Historiographia Linguistica - Volume 45, Issue 1-2, 2018

En este trabajo se compara el tratamiento de la categoría gramatical ‘nombre’ en dos obras misioneras de la América colonial: Grammatica o arte de la lengua general de los Indios de los Reynos del Peru (1560) de Domingo de Santo Tomás (1499–1570), sobre el quechua, del área andina, y Arte de la lengua Mexicana y Castellana ( 1571 ) de Alonso de Molina (1514–1585), sobre el náhuatl, de la zona mesoamericana. Dichas obras son los primeros tratados gramaticales que describen estas lenguas generales en los virreinatos de Perú y Nueva España, respectivamente, y que se imprimieron en América. Por esta razón, se pueden considerar como piedras angulares para la descripción lingüística respecto de estas lenguas y de otras geográficamente cercanas. Partimos nuestro artículo considerando que estos escritos forman parte de una “tradición hispánica o española” de la lingüística misionera, de modo que revisamos el tratamiento de dicho concepto en la bibliografía especializada. Posteriormente, realizamos un análisis del ‘nombre’ que nos lleva a concluir que en ambas obras prima un enfoque contrastivo, en el cual se emplea la gramática latina como punto de inicio para explicar dicha categoría gramatical. A partir de este modelo, se puntualizan y se explican las semejanzas y las diferencias entre aquel y las gramáticas de las lenguas indígenas; en el segundo caso, los autores buscan nuevas soluciones que faciliten la descripción de las lenguas. Asimismo, debido al contexto de evangelización en que se elaboraron las obras, en estas se incluyen asuntos etnográficos relacionados con la descripción de la categoría ‘nombre’, lo cual también diferencia estos tratados de la tradición gramatical latina. Por último, ofrecemos unas reflexiones finales sobre el ‘nombre’ en las obras revisadas.

This article studies Ramón Joaquín Domínguez’s (1811–1848) Diccionario Nacional ó gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española (1846–1847) , the first encyclopedic work written in Spain. Firstly, a historical account of the context in which this lexicographic work emerged is provided. Secondly, Domínguez’s life, work and political ideas are examined. Finally, the disapproval of the Royal Spanish Academy in the Diccionario Nacional is analyzed. I argue that, in keeping with the French encyclopedic tradition, Domínguez displayed an openly political standpoint in his dictionary and criticized both political ideas and institutions of power that he considered a hindrance to progress and liberalism.

This article presents two essays by the renowned Icelandic manuscript collector Árni Magnússon (1663‒1730): De gothicæ lingvæ nomine [On the expression ‘the Gothic language’] and Annotationes aliqvot de lingvis et migrationibus gentium septentrionalium [Some notes on the languages and migrations of the northern peoples]. The two essays are here edited and published in their original language, Latin. Moreover, an English translation is also presented for ease of access. After a short introduction ( § 1 ), a historical overview of the academic strife between Denmark and Sweden is given ( § 2 ). Subsequently ( § 3 ), Árni Magnússon’s life and work are presented. In the following Section ( § 4 ), the manuscript containing the two essays, AM 436 4to, is described. The two essays are then edited and translated in Section 5 . In the last Section ( § 6 ), the two works are commented and Árni Magnússon’s scholarly thought evaluated.

Most studies on the first histories of the English language go as far back as the 19th century, and dismiss earlier historical accounts of the language. However, 17th- and 18th-century short histories of the English language provide valuable insight into information layout, periodisation criteria, ideological tenets and other material which have left an imprint on the formation of the discipline called History of the English Language. This paper attempts to remedy this lack of attention by providing a catalogue of the first historical accounts of the English language (16th–18th century) with useful bibliographic details which will help future researchers of early accounts of the English language to locate them. The catalogue is accompanied by a description of these accounts which reveals a common pattern regarding contents and organisation.

Towards the end of his career, August Schleicher (1821–1868), the great consolidator of Indo-European historical-comparative linguistics in the mid-19th century, famously drew explicit parallels between linguistics and the new evolutionary theory of Darwinism. Based on this, it has become customary in linguistic historiography to refer to Schleicher’s ‘Darwinian’ theory of language, even though it has long been established that Schleicher’s views have other origins that pre-date his contact with Darwinism. For his contemporary critics in Germany, however, Schleicher’s thinking was an example not of Darwinism but of ‘materialism’. This article examines what ‘materialism’ meant in 19th-century Germany – its philosophical as well as its political dimensions – and looks at why Schleicher’s critics applied this label to him. It analyses the relevant aspects of Schleicher’s linguistics and philosophy of science and the criticisms directed against them by H. Steinthal (1823–1899). It then discusses the contemporary movement of scientific materialism and shows how Schleicher’s political views, social background and personal experiences bound him to this movement.

Le linguiste polonais Mikołaj Kruszewski (1851–1887) est la plupart du temps présenté comme un Néo-grammairien, tout comme du reste son maître et compatriote Jan Baudouin de Courtenay (1845–1929). Mais peut-on faire confiance à ce lieu commun? Pour répondre à cette question, on esquissera dans un premier temps les principales étapes de la vie et de l’œuvre de Kruszewski, ce qui nous permettra de mieux le situer par rapport aux Néo-grammairiens; et on découvre une relation complexe, entre emprunt, imitation, refondation et créativité pure. L’examen des œuvres initiales de Kruszewski, à cheval entre linguistique et ethnographie, et composées avant même la découverte du mouvement néo-grammairien (il s’agit surtout des Formules magiques comme genre de la poésie populaire de 1876 ), montre en effet que Kruszewski a été bien davantage inspiré par l’ethnologie et la psychologie empiriste anglo-saxonnes qu’il avait découvertes lors de ses années d’étude à Varsovie. Sa pensée s’inscrit donc au confluent de deux héritages scientifiques, l’un anglo-saxon, l’autre germanique, ce qui illustre une fois de plus la fécondité des échanges interculturels.

Eric Heinz Lenneberg (1921–1975), a neuroscientist and linguist born in Düsseldorf, published his masterpiece Biological Foundations of Language in 1967 . This book, now recognized as a classic in the field, inaugurated the scientific study of the biology of language, and has since its publication exerted an enormous influence. However, some interpretations of this work do not accurately capture the author’s biological and linguistic thinking. Here I concentrate on one such interpretation, that of leading generative acquisitionist Kenneth Wexler (1942-), who has formulated what he terms ‘Lenneberg’s dream’, portraying Lenneberg as believing that a trait like language is directly rooted in the genome. The present paper will show that Lenneberg’s view was in fact quite different from that assumed by Wexler. First, while the latter author explicitly adopts the genocentric stance that has characterized generative grammar since its very inception, the former relativized the role of genes and rejected the genome as the direct source of language. Second, Wexler’s position can be shown to be preformationist, assuming the genome to contain a specific program for language; Lenneberg, in contrast, never embraced that position and instead adopted an opposite, epigenesist stance. In sum, Lenneberg dreamt a completely different dream.