History of linguistics(18th century_modern era)

Presented by:

Fariha asghar

Roll no 1

M-phil English

B.Z.U

THE RISE OF COMPARATIVE METHOD

• Development of the comparative method was the outstanding 19th century linguistic achievement

• A set of principles to systematically compare languages with respect to their sound systems, grammatical structure, and vocabulary.

• As all Romance languages evolved from Latin, so Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit …Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic languages… had evolved from some earlier Proto-Indo-European language.

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Sir William Jones

SIR WILLIAM JONES

• The main impetus for the development of this comparative philology came toward the end of the 18th century, when it was discovered by an english orientalist, sir William Jones.

• In the year 1786,sir William Jones,a judge in British court in India,read his famous paper to the royal Asiatic society in Calcutta,wherein he established beyond doubt the historical kinship of Sanskrit,the classical language of India,with Latin,Greek and the Germanic languages.

Early 19th century

• Four best known scholars in the linguistic science of the early 19th century are:

1.Dane r Rask

2.J Grimm

3.F .Bopp

4.Von Humboldt

Ramsus rask

• Rask, Grimm and Bopp were the founders of scientific historical linguistics.

• Rasmus Rask wrote the first systematic grammars of old Norse and old English.He drew together the various threads of historical linguistics of the day into a coherent system of principles for establishing the relatedness of languages.

J.Grimm\F.bopp

• Grimm's work is hailed as the start of German linguistics. ’Grimm's law’ is considered one of the first sound law to form the structure and support of indo-european language families.

• Franz Bopp established the importance of Sanskrit in the comparative study of indo-European languages.he attempted to describe the original grammatical structures of the languages,trace their phonetic laws,and investigate the origin of their grammatical forms.

Wilhem von humboldt

• The Prussian statesman, von Humboldt conceived a theory of “inner” and “outer” form in language…a structural conception…outer - the raw sounds the language; inner - the pattern of grammar - meaning imposed upon the raw material and differentiated languages.

• Another idea of Humboldt is language as dynamic - an activity…not the product of activity…not a set of actual utterances produced by speakers but the underlying principles or rules. These ideas influence - or emerge again in - Ferdinand de Saussure’s structuralism and Noam Chomsky’s transformational-generative grammar.

Modern linguistics

• Modern linguistics emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the shift of focus from historical concerns of changes in languages over time,to the idea that a language can be viewed as a self contained and structured system situated at a particular point in time.this forms the basis for structuralist linguistics.

structuralism

• The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure is widely acknowledged as the founding father of modern linguistics for his book ‘course in general linguistics’.

• Historically de Saussure's ideas may be put under three heads.

1. He formalized and made explicit the fundamental and indispensable dimensions of linguistic study i.e synchronic\descriptive linguistics and diachronic\historical linguistics.

Ferdinand de saussure

2. He distinguished linguistic competence of the speaker and the actual phenomena or data of linguistic utterances as langue and parole.

3. His theory of signs has been very influential. His linguistic sign is a union of the signifier (the form, sound) and the signified(the meaning, function).the relationship of sound and meaning is arbitrary.

F .D Saussure

Phonetics and phonology

• Phonetics and phonology were dominant in early modern linguistics.

• The international phonetic association (IPA)was established in 1886 by a group of European phoneticians. The British phonetician Henry sweet was one of the leading figures in phonetics in 2nd half of the 19th century.

• Sweet and polish linguist Courtenay were independently instrumental in development of the notion of the phoneme or distinctive sound.

The Prague school

• . The prague school is a tradition of linguistic thought that is associated with a group of czech and other linguistic circle of prague,established in 1926.

• The group held regular meetings and published a journal.

• The primary interest of the circle was phonological theory.

The Prague school…

• Prague school phonology succeed in placing the notion of the phoneme in the centre of linguistic theory,as one of the most fundamental units.

• They also made contributions to the field of syntax.

STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS IN AMERICA

1. Franz boas

2. Edward Sapir

3. Leonard Bloomfield

Franz boas

• Franz boas is considered the founder of American linguistics and american anthropology.A major concern for him was to obtain information as native American languages and cultures before they disappear.

Edward Sapir

• Edward Sapir (boas' student) was highly admired during is life and is still something of a hero to many linguists.

• He published extensively in both linguistics and anthropology, did first hand field work on many American Indian languages, contributed to historical linguistics and wrote theoretical works.

Leonard Bloomfield

• Bloomfield is credited with giving American structuralism its fundamental form, making linguistics an autonomous field.

• His principal concern was to develop linguistics as a science. Bloomfield’s ‘language’ is considered a milestone in linguistics, the foundation of American structuralist linguistic thinking.

• He was heavily influenced by behaviour psychology.

Noam chomsky and linguistic theory since 1957

The main stream of linguistics since 1957,the year in which Chomsky's ‘syntactic structures’ appeared has been dominated by Noam Chomsky.it is difficult to overestimate his impact on both linguistics and contemporary ideas in general.

NOAM CHOMSKY

• Unlike the bloomfieldians,Chomsky brought back Mentalism.For him the goal of grammar is to account for the native speaker’s competence, defined as what a native speaker knows of his\her language.

• A generative grammar is a system of formal rules, principles and parameters which makes explicit the finite mechanism available to the brain to produce infinite sentences.

Chomsky…

• In his review of skinner’s verbal behavior he refuted the behaviorist psycology.he believed that language is rooted in the biology, not behavior.

Contemporary approaches to linguistics

Formal approach Functional approach

In formal approach linguistic structures are independent of their functions and meaning.(syntactic)

In functional approachLinguistic structure are motivated by functional and cognitive forces.(semantic)

Linguistics today

A multidisciplinary subject

• Psycholinguistics

• Sociolinguistics

• Applied linguistics

• Computational linguistics etc

references

1. A short history of linguistics

By R.H Robins

2. An outline of the history of linguistics

link: continuum books

3. The history of linguistics

by Lyle Campbell

link: Blackwell

reference online

Class activity

Title of the book author

Course in general linguistics

language

Syntactic structures

Language and mind