas expressed in the text are based on a detailed illustration of the different syntactic models and analyses rather than on the polemics between the different schools.
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And Along Came Boas
Author(s): Regna DarnellPublication Date November 1998More LessThe advent of Franz Boas on the North American scene irrevocably redirected the course of Americanist anthropology. This volume documents the revolutionary character of the theoretical and methodological standpoint introduced by Boas and his first generation of students, among whom linguist Edward Sapir was among the most distinguished. Virtually all of the classic Boasians were at least part-time linguists alongside their ethnological work. During the crucial transitional period beginning with the founding of the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1879, there were as many continuities as discontinuities between the work of Boas and that of John Wesley Powell and his Bureau. Boas shared with Powell a commitment to the study of aboriginal languages, to a symbolic definition of culture, to ethnography based on texts, to historical reconstruction on linguistic grounds, and to mapping the linguistic and cultural diversity of native North America. The obstacle to Boas’s vision of anthropology was not the Bureau but the archaeological and museum establishment centred in Washington, D.C. and in Boston. Moreover, the “scientific revolution” was concluded not when Boas began to teach at Columbia University in New York in 1897 but around 1920 when first generation Boasians cominated the discipline in institutional as well as theoretical terms. The impact of Boas is explored in terms of theoretical positions, interactional networks of scholars, and institutions within which anthropological work was carried out. The volume shows how collaboration of universities and museums gradually gave way to an academic centre for anthropology in North America, in line with the professionalization of American science along German lines during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The author is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Centre for Research and Teaching of Canadian Native Languages at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
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Die Anfänge der hebräischen Grammatik (1895), together with Die hebräische Sprachwissenschaft vom 10. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert (1892)
Author(s): Wilhelm BacherPublication Date January 1974More LessThe present volume reproduces two still unsurpassed accounts of the flourish and eventual decline of Hebrew linguistic scholarship covering the period from the 10th to the 16th century, at a time when Christian scholars and theologians – as a result of the Reformation with its emphasis on the authority of the Bible – began to study Hebrew. These studies are Wilhelm Bacher’s Die Anfänge der hebräischen Grammatik (Leipzig 1895) and Die hebräische Sprachwissenschaft vom X. bus zum XVI. Jahrhundert (Trier 1892). In addition, this volume contains a bibliography of Bacher’s writings, compiled by his pupil and successor Ludwig Blau and supplemented in 1928 by Dénes Friedman, and an introductory article by Jack Fellman.
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Apollonius Dyscolus
Publication Date January 1981More LessApollonius Dyscolus was the first formal syntactician in Graeco-Roman linguistics. He considered the nature of language to be logical and rule-governed, and assumed an underlying structure for all levels of language. It might be said that from the work of his predecessors, he extracted syntax. This volume contains an English translation of — mainly — Uhlig’s 1910 edition of De Constructione Libri Quattor (Peri Suntaxeōs), with commentary, an introduction, and an article on Apollonius Dyscolus and the Origins of Deep Structure.
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Arab Linguistics
Editor(s): Michael G. CarterPublication Date January 1981More LessThis volume provides an analysis of a famous medieval Arabic grammatical text, al-Ājurrūmiya (c. 1300), as commented on by aš-Šhirbīnī (d. 1570). This edition includes the original text and a translation into English, as well as extensive comments and annotations, with the aim of making accessible both to Arabists and non-Arabists the main elements of indigenous Arabic linguistics, and thereby at least partially filling a large blank in the history of linguistics.
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Aristotle's Theory of Language and its Tradition
Author(s): Hans ArensPublication Date January 1984More LessThis volume contains a fragment from Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias [16a1–17a7], with a translation into English and a commentary. This fragment is crucial to the understanding of Aristotle’s thinking about language. It is followed by (translations of) commentaries on Aristotle’s text by scholars between 500 and 1750, showing how his text was perceived over time. The commentaries are by Ammonius, Boethius, Abelaerd, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Acquinas, Martinus de Dacia, Johannes a S. Thoma, and James Harris. Each commentary is in turn commented upon by the compiler of this volume.
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Bibliografía cronológica de la lingüística, la gramática y la lexicografía del español (BICRES II)
Author(s): Hans-Josef NiederehePublication Date September 1999More LessSince the publication of the still very valuable Biblioteca histórica de la filología by Cipriano Muñoz y Manzano, conde de la Viñaza, (Madrid, 1893), our knowledge of the history of the study of the Spanish language has grown considerably. It has been the purpose of BICRES I (from the beginnings to 1600), published in 1994 in the same series, to bring already available bibliographical information together with the more recent research findings, scattered in many places, books and articles and published during the past one hundred years. Now, the second volume, covering the years from 1601 to 1700, has been published, according to the same principles as the first one.
Years of work in the major librairies of Spain and other European countries have gone into this new bibliography in order to offer as exhaustive as possible a description of all Spanish grammars and dictionaries, histories of the Spanish language as well studies devoted to particular facets of its evolution in the 17th century.
BICRES II brings together in chronological order close to 1,300 titles. Access to the bibliographical information is facilitated by several detailed indexes, such as author index, short title index, index of places of production, index of printers and publishers, and a index of locations of the books described.Desde la publicación de la muy meritoria y aún hoy útil Biblioteca histórica de la filología castellana (Madrid, 1893) de Cipriano Muñoz y Manzano, conde de la Viñaza, nuestros cono-cimientos sobre la historia de la lingüística española se han ensanchado considerable-mente. Fue el propósito de BICRES I (“desde los comienzos hasta 1600”), que se publicó en 1994 en esta misma serie, sumar, a los datos bibliográficos conocidos, la información más reciente aparecida durante los últimos cien años en los más diversos lugares.
BICRES II presenta la información correspondiente a los años 1601-1700 manteniendo los mismos principios metodológicos que fueron empleados en el primer volumen.
Para terminar esta nueva bibliografía han sido necesarios años de trabajo en bibliotecas españolas y europeas. De esta manera se ha conseguido reunir la máxima cantidad disponible de datos sobre gramáticas y diccio-narios de la lengua española publicados en el siglo XVII, así como sobre historias de la lengua española y estudios dedicados a los más variados aspecto de su desarrollo.
La Bibliografía cronológica de la lingüística, la gramática y la lexicografía del español (BICRES II) ofrece, en orden cronológico, apoximadamente 1.300 títulos. Una serie de índices detallados (autores, títulos abreviados, lugares de publicación, impresores y edito-riales y, finalmente, paraderos) facilita el acceso a la infomación bibliográfica.
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Bibliografía cronológica de la lingüística, la gramática y la lexicografía del español (BICRES)
Author(s): Hans-Josef NiederehePublication Date October 1994More LessSince the publication of the still very valuable Biblioteca histórica de la filología castellana by Cipriano Muñoz y Manzano, conde de la Viñaza, (Madrid, 1893), our knowledge of the history of the study of the Spanish language has grown considerably. It is the purpose of the present bibliography to bring already available bibliographical information together with the more recent research findings, scattered in many places, books and articles, published during the past one hundred years. More importantly still, many years of work in the major libraries of Spain and other European countries have gone into this new bibliography in order to offer an as exhaustive as possible description of all Spanish grammars and dictionaries, histories of the Spanish language as well studies devoted to particular facets of its evolution, from the early glosses in Latin and Arabic texts in the 10th century to the beginning of the more autonomous approach to vernacular studies in the Renaissance period — which is not only represented by the grammatical and lexicographical work of the great Spanish humanist Elio Antonio de Nebrija. Bibliografía cronológica de la lingüística, la gramática y la lexicografía del español (BICRES) brings together, in chronological order, close to 1,000 titles. Access to the bibliographical information is facilitated by several detailed indexes, such as author index, short title index, place of production index, index of printers and publishers, and a location index of the books described.
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Bibliografía Nebrisense
Author(s): Miguel Ángel Esparza Torres and Hans-Josef NiederehePublication Date April 1999More LessThe Spanish humanist Antonio de Nebrija (1444-1522) is the author of an impressive body of scientific work which comprises a broad spectrum of humanistic knowledge. While the languages dealt with by Nebrija include not only Latin and Spanish, but the most prominent Romance languages, his grammatical work focuses on Latin, Castillian, Greek and even Hebrew. Moreover, his (bilingual) lexicographical studies combine Spanish, Latin, French, Catalan and Italian. In addition, there are medical dictionaries, dictionnaries of law, works on the Holy Bible, geographical research, treatises on rhethoric and history as well as on many other areas of contemporary knowledge. Most of these works have been published for allmost five centuries, thus inspiring European and missionary linguistics as well as Western philological traditions. They have served as models and sources for a great number and range of studies conducted and published not only in Spain, but nearly all over the world.
Apart from the original version of Nebrija‘s works, numerous copies, also continuously produced during the past centuries, are accessible in international libraries. Many of these copies possess a great bibliographical value.
The Bibliografía Nebrisense is a catalogue, listing the different editions of Nebrija‘s highly diversified uvre. It provides information on the technical caracteristics of the individual editions and their respective locations. A complete bio-bibliographical study is added together with an exhaustive listing of secondary sources.El humanista español Antonio de Nebrija (1444-1522) fue autor de una ingente obra que abarcó los más variados campos de los saberes humanísticos y en la que, además, estaban implicadas no sólo latín y español, sino las principales lenguas románicas. Sus obras de tema gramatical, donde se encuentran latín, castellano, griego o hebreo; sus repertorios lexicográficos bilingües, donde se combinan español, latín, francés, catalán e italiano; sus diccionarios especializados de medicina, derecho, Sagrada Escritura o geografía, junto con sus trabajos sobre retórica, historia o tantos otros aspectos particulares que llamaron la atención del humanista han sobrevivido hasta nuestros días y durante más de cinco siglos han ejercido una influencia enorme en toda la lingüística y la tradición filológica occidental: sirvieron de modelo o de fuente para multitud de trabajos posteriores, no sólo en España.
Las obras de Nebrija, en fin, fueron ininterrumpidamente editadas y ejemplares de todas ellas, a veces de valor incalculable desde el punto de vista bibliográfico, andan repartidos por bibliotecas de todo el mundo.
La Bibliografía Nebrisense es un catálogo que reúne y describe estas ediciones, informando de sus características y paradero. Se añade, además, un completo estudio bio-bibliográfico y una relación exhaustiva de fuentes secundarias.
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Bibliografía cronológica de la lingüística, la gramática y la lexicografía del español (BICRES III)
Author(s): Hans-Josef NiederehePublication Date August 2005More LessSince the publication of the still very valuable Biblioteca histórica de la filología by Cipriano Muñoz y Manzano, conde de la Viñaza (Madrid, 1893), our knowledge of the history of the study of the Spanish language has grown considerably. It has been the purpose of BICRES I (from the early beginnings to 1600), published in 1994, to bring together already available bibliographical information with the more recent research findings, scattered in many places, books and articles and published during the past one hundred years. BICRES II (covering the 1601–1700 period) followed in 1999. Now, the third volume, arranged according to the same principles as those guiding the preceding volumes and covering the years from 1701 to 1800, has become available.
Years of research in the major libraries of Spain and other European countries have gone into this new bibliography in order to offer, in an as exhaustive as possible fashion, a description of all Spanish grammars and dictionaries, histories of the Spanish language as well studies devoted to particular facets of its evolution during the 18th century.
Bibliografía cronológica de la lingüística, la gramática y la lexicografía del español, volume III (BICRES III) brings together in chronological order more than 1,500 titles. Access to the bibliographical information is facilitated by several detailed indexes, such as an author index, a short title index, and a listing of places of production, of printers and publishers, and also an index of the physical location of the books described.
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Bibliografía cronológica de la lingüística, la gramática y la lexicografía del español (BICRES IV)
Author(s): Miguel Ángel Esparza Torres and Hans-Josef NiederehePublication Date February 2012More LessSince the publication of the still very valuable Biblioteca histórica de la filología by Cipriano Muñoz y Manzano, conde de la Viñaza (Madrid, 1893), our knowledge of the history of the study of the Spanish language has grown considerably. It has been the purpose of BICRES I (from the early beginnings to 1600), published in 1994, to bring together already available bibliographical information with the more recent research findings, scattered in many places, books and articles. BICRES II (covering the 1601–1700 period) followed in 1999 and BICRES III (including period 1701-1800) was published in 2005.
Now, the fourth volume, arranged according to the same principles as those guiding the preceding volumes and covering the years from 1801 to 1860, has become available.
Years of research in the major libraries of Spain and other European countries have gone into this new bibliography and relative sources of the Americas have also been covered, in order to offer — in an as exhaustive as possible fashion — a description of all Spanish grammars and dictionaries, histories of the Spanish language as well as studies devoted to particular facets of its evolution during the years 1801-1860.
BICRES IV brings together in chronological order more than 3,279 titles. Access to the bibliographical information is facilitated by several detailed indexes, such as a short title index, a listing of printers, publishers and places of production, and an author index.
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Bibliografía cronológica de la lingüística, la gramática y la lexicografía del español (BICRES V)
Author(s): Miguel Ángel Esparza Torres and Hans-Josef NiederehePublication Date October 2015More LessSince the publication of the still very valuable Biblioteca histórica de la filología by Cipriano Muñoz y Manzano, conde de la Viñaza (Madrid, 1893), our knowledge of the history of the study of the Spanish language has grown considerably, and most manuscript and secondary sources had never been tapped before Hans-Josef Niederehe of the University of Trier courageously undertook the task to bring together any available bibliographical information together with much more recent research findings, scattered in libraries, journals and other places. The resulting Bibliografía cronológica de la lingüística, la gramática y la lexicografía del español: Desde los principios hasta el año 1600 (BICRES) began appearing in 1994. BICRES I covered the period from the early beginnings to 1600, followed by BICRES II (1601–1700), BICRES III (1701–1800), and together with Miguel Ángel Esparza Torres of Madrid there followed BICRES IV (1801 to 1860). Now, the fifth volume, has become available, covering the years from 1861 to 1899. Access to the bibliographical information of altogether 5,272 titles is facilitated by several detailed indexes, such as a short title index, a listing of printers, publishers and places of production, and an author index.
More than twenty years of research in the major libraries of Spain and other European countries have gone into this unique work — relative sources of the Americas have also been covered — making it exhaustive source for any serious scholar of any possible aspect of the Spanish language.
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Chronologisches Verzeichnis französischer Grammatiken vom Ende des 14. bis zum Ausgange des 18. Jahrhunderts, nebst Angabe der bisher ermittelten Fundorte derselben
Editor(s): Hans-Josef NiederehePublication Date January 1976More LessThis volume (1976) contains a fac simile reprint of the original 1890 edition of Stengel’s Chronologisches Verzeichnis Französischer Grammatiken. In addition, it contains an appendix by Hans-Josef Niederehe which gives a short biography of E.M. Stengel and brings together the additions and corrections to the Verzeichnis which Stengel published in other sources in 1890 and 1896.
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Declinatio
Author(s): Daniel J. TaylorPublication Date January 1974More LessMarcus Terentius Varro (116–27 B.C.) was one of the most prolific writers in antiquity. However, of his De Lingua Latina only six of 25 books have survived, and these are neither complete nor free of textual corruption. This study is an attempt to provide an adequate, consistent, and comprehensive account of the linguistic theory with which Varro operated insofar as it can be recovered from the remains of De Lingua Latina.
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The Development of Morphophonemic Theory
Author(s): James KilburyPublication Date January 1976More LessThe aim of this book is to provide a concise historical survey of linguistic investigation relating to the notion of morphophonemics. The study is essentially historical and thus does not offer its own theory of morphophonemics. Since attention is focused on the development of morphophonemic theory, contemporary work in this area is not of central concern. But the study was undertaken in the hope that a better understanding of earlier work would help to clarify present-day issues.
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A Dictionary of English Normative Grammar 1700–1800 (DENG)
Author(s): Bertil Sundby, Anne Kari Bjørge and Kari E. HauglandPublication Date January 1991More LessEighteenth-century English grammarians plead eloquently for purity, precision and perspicuity, but their method of teaching largely amounts to citing examples of impurity, imprecision and lack of clarity from contemporary writings. This book is the first of its kind to provide a detailed systematic account of such 'errors'. Apart from source and page references, the Dictionary gives the context of the error (I have not wept this forty years), the correct or 'target' form ('these forty years'), the name of the authors quoted by the grammarians ('Addison', 'Swift'), and the labels which sum up their assessment of the error ('absurd', 'solecism'). It operates with error categories such as ambiguity, ellipsis and government (fourteen in all), which are subdivided into grammatically described main entries, subentries, and so on. The Introduction includes a guide to the use of the Dictionary, the grammatical code, and a discussion of grammatical concepts, error typologies, problems of identifying literary sources, attitudes to correctness, grammatical figures, and other topics. A Bibliography and an Index of lexical items and technical terms round off the volume. The way the Dictionary is organized should make it possible to find in it the answer to a wide variety of questions pertaining to grammar, style and linguistic historiography.
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Dissertation on the Sanskrit Language
Author(s): Paulinus A.S. BartholomaeoPublication Date January 1977More LessPaulinus a S. Bartholomaeo’s Dissertatio historico-critica in linguam Samscrdamicam (1790) serves as an introduction to his Sidharubam, the first Sanskrit grammar published in Europe. The Dissertatio is also important for another reason: it is concerned with speculations about the nature and origin of Sanskrit and the other Indian Languages. It raises questions about their relation to each other and to languages outside India. It bears witness to the fact that Paulinus was on of those few who heralded the era of comparative philology long before its official consecration. In addition, it offers an opportunity to study the range of working instruments available to Indic scholarship at the end of the 18th century.
This volume contains a fac simile edition of the Latin original, an English translation, an introductory article, and an index of sources.
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Diversions of Galway
Editor(s): Anders AhlqvistPublication Date January 1992More LessThis volume contains a selection of papers from the Fifth International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences, dealing with subjects ranging from the classical period till the 20th century.
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Early Arabic Grammatical Theory
Author(s): Jonathan OwensPublication Date January 1990More LessThe Arabic grammatical tradition is remarkable for having organized a large amount of descriptive material within a sophisticated formal framework. The present study seeks to elucidate the early development of this system from a theory-internal perspective; it is mainly concerned with the development of the syntactic theory as a formal object, as system of rules. This endeavor is constituted of four sub-goals: a description of early developments, their periodization, their relation to the traditional account in terms of the Basran and Kufan schools, and their relation to modern linguistic theory.
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Early Years in Machine Translation
Editor(s): John W. HutchinsPublication Date December 2000More LessMachine translation (MT) was one of the first non-numerical applications of the computer in the 1950s and 1960s. With limited equipment and programming tools, researchers from a wide range of disciplines (electronics, linguistics, mathematics, engineering, etc.) tackled the unknown problems of language analysis and processing, investigated original and innovative methods and techniques, and laid the foundations not just of current MT systems and computerized tools for translators but also of natural language processing in general. This volume contains contributions by or about the major MT pioneers from the United States, Russia, East and West Europe, and Japan, with recollections of personal experiences, colleagues and rivals, the political and institutional background, the successes and disappointments, and above all the challenges and excitement of a new field with great practical importance. Each article includes a personal bibliography, and the editor provides an overview, chronology and list of sources for the period.
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Edward Sapir – Appraisals of his life and work
Editor(s): E.F.K. KoernerPublication Date January 1984More LessTo commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Edward Sapir (1884–1939), this volume brings together a number of papers by distinguished North American scholars appraising the life and work of the world-renowned anthropologist and linguist. It includes an introduction by the editor, a full bibliography of Sapir's scientific writings, a detailed index of names, and many photographs and fac similes. Among the contributors are: Ruth Benedict, Leonard Bloomfield, Franz Boas, Joseph Greenberg, Mary Haas, Zellig Harris, A.L. Kroeber, Robert H. Lowie, David Mandelbaum, Morris Swadesh, and C.F. Voegelin.
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The Emergence of Semantics in Four Linguistic Traditions
Author(s): Wout J. van Bekkum, Jan Houben, Ineke Sluiter and Kees VersteeghPublication Date April 1997More LessThe aim of this study is a comparative analysis of the role of semantics in the linguistic theory of four grammatical traditions, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Greek, Arabic. If one compares the organization of linguistic theory in various grammatical traditions, it soon turns out that there are marked differences in the way they define the place of ‘semantics’ within the theory. In some traditions, semantics is formally excluded from linguistic theory, and linguists do not express any opinion as to the relationship between syntactic and semantic analysis. In other traditions, the whole basis of linguistic theory is semantically orientated, and syntactic features are always analysed as correlates of a semantic structure. However, even in those traditions, in which semantics falls explicitly or implicitly outside the scope of linguistics, there may be factors forcing linguists to occupy themselves with the semantic dimension of language. One important factor seems to be the presence of a corpus of revealed/sacred texts: the necessity to formulate hermeneutic rules for the interpretation of this corpus brings semantics in through the back door.
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The English Dictionary from Cawdrey to Johnson 1604–1755
Author(s): De Witt T. Starnes and Gertrude E. NoyesPublication Date July 1991More LessThis study by Starnes and Noyes was immediately recognized as a unique and pioneering work of scholarship and has long been the standard work on the emergence and early flowering of English lexicography. Within the last 20 years we have been witnessing a remarkable scholarly interest in the study of dictionary-making and the role played by dictionaries in the transmission and preservation of knowledge and learning. It is therefore essential to have this classic work available again to all students of linguistic history. In its new edition the book has been vastly enhanced by a lengthy and invaluable introduction by Gabriele Stein, Professor of English Linguistics in Heidelberg and author of The English Dictionary before Cawdrey (1985). In her introduction to the present volume she sets out in scholarly detail the work that has emerged since 1946, which makes this study of the English dictionary from Cawdrey to Johnson as complete as the original authors themselves would have wished.
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English Traditional Grammars
Editor(s): Gerhard LeitnerPublication Date November 1991More LessUntil recently grammars of English have received surprisingly little scholarly attention, while a lot of research is done on dictionaries. It appears, however, that learners of English shy away from modern grammars and prefer to consult dictionaries or traditional reference grammars instead. This raises questions as to the relationship between theoretical linguistics and grammar writing and calls for more research into this area, especially for the period from 1800 onwards, which was crucial for the development of grammatical thinking and its acceptance (or rejection) at all educational levels today.This volume brings together work from international experts on the historiography of English grammar writing who deal with a variety of topics grouped into three overlapping sections: I. Native Grammars of English, II. Non-native Grammars of English, and III. Grammatical Analyses. The volume includes summaries of the articles and a name index.
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Essays in the History of Linguistic Anthropology
Author(s): Dell H. HymesPublication Date January 1983More LessAnthropology and linguistics, as historically developing disciplines, have had partly separate roots and traditions. In particular settings and in general, the two disciplines have partly shared, partly differed in the nature of their materials, their favorite types of problem the personalities of their dominant figures, their relations with other disciplines and intellectual current. The two disciplines have also varied in their interrelation with each other and the society about them. Institutional arrangements have reflected the varying degrees of kinship, kithship, and separation. Such relationships themselves form a topic that is central to a history of linguistic anthropology yet marginal to a self-contained history of linguistics or anthropology as either would be conceived by most authors. There exists not only a subject matter for a history of linguistic anthropology, but also a definite need.
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Essays in the History of Linguistics
Author(s): E.F.K. KoernerPublication Date May 2004More LessThe present volume follows the author's tradition of bringing together at certain intervals selections of articles which more often than not had previously been published in not easily accessible places, or which had not been published before. These papers do not typically represent mere reprints but in most instances thoroughly revised versions.This volume contains twelve articles organized under three headings, "Programmatic Papers in the History of Linguistics", "Studies in Linguistic Historiography", and "Sketches historiographical and (auto)biographical", plus as an appendix a complete list of Zellig Harris' writings as an illustration of Koerner's penchant for and belief in the importance of good bibliographies as a basis for historical research. While the first two sections, which take up the bulk of the volume, either show the author as an historian engagé or demonstrate his work as a historiographer of 19th and 20th century linguistics, the third section is much shorter and less heavy going. Indexes of Biographical Names and of Subjects, Terms & Languages round out the volume, which also contains a number of portraits of linguists and other illustrations.
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Etymology and Grammatical Discourse in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
Author(s): Mark E. AmslerPublication Date January 1989More LessThis study focuses on the uses of the grammatical concept of etymologia in primarily Latin writings from the early Middle Ages. Etymologia is a fundamental procedure and discursive strategy in the philosophy and analysis of language in early medieval Latin grammar, as well as in Biblical exegesis, encyclopedic writing, theology, and philosophy. Read through the frame of poststructuralist analysis of discourse and the philosophy of science, the procedure of the ars grammatica are interpreted as overlapping genres (commentary, glossary, encyclopedia, exegesis) which use different verbal or extraverbal criteria to explain the origins and significations of words and which establish different epistemological frames within which an etymological account of language is situated. The study also includes many translations of heretofore untranslated passages from Latin grammatical and exegetical writings.
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The Explanation of Linguistic Causes
Author(s): Kees VersteeghPublication Date May 1995More LessThe ultimate aim of every linguistic tradition is to go beyond the purely descriptive level and seek an explanation for linguistic phenomena. Traditions differ, however, with regard to the class of linguistic phenomena they wish to explain and the framework in which they define their explanation. In this volume the English translation is presented of the treatise on linguistic explanation by the 10th-century Arab grammarian az-Zağğāğī, one of the most original thinkers of the Arabic tradition. He worked in a period in which the influence of Greek logic and philosophy made itself felt in almost all Arabo-Islamic disciplines. Some of the problems he deals with are familiar to modern linguists (e.g., morphological segmentation, categorization of parts of speech), others are comprehensible only within the frame of reference of Arabic linguistics (e.g., the declension of the verb). An extensive commentary on the text analyzes the problems discussed, both within the Arabic tradition and from the point of view of modern linguistics. Apart from the index of names and terms, there is an index of subjects which enables the general reader to consult text and comments on specific key notions.
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First Person Singular
Editor(s): Boyd Davis and Raymond K. O’CainPublication Date January 1980More LessThis volume consists of autobiographical by the following scholars, together with pictures and autographs: Raven I. McDavid, Jr., Henry M. Hoenigswald, John B. Carroll, William G. Moulton, Archibald A. Hill, Yakov Malkiel, Charles F. Hockett, Harold B. Allen, William Bright, Einar Haugen, George S. Lane, Frederic G. Cassidy, James B. McMillan, Winfred P. Lehmann, Fred W. Householder, and Dell Hymes. A master list of references, and an index of persons conclude the volume.
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First Person Singular II
Editor(s): E.F.K. KoernerPublication Date July 1991More LessThis sequel to First Person Singular (1980) presents autobiographical sketches of 15 eminent scholars in the language sciences. These personal reminiscences on their careers in linguistics reflect developments in the field over the past decades and shed light on the role each of them played and the influences they underwent. This book is a valuable source for scholars of the history of ideas in general and for historiographers of linguistics in particular, while it makes interesting reading for every linguist interested in the history of the discipline. The volume includes photographs of all contributors and is completed by an index of names and an index of subjects and languages.
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First Person Singular III
Editor(s): E.F.K. KoernerPublication Date December 1998More LessThis sequel to the First Person Singular volumes published in 1980 and 1991, respectively (SiHoLS 21 and 61) presents autobiographical accounts by major North American linguists. This material provides an important primary source for the history and development of the discipline during the 20th century. The volume includes photographs of all contributors and is completed by a full index of biographical names and a detailed index of subjects and languages which turn it into a useful research tool.
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For to Speke Frenche Trewely
Author(s): Douglas A. KibbeePublication Date September 1991More LessThe first grammatical descriptions of the French language were produced in England, several centuries before the first grammar written in French (but also several centuries after the Norman Conquest). This book describes the status of French in England during the period from the marriage of Emma of Normandy to thelred (1004) to the fixing of a (relatively) standard pedagogical scheme for the teaching of French of English speakers (ca. 1600). During this period French passed from a native language to a second language, became the official language of the legal profession, and ultimately fell back to a position of social accomplishment. At the same time, different pedagogical and descriptive traditions developed to meet these various needs. Here Kibbee traces the interaction of cultural, intellectual, social and technological history with the elaboration of a grammatical tradition. The book includes a bibliography and indexes of names, titles and subjects.
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The Foundations of Grammar
Author(s): Jonathan OwensPublication Date January 1988More LessThe Arabic grammatical tradition is one of the great traditions in the history of linguistics, yet it is also one that is comparatively unknown to modern western linguistics. The purpose of the present book is to provide an introduction to this grammatical tradition not merely by summarizing it, but by putting it into a perspective that will make it accessible to any linguist trained in the western tradition. The reader should not by put off by the word ‘medieval’: Arabic grammatical theory shares a number of fundamental similarities with modern linguistic theory. Indeed, one might argue that one reason Arabic theory has gone unappreciated for so long is that nothing like it existed in the West at the time of its ‘discovery’ by Europeans in the 19th century, when the European orientalist tradition was formed, and that it it only with the development of a Saussurean and Bloomfieldian structural tradition that a better perspective has become possible.
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Francisco Varo's Grammar of the Mandarin Language (1703)
Author(s): W. South Coblin and Joseph A. LeviPublication Date September 2000More LessFrancisco Varo’s Arte de la Lengua Mandarina, completed ca. 1680, is the earliest published grammar of any spoken form of Chinese and the fullest known description of the standard language of the seventeenth century. It establishes beyond doubt that this “Language of the Mandarins” was not Pekingese or Peking-based but had instead a Jiang-Huai or Nankingese-like phonology. It also provides important information about the nature and formation of pre-modern standard forms of Chinese and will lead to revisions of currently held views on Chinese koines and their relationship with regional speech forms and the received vernacular literature. Finally, it provides a wealth ot information on stylistic speech levels, honorific usage, and social customs of the elite during the early Qing period.
The book provides a full translation of the 1703 text of the Arte, an extensive introduction to the life and work of Varo, an index of Chinese characters inserted into the translation, and an index of linguistic terms and concepts. It should be of interest to a diverse readership of Chinese historical, comparative, and descriptive linguists, students of Qing history and literature, historiographers of linguistics, and specialists in early Western religious and cultural contact with China.
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From Whitney to Chomsky
Author(s): John E. JosephPublication Date December 2002More LessWhat is ‘American’ about American linguistics? Is Jakobson, who spent half his life in America, part of it? What became of Whitney’s genuinely American conception of language as a democracy? And how did developments in 20th-century American linguistics relate to broader cultural trends?This book brings together 15 years of research by John E. Joseph, including his discovery of the meeting between Whitney and Saussure, his ground-breaking work on the origins of the ‘Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis’ and of American sociolinguistics, and his seminal examination of Bloomfield and Chomsky as readers of Saussure.
Among the original findings and arguments contained herein:
why ‘American structuralism’ does not end with Chomsky, but begins with him;
how Bloomfield managed to read Saussure as a behaviourist avant la lettre;
why in the long run Skinner has emerged victorious over Chomsky;
how Whorf was directly influenced by the mystical writings of Madame Blavatsky;
how the Whitney–Max Müller debates in the 19th century connect to the intellectual disparity between Chomsky’s linguistic and political writings.
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German Colour Terms
Author(s): William Jervis JonesPublication Date June 2013More LessThis monograph provides, for the first time, a comprehensive historical analysis of German colour words from early beginnings to the present, based on data obtained from over one thousand texts.Part 1 reviews previous work in colour linguistics. Part 2 describes and documents the formation of popular colour taxonomies and specialised nomenclatures in German across many periods and fields. The textual data examined will be of relevance to cultural historians in fields as far apart as philosophy, religious symbolism, medicine, mineralogy, optics, fine art, fashion, and dyeing technology.
Part 3 — the core of the work — traces linguistic developments in systematic detail across more than twelve centuries. Special attention is given to the evolving meanings of colour terms, their connotative values, figurative extensions, morphological productivity, and lexicographical registration. New light is shed on a range of scholarly issues and controversies, in ways relevant to German lexicologists and to specialists in other languages, notably French and English.
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'Geschichtszahlen der Phonetik' (1941), together with 'Quellenatlas der Phonetik' (1940)
Author(s): Giulio Panconcelli-CalziaPublication Date January 1994More LessIn this volume two monographs are reprinted in their entirety; these texts by the most distinguished phonetician of the first half of this century, Giulio Panconcelli-Calzia (1878-1966), are even today still the most comprehensive accounts of the 3000-year history of the study of sound by humans. An introduction in English on the history of phonetics by the editor provides the setting for these reprints but also for the ongoing research in the field. A 16-page bibliography covers phonetic history writing from the last hundred years.
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A Glance at the History of Linguistics
Author(s): Holger PedersenPublication Date January 1983More LessThis volume presents a translation into English of Holger Pedersen’s Et Blik på Sprogvidenskabens Historie (Copenhagen 1916). In addition, it provides an introductory article by E.F.K. Koerner on Pedersen’s life and work, and a bibliography of his writings.
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Godfrey of Fontaine's Abridgement of Boethius of Dacia's Modi Significandi sive Quaestiones super Priscianum Maiorem
Editor(s): A. Charlene Senape McDermottPublication Date January 1980More LessThis volume presents the Latin text, critically established by Heinrich Roos, S.J. and Jan Pinborg (Copenhagen 1969), together with an English translation on opposite pages. This is prefaced by an introductory article, which places Boethius the Dane’s Modistic grammar into historical perspective. A detailed Index of Technical Terms rounds off the volume.
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Grammar and Philosophy in Late Antiquity
Author(s): Anneli LuhtalaPublication Date February 2005More LessThis book examines the various philosophical influences contained in the ancient description of the noun. According to the traditional view, grammar adopted its philosophical categories in the second century B.C. and continued to make use of precisely the same concepts for over six hundred years, that is, until the time of Priscian (ca. 500). The standard view is questioned in this study, which investigates in detail the philosophy contained in Priscian’s Institutiones grammaticae. This investigation reveals a distinctly Platonic element in Priscian’s grammar, which has not been recognised in linguistic historiography. Thus, grammar manifestly interacted with philosophy in Late Antiquity. This discovery led to the reconsideration of the origin of all the philosophical categories of the noun. Since the authenticity of the Techne, which was attributed to Dionysius Thrax, is now regarded as uncertain, it is possible to speculate that the semantic categories are derived from Late Antiquity.
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Grammatica, Gramadach <i>and</i> Gramadeg
Editor(s): Deborah Hayden and Paul RussellPublication Date March 2016More LessGrammatica, Gramadach, and Gramadeg : Vernacular grammar and grammarians in medieval Ireland and Wales is concerned with the history of linguistic ideas and literary theory in the vernacular languages of medieval Ireland and Wales. While much good work, especially by Vivian Law, has been done on the Latin materials, this volume is the first to engage with the vernacular texts. It consists of ten essays that explore a range of interconnected topics relating to these themes. Yet while the contributors offer a close analysis of the development of linguistic thought in these literary traditions, they likewise seek to situate their discussions within the wider context of European grammatical learning during this period, considering both the widespread influence of texts from classical linguistic tradition and also the significance of sources from other contemporary learned disciplines for our understanding of the history of linguistics in the medieval world.
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The Grimm Brothers and the Germanic Past
Editor(s): Elmer H. Antonsen, James W. Marchand and Ladislav ZgustaPublication Date January 1990More LessThe pioneering work of Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm in the areas of Germanic comparative and historical linguistics, lexicography, philology, and medieval studies places them squarely among the most important figures in the history of the language sciences. The contributions to this volume present a fascinating and timely reevaluation and reaffirmation of the significance of the Grimm Brothers' work in these areas, all of which the Grimms viewed as necessary components in their search for the essence of the German and Germanic Volksgeist.
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Historical Roots of Linguistic Theories
Editor(s): Lia Formigari and Daniele GambararaPublication Date February 1995More LessMost of the papers collected in this volume concentrate on the history of linguistic ideas in France and Italy in the modern period (from the Renaissance to the present day). Some of them are specifically focused on the links between the two traditions of reflection on language. The contributions have a common methodological outlook: the authors do not believe that the history of linguistic ideas is a separate activity from research on language or that it is marginal with respect to the latter. On the contrary, they are convinced that in contemporary research into language we can still discern the influence — positive or negative as this may be — of factors deriving from the (sometimes distant) past. A historical analysis of these factors — whether it rejects them as superseded, or redefines them in order to elicit the fruitful suggestions they may still contain — has a contribution to make to the progress of theory.
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History and Historiography of Linguistics
Editor(s): Hans-Josef Niederehe and E.F.K. KoernerPublication Date December 1990More LessThese two volume present papers from the Fourth International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (ICHoLS IV), held at the University of Trier, Germany, in August 1987. Volume 1 contains the following sections: I. Generalia; II. Antiquity; III. Arabic Linguistics; IV. Middle Ages; V. Renaissance; VI. 17th Century. Volume 2 continues with: VII. 18th Century; VIII. 19th Century; IX. 20th Century; and provides Author and Subject Indexes.
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History and Historiography of Linguistics
Editor(s): Hans-Josef Niederehe and E.F.K. KoernerPublication Date December 1990More LessThese two volume present papers from the Fourth International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (ICHoLS IV), held at the University of Trier, Germany, in August 1987. Volume 1 contains the following sections: I. Generalia; II. Antiquity; III. Arabic Linguistics; IV. Middle Ages; V. Renaissance; VI. 17th Century. Volume 2 continues with: VII. 18th Century; VIII. 19th Century; IX. 20th Century; and provides Author and Subject Indexes.
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The History of Grammar in the Middle Ages
Author(s): Richard William HuntEditor(s): Geoffrey L. Bursill-HallPublication Date January 1980More LessThis volume brings together a number of papers written by R. W. Hunt (1908-1979) on the history of grammar in the Middle Ages. The importance of these papers lies almost as much in the spark of scholarly investigation that they have inspired, as in their contribution to original research. The first three studies in this collection deal with the change in grammatical doctrine that took place in the late 11th and 12th centuries and from which all subsequent developments during the creative period of medieval grammatical speculation derive. The fourth paper deals with a problem that concerns all students of the medieval liberal arts: the unity of learning, as opposed to the present-day compartmentalisation of studies. The remaining three studies deal with the textual materials available to the medieval student of grammar.
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A History of Language Philosophies
Author(s): Lia FormigariPublication Date October 2004More LessTheory and history combine in this book to form a coherent narrative of the debates on language and languages in the Western world, from ancient classic philosophy to the present, with a final glance at on-going discussions on language as a cognitive tool, on its bodily roots and philogenetic role.
An introductory chapter reviews the epistemological areas that converge into, or contribute to, language philosophy, and discusses their methods, relations, and goals. In this context, the status of language philosophy is discussed in its relation to the sciences and the arts of language. Each chapter is followed by a list of suggested readings that refer the reader to the final bibliography.
About the author: Lia Formigari, Professor Emeritus at University of Rome, La Sapienza. Her publications include: Language and Experience in XVIIth-century British Philosophy. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 1988; Signs, Science and Politics. Philosophies of Language in Europe 1700–1830. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 1993; La sémiotique empiriste face au kantisme. Liège: Mardaga, 1994.
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The History of Lexicography
Editor(s): R.R.K. HartmannPublication Date January 1986More LessMost dictionaries have forerunners, and all have imitators; an understanding of the historical foundations of dictionary-making is therefore one of the preconditions of further progress in academic lexicography. The papers in this volume, which were presented at the 1986 Exeter Seminar, survey most of the lexicographical traditions in the world, some tracing them right back to their beginnings. The programme was divided into eight sessions, with the following concentrations of topics: (1) three classical traditions, (2) the early history of European lexicography, (3) the beginnings of English lexicography, (4) further aspects of English lexicography, (5) the background of diverse national developments, (6) specific features of national developments, (7) pioneers of three genres, (8) recent trends in the English dictionary.
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History of Linguistic Thought in the Early Middle Ages
Editor(s): Vivien A. LawPublication Date November 1993More LessSurveys of linguistics in the Middle Ages often begin with the twelfth century, dismissing the preceding six centuries as 'devoid of originality' or 'dependent upon Donatus and Priscian'. This collection of articles devoted to linguistics in the early Middle Ages attempts to redress the balance by presenting a variety of approaches to new and controversial questions. The volume opens with a study of the historiography of early medieval grammar, with a bibliography of primary and secondary literature. The history of linguistic doctrine is discussed in articles dealing with Virgilius Maro Grammaticus, with the Irish contribution to the analysis of Latin, and with the Carolingian grammarians. A paper discussing a grammar from late Anglo-Saxon England (Beatus quid est) offers new insights into pedagogical techniques and the integration of literary texts into grammar teaching. The attitudes towards varieties of Latin in late antique and early medieval grammars are discussed in a wider context of cultural history. Finally, the volume includes two articles on the transmission of the grammars of the later Roman Empire to the early Middle Ages (Priscian and Dynamius).
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History of Linguistics 1993
Editor(s): Kurt R. JankowskyPublication Date July 1995More LessThe 32 papers of this volume were selected from 78 papers read at ICHoLS VI, were contributed by linguists from 16 countries of Europe, Asia, and the Americas. They are presented in six sections:1. General Concerns 2. Oriental Linguistics and Related Issues 3. From the Early Middle Ages to the End of the 17th Century 4. On 19th-century European Linguistics 5. On the Verge of Modernity: From the 19th to the 20th Century 6. Contemporary IssuesIndividual topics range from dealing with overriding concerns of linguistic historiography to focusing on specific fields of inquiry within a limited frame and involving a large variety of topical areas. Most of the papers are written in English. The exceptions are one French and two German contributions.
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