Blog Archives

Wilhelm Wundt and the Lautgesetze Controversy

Lia Formigari Sapienza Università di Roma A long-dominant historiographical tradition, culminating in Hugo Schuchardt’s essay Über die Lautgesetze (1885), depicted the Neogrammarians as the irreducible upholders of the unconditioned validity of phonetic laws. It is my view that, if we

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

From Inductivism to Structuralism: the ‘method of residues’ goes to the field

Michael Silverstein University of Chicago It should be clear to anyone who surveys the historical record that the “discovery” of the phoneme – that is, the codification of phonological theory and method – was key in linguists’ consciousness of a

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Posted in 19th century, 20th century, America, Article, Europe, History, Linguistics, Structuralism

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