History of Linguistics

History of Linguistics

• The history of linguistics is bound up with

various theories which have been proposed in
the attempt at explaining the nature of the
human language faculty. These theories can
be grouped into three broad categories which
correspond roughly to historical epochs.
 Orientation - Period
0) non-theoretical studies - before the 19th
century
1) historical linguistics - 19th century
2) structuralism - first half of 20th century
3) generative grammar - second half of 20th
century
 History of Linguistics

• Various linguistic theories have been developed over

the past two centuries as shown above. The school of
historical linguistics came to be known in the late 19th
century as Neogrammarianism.
• Structuralism in the 20th century was introduced by
Ferninand de Saussure (1857-1913), a Swiss-French
linguist whose original ideas were published in a book
posthumously (Cours de linguistique générale, 1916).
• Generative grammar was invented and developed by
Noam Chomsky (1928- ) and has been the dominant
model of formal linguistics in recent decades.
 History of Linguistics

• Linguistics as a science began at the beginning of the

19th century and was diachronic in its orientation.
• The essential theoretical assumption of linguists at this
time was that of the sound law which maintains that
(phonological) change is without exception unless this
is prevented by phonotactic environment.
• Later analogical change can mask an earlier change
and make it appear irregular by increasing its scope
beyond environments in which it originally applied.
 History of Linguistics

• In the latter half of the 19th century linguistic

techniques reached a highwater mark and the
linguists involved are known today
as Neogrammarians (Junggrammatiker).
• One of their main concerns was the
reconstruction of the proto-language Indo-
European from which nearly all languages in
Europe and many in the Middle East and
northern India are derived.
 History of Linguistics

• The advent of structuralism at the beginning of the 20th

century is associated with Ferdinand de Saussure, a French-
Swiss scholar whose ideas have had a lasting effect on the
linguistic thought of following generations.
• Saussure stressed the interaction at any one time of
elements in a language's structure and maintained that
these were interrelated in a network of relations.
• Diachrony is in his view just a stringing together of various
synchronic slices, so that the structure of a language at one
point in time is primary and historical considerations are
dependent on the principles derived from viewing language
synchronically.
 History of Linguistics

• The consideration of system structure has led

to a functional view of language change which
recognises both simplification and repair
along with avoidance of merger as valid types
of change.
 History of Linguistics

• The generative approach to language change sees it

primarily as rule change which becomes part of the
internalised grammar of a certain generation and
remains so until replaced by another rule change.
• This type of change is always binary, i.e. a rule is either
present or not, and as such has been rejected by many,
notably by sociolinguists, who argue that there is often
a variable application of rules and that speakers can
have a command of several subsystems whose use is
determined by external, social factors.
 History of Linguistics
• India
• 400 BC
• Panini composed his Sansrkit grammar
known as the Astadhyayi ‘eight books’.
 History of Linguistics

• Greece 5th century BC - onwards

• Pre-Socratic philosophers and later Sophists
Socrates (469-399 BC); Plato (c.427-348
BC); Aristotle (384-322 BC)
The Stoics (4th century BC)
 History of Linguistics

Rome 1st century BC to approx. 500 AD

• Varro (116-27 BC); Donatus (mid 4th
century AD); Priscian (c.500 AD)
The Dark Ages 5th to 8th centuries
• Boethius (480-524)
Isidore of Seville (St.Isidorus) (c.560-636)
Sibawaih (8th century, Persian grammarian
of Arabic)
 History of Linguistics

The Middle Ages 10th to 14th centuries

• Ælfric the Grammarian (955-1020) [England]
The First Grammatical Treatise (12th century)
[Iceland]
Robert Grosseteste (c.1170-1253) [England]
Roger Bacon (c.1214-1292) [England]
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) [Italy]
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) [Italy]
Duns Scotus (c.1266-1308)
Thomas of Erfurt (14th century) [Germany]
 History of Linguistics
• The Renaissance15th to 18th centuries
Erasmus (1466-1535) [Holland]
Petrus Ramus (c.1515-1572) [France]
Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609) [France]
Franciscus Sanctius (1554-1628) [Spain]
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) [England]
John Locke (1632-1704) [Scotland]
George Berkeley (1685-1753) [Ireland]
David Hume (1711-1776) [Scotland]
René Descartes (1591-1650) [France]
Benedictus Spinoza (1632-1677) [Holland]
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) [Germany]
Port Royal Grammar (1660) [France]
 History of Lingusitics
• 19th century: Indo-European studies

Main early figures

• Sir William Jones (1746-1794) [England]
• Franz Bopp (1791-1867) [Germany]
• August Schlegel (1767-1845) [Germany]
• Jakob Grimm (1785-1863) [Germany]
• Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829) [Germany]
• August Pott (1802-1887) [Germany]
• Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) [Germany]
• August Schleicher (1821-1868) [Germany]
• Rasmus Rask (1787-1832) [Denmark]
• Johannes Schmidt (1843-1901) [Germany]
• August Leskien (1840-1916) [Germany]
 History of Lingusitics
Main later figures
• Karl Verner (1846-1896) [Denmark]
• Hermann Paul (1846-1921) [Germany]
• Karl Brugmann (1849-1919) [Germany]
• Baudouin de Courtenay (1845-1929) [Russia]
• Hermann Osthoff (1847-1909) [Germany]
• Nikolai Kruszewski (1851-1887) [Poland]
• Eduard Sievers (1850-1932) [Germany]
• Hugo Schuchardt (1842-1927) [Germany]
 20th century
Structuralism:
• Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)
[Switzerland]
• Edward Sapir (1884-1939) [United States]
• Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949) [United
States]
• Nikolai Trubetzkoy (1890-1938) [Russia]
 Generative grammar
• Roman Jakobson (1896-1982) [Russia/United
States]
• Halle, Morris [United States]
• Noam Chomsky (1928- ) [United States]
Linguistics
 Historical linguistics
• Historical linguistics, also called
diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of
language change over time.
• Principal concerns of historical
linguistics include: to describe and account for
observed changes in particular languages.
 What is meant by modern linguistics?
• Linguistics as a study endeavors to describe
and explain the human faculty of language.
• The 1960s saw the rise of many new fields
in linguistics, such as Noam Chomsky's
generative grammar, William Labov's
sociolinguistics, Michael Halliday's systemic
functional linguistics and
also modern psycholinguistics.
 Traditional grammar
• A traditional grammar is a framework for the
description of the structure of a language.
• Traditional grammars are commonly used in
language education. They may be contrasted
with theories of grammar in
theoretical linguistics, which grew out
of traditional descriptions of grammar.
 Definition of Language
• SPEECH is so familiar a feature of daily life that we
rarely pause to define it. It seems as natural to man as
walking, and only less so than breathing. To put it
concisely, walking is an inherent, biological function of
man.
• Not so language.
• It is of course true that in a certain sense the individual
is predestined to talk, but that is due entirely to the
circumstance that he is born not merely in nature, but
in the lap of a society that is certain, reasonably
certain, to lead him to its traditions.
 Definition of Language
• Speech is a human activity that varies without
assignable limit as we pass from social group to social
group, because it is a purely historical heritage of the
group, the product of long-continued social usage.
• It varies as all creative effort varies—not as consciously,
perhaps, but none the less as truly as do the religions,
the beliefs, the customs, and the arts of different
peoples.
• Walking is an organic, an instinctive, function (not, of
course, itself an instinct); speech is a non-instinctive,
acquired, “cultural” function.
 Definition of Language
• Language is a purely human and
noninstinctive method of communicating
ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a
system of voluntarily produced symbols.
• These symbols are, in the first instance,
auditory and they are produced by the so-
called “organs of speech.”
 Definition of Language
• We must not be misled by the mere term.
• There are, properly speaking, no organs of speech; there are only
organs that are incidentally useful in the production of speech
sounds.
• The lungs, the larynx, the palate, the nose, the tongue, the teeth,
and the lips, are all so utilized, but they are no more to be thought
of as primary organs of speech than are the fingers to be
considered as essentially organs of piano-playing or the knees as
organs of prayer.
• Speech is not a simple activity that is carried on by one or more
organs biologically adapted to the purpose.
• It is an extremely complex and ever-shifting network of
adjustments—in the brain, in the nervous system, and in the
articulating and auditory organs—tending towards the desired end
of communication.
 Study Questions
1. Based on your readings how would you define
language