Subject collection: Linguistics (2,773 titles, 1967–2015)

Intuitively, it is clear why languages have anaphoric relations: anaphora reduces redundancy, thereby shortening (and hence simplifying) sentences. In order for this simplification to be possible, however, it is necessary that the speaker of a language be able to identify correctly the elements participating in an anaphoric relation and to determine correctly the meaning of the anaphor on the basis of meaning of the antecedent. If a grammar is to reflect the linguistic competence of a native speaker of a language, it must include mechanisms of associating anaphor and antecedent. In this volume the following questions will be considered: What sorts of mechanisms are best suited for representing anaphora in a grammar? What are the conditions on the rule(s) associating anaphors with antecedents? Do the various cases of anaphora form a linguistically significant class of phenomena, and, if so, how can the grammar capture this fact? And what do these answers entail for linguistic theory?

There are indications that interest in the study of adverbs has been growing steadily in recent years, largely due to the so-called Chomskyan revolution in linguistics which put much emphasis on the study of syntax, but probably also because of the position these adverbs and other particles take within a syntactic string has proved to be much more difficult to determine than had previously been thought. Still another reason for the increase of interest in this topic may be found in the recent trend in linguistics which focusses on communicative competence and actual language use in daily discourse. Although this bibliography has no claim to exhaustiveness, it should nonetheless be useful to researchers working on adverbs and comparatives. The titles selected relate in one way or another to the problems the linguist faces with respect to the adverb.

The publication in 1816 of Bopp’s Über das Conjugationssystem can be considered the beginning of a systematic comparison of Indo-European languages, and thus as having led too the development of the study of language as a science, distinct from philology. The Analytical Comparison (1820) represents not merely a translation into English, as has been claimed in the literature, but a significant advance in theoretical clarity and methodological soundness.

This reprint is accompanied by a bio-bibliographical account of Bopp by J. D. Guigniaut, an introduction to Analytical Comparison by Friedrich Techmer, and a letter to Bopp by Wilhelm von Humboldt. Furthermore, the editor, E. F. K. Koerner, has added a Foreword, select bibliography, and index.

Wie die hier vorgelegten Untersuchung zeigen möchte, bietet die Arithmetik aus Euklids Elementen besonders gute Chancen für einen Erfolg bei der Suche nach Spuren, die das Wissen der Völker des Alten Orients in der griechischen Mathematik hinterlassen hat. Dazu kommt, daß uns eine Reihe von Tontafeln aus dem Alten Orient eine erste Einsicht in gewisse Rechen- und Begründungsmethoden bieten, die man dort spätestens seit dem 3. vorchristlichen Jahrtausend anzuwenden wußte. Zu der Vorstufe der Keilschrift, in der diese Texte abgefaßt sind, gehören nämlich Ziffern und metrologische Zeichen, die erkennen lassen, daß ihre Schreiber beim Lösen von arithmetischen Aufgaben Rechensteine zu benutzen pflegten. Dieser operative Umgang mit Rechensteinen, der in, den Schreiberschulen immer neuen 'Schülergenerationen' vermittelt worden ist, führte bereits im Alten Mesopotamien zur Entdeckung und Begründung einer Reihe von Einsichten, die methodisch und inhaltlich zu den Anfängen der griechischen Arithmetik gehören, doch das wird erst im Rahmen der nachfolgend zur Diskussion gestellten Untersuchungen deutlich werden.