In this episode, we talk to Jürgen Trabant about Wilhelm von Humboldt.
Blog Archives
Podcast episode 3: Language classification
In this episode, we look at language classification in the first half of the nineteenth century and at some key ideas in the work of Wilhelm von Humboldt.
Grammaticalisation clines: a brief conceptual history
Martin Konvička Freie Universität Berlin 1 Grammaticalisation clines In this blog post, I will sketch the history of grammaticalisation clines. Hopper and Traugott (2003: 6) understand this concept as “a metaphor for the empirical observation that cross-linguistically forms tend to undergo…
Tagged with: clines, grammaticalization, typology
Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, historical linguistics, Linguistics, Typology
Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, historical linguistics, Linguistics, Typology
Typology – a new task of linguistics
James McElvenny University of Edinburgh In lieu of an introduction Below I offer an English translation of the last essay Georg von der Gabelentz (1840–1893) personally submitted for publication, “Hypologie [Typologie] der Sprachen, eine neue Aufgabe der Linguistik”. This essay…
Tagged with: Gabelentz, typology
Posted in 19th century, Article, Europe, History, Linguistics, Typology
Posted in 19th century, Article, Europe, History, Linguistics, Typology
Primitive Languages: linguistic determinism and the description of Aranda eighty years on
David Moore University of Western Australia Introduction The view that Australian Aboriginal languages are primitive endured into the twentieth century and is still widespread throughout the Australian community. ‘Primitive languages’ were a means of using linguistic evidence from a language to…
Tagged with: Arrernte, Strehlow
Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, Australia, Grammars, History, Linguistics, Missionary Linguistics, Typology
Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, Australia, Grammars, History, Linguistics, Missionary Linguistics, Typology
Joseph Greenberg’s comparative notebooks
Judith Kaplan University of Pennsylvania In John Webster Spargo’s 1931 translation of Holger Pedersen’s contribution to the genre of Disziplingeschichte, readers are introduced to a legion of mostly well-bearded men, marching toward the ‘discovery’ of the Comparative Method. Summing up…
Tagged with: Joseph Greenberg
Posted in 20th century, America, Article, History, Linguistics, Typology
Posted in 20th century, America, Article, History, Linguistics, Typology
Early Descriptions of Gender in Pama-Nyungan Languages
Clara Stockigt University of Adelaide There is little correlation between the existence of a system of gender in Pama-Nyungan languages and the inclusion of a discussion of these systems under the heading “Gender” in early grammatical sources. Of the small…
Tagged with: 19th century, 20th century, Australian language, Australian languages, gender, grammar, history of field linguistics, history of linguistics, Pama-Nyungan languages, Pitta Pitta
Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, Australia, Field linguistics, Grammars, History, Linguistics, Syntax, Typology
Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, Australia, Field linguistics, Grammars, History, Linguistics, Syntax, Typology
(Non-)universality of word-classes and words: The mid-20th century shift
Martin Haspelmath Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig While looking at a range of views by grammarians on word-class distinctions (noun, verb, adjective etc.) and word division in two recent papers (Haspelmath 2011; 2012a), I was struck by what…
Tagged with: 20th century, linguistics, typology, universal grammar, word classes
Posted in 20th century, Article, History, Linguistics, Typology, Uncategorized
Posted in 20th century, Article, History, Linguistics, Typology, Uncategorized
History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences 