Blog Archives

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

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Posted in 19th century, Article, Europe, History, Linguistics, Typology

Speech act theory and Georg von der Gabelentz

Forms of speech

Sven Staffeldt University of WĂŒrzburg 1. The modernity of the ancestors There is a trend in linguistics – or maybe even in general – to reclaim the works of older authors. Older authors are sometimes used as sources of information

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Posted in 19th century, Article, Europe, History, Linguistics, Pragmatics

The secret history of grammaticalization

James McElvenny UniversitÀt Potsdam Research into grammaticalization has an established pedigree, first certified by Lehmann (2015[1982]: 1-9) and confirmed, with various additions, by Heine et al (1991: 5-23) and Hopper & Traugott (2003[1993]: 19-38).[1] The standard genealogy records the birth

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Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, Europe, History, Linguistics, Pragmatics, Semantics

Exclamatives: a grammatical category?

Els Elffers University of Amsterdam 1. Introduction In most Western European grammars, sentences such as Hurrah!, How very curious!, or Vienna is so dull! are categorized as exclamatory sentences or exclamatives. Next to declaratives, interrogatives and imperatives, exclamatives are usually

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Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, History, Linguistics, Syntax, Uncategorized

Otto Jespersen and progress in international language

James McElvenny University of Sydney When it comes to expressing the ideas of our own day, the deficiencies of classical Latin appear with ruthless clarity: telephones and motor-cars and wireless have no room in Ciceronian Latin, and it will be

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Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, History, Linguistics

Gabelentz — Grammatiker einer Sprache ohne Grammatik

Kennosuke Ezawa Ost-West-Gesellschaft fĂŒr Sprach- und Kulturforschung e. V., Berlin In der Wissenschaft gilt ein Modell von dem Gegegenstand, der erklĂ€rt werden soll, nur solange, bis es nicht mehr taugt. Bei der so genannten Chomskyschen Revolution in der Linguistik Mitte

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Posted in 19th century, Article, Germany, History

Upcoming events

28-30 June 2023
Faro, Portugal
International Inter-association (History of Language Teaching) Conference
Language teachers, methodologies and teacher training in historical perspective

4-6 September 2023
Universidade de TrĂĄs-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal
2023 Annual Colloquium of the Henry Sweet Society
What counts as scientific in the History of Linguistics?

6-9 September 2023
Universidade de TrĂĄs-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal
XXXII. International Colloquium of the “Studienkreis ‘Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft'” (SGdS)
Controversies in the history of linguistics