The History of Linguistics in Europe: From Plato to 1600
Abstract
This authoritative and wide-ranging book, first published in 2003, examines the history of western linguistics over a 2000-year timespan, from its origins in ancient Greece up to the crucial moment of change in the Renaissance that laid the foundations of modern linguistics. Some of today's burning questions about language date back a long way: in 1400 BC Plato was asking how words relate to reality. Other questions go back just a few generations, such as our interest in the mechanisms of language change, or in the social factors that shape the way we speak. Vivien Law explores how ideas about language over the centuries have changed to reflect changing modes of thinking. A survey chapter brings the coverage of the book up to the present day. Classified bibliographies and chapters on research resources and the qualities the historian of linguistics needs to develop, provide the reader with the tools to go further.
... Nesse sentido, o historiógrafo busca descrever e analisar como se constituiu determinado saber linguístico ao longo da História, observando possíveis relações entre as ideias intelectuais defendidas (ou rejeitadas) e o contexto social e político em que elas foram elaboradas (Batista, 2019). Ademais, como a língua reflete a natureza do ser humano e abrange sua diversidade, Law (2003) explica que o estudo das ideias linguísticas a partir da perspectiva histórica nos permite descobrir, além do saber metalinguístico, como o próprio sujeito era compreendido em determinada época. ...
Resumo A historiografia da educação de surdos no Brasil nos revela que os projetos educativos defenderam diferentes caminhos para a inclusão social desses indivíduos. Entre eles, destaca-se o trabalho, concebido historicamente como meio pelo qual o surdo conseguiria se integrar como um sujeito útil à sociedade. Nesse contexto, a presente pesquisa visou analisar como se organizam as propostas pedagógicas para surdos no Brasil nos anos 30 e de que forma a aprendizagem de ofícios para a inserção do surdo ao mercado se consolidou como um dos principais objetivos desse ensino. A pesquisa contextualiza-se no campo da Historiografia Linguística e trata-se de uma pesquisa bibliográfica e documental. Entre os resultados obtidos, observa-se que a proposta educativa para surdos se resumiu ao ensino de uma forma de comunicação e de um ofício para fornecer meios para a rápida inclusão desse alunado no mercado, de modo que eles fossem produtivos para a sociedade.
... During Plato's era, the Greek language exhibited considerable diversity and was subject to a multitude of influences, both internal and external. These influences have had enduring effects on Western philosophy and language (Law, 2003). ...
Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
... Suomen ja viron kielioppitraditio pohjautuu eurooppalaiselle kielioppitraditiolle, jonka kehityksen pääkohdat esitän seuraavaksi. Tarkempia yleisesityksiä kielioppi tradition kehityksestä ovat laatineet esimerkiksi Law (2003) ja Allan (2010). Myös Kärnä ja Marjamäki (2017: 383-388) esittävät tiiviin mutta kattavan kuvauksen länsi maisesta kielioppi traditiosta suomeksi. ...
Tämä artikkeli tarkastelee sijaterminologian kehitystä uralilaisten kielten kuvauksissa (kieliopeissa ja lyhyemmissä teksteissä). Uralilaisten kielten kuvausten sijaterminologia pohjautuu laajempaan eurooppalaiseen kieliopinkirjoitustraditioon, jonka juuret ovat latinan kielioppitraditiossa. Tämä näkyy siinä, että varhaisimmat tutkimani kieliopit, 1600- ja 1700-luvuilla julkaistut suomen ja viron kieliopit, kuvaavat näiden kielten sijasysteemit latinan mallin mukaan käyttäen myös latinalaista sijaterminologiaa. Aikaa myöten, suomen kuvauksissa 1700- ja viron kuvauksissa 1800-luvulla, kielten sijasysteemin kuvaus muuttui kielten rakenteen mukaiseksi, mutta latinalaisperäinen terminologia jäi käyttöön. Myöhemmin, kun pääasiassa suomalaiset tutkijat alkoivat kuvata pienempiä uralilaisia kieliä, latinalaisperäinen terminologia siirtyi näiden kielten kuvauksiin. Uralilaisten kielten sijaterminologian kehityksen tarkastelu avaa mielenkiintoisen ikkunan siihen, miten terminologiset innovaatiot leviävät tutkimusparadigmassa. Artikkeli esittelee sitä, kuinka useat pienempien uralilaisten kielten tutkijat mainitsevat kielenkuvauksissaan edeltäjiään, mikä osoittaa tutkimusparadigman jatkuvuuden. Toisaalta tutkimus osoittaa myös kohtia, joissa aiempi paradigma muuttuu. Merkittävimpiä tällaisia kohtia ovat Bartholdus Vhaëlin ratkaisu kuvata suomen sijasysteemi sen omista lähtökohdista 1700-luvulla, mikä johti varsinaisen latinalaisen terminologian muuttumiseen latinalaisperäiseksi, eli siirtymiseen latinankielisten sepitteiden käyttöön. Toinen tutkimuksessa ilmi tuleva merkittävä paradigman muutoskohta on M. A. Castrénin päätös yrittää mukauttaa komin ja marin paikallissijasysteemit suomalaiseen sisä-ulkojakoon, mikä näkyy hänen käyttämässään terminologiassa. Tämän virheellisen terminologisen valinnan jäljet ovat vieläkin näkyvissä esimerkiksi permiläisten kielten sijaterminologiassa. Tutkimus kattaa ajanjakson ensimmäisistä suomen ja viron kieliopeista noin 1800-luvun puoleen väliin, jolloin sijaterminologia alkoi kaikkien uralilaisten kielten haarojen kuvauksissa vakiintua. Pääpaino on itämerensuomalaisten, mordvalaisten, marilaisten ja permiläisten kielten terminologian kehityksessä, mutta artikkeli sivuaa myös saamelaiskielten sekä Uralin itäpuolisten uralilaisten kielten terminologian kehitystä. Where do case terms come from? The development of case terminology in Finnish and other Uralic languages This paper examines the development of the terminology relating to grammatical case in descriptions (grammars and shorter texts) of the Uralic languages. The terminology of grammatical case in descriptions of the Uralic languages is based on the wider European grammar writing tradition, which has its roots in the Latin grammar tradition. This can be seen in the fact that the earliest grammars I have studied (the Finnish and Estonian grammars published in the 17th and 18th centuries) describe the case systems of these languages according to the Latin model, also using Latin case terminology. Later, in descriptions of Finnish from the 18th century and Estonian from the 19th century, the description of the case system changed to reflect the actual properties of these languages, though Latin-derived terminology remained in use. Later, when Finnish researchers began to describe smaller Uralic languages, Latin-derived terminology was transferred to the descriptions of these languages too. Examining the development of the substitute terminology of the Uralic languages offers an interesting window into how terminological innovations spread throughout the research paradigm. The paper discusses how several researchers of smaller Uralic languages reference their predecessors in their language descriptions, showing the continuity of the research paradigm. On the other hand, research also shows points at which the paradigm changes. The most significant such points are Bartholdus Vhaël’s decision in the 18th century to describe the Finnish case system from outside the Latin model, which led to the actual Latin terminology becoming Latin-derived, i.e. to the use of Latin as the language of self-coined terms. Another significant paradigm shift revealed in the paper is M. A. Castrén’s decision to try to adapt Komi and Mari’s spatial case systems to the Finnish internal-external division, which is reflected in the terminology he uses. The traces of this incorrect terminological choice are still visible, for instance, in the case terminology of the Permic languages.
... Plato notably drew connections between discourse, sincerity, and psychology, delving into how genuine discourse engaged the audience through truthful arguments. He contended that authentic discourse was embodied by a knowledgeable teacher who imparted wisdom or a wise ruler who cultivated virtues within individuals' minds by reminding them of their core values (Law, 2003). The term discourse, in its contemporary sense, has gained considerable prominence since the 1980s. ...
... 1) ἀνάγνωσις -prasmi pareizi lasīt (skaļi, ar izteiksmi, pareizu izrunu, akcentu / toni un ritmu); 2) ἐξήγησις -tropu, tekstu mākslinieciskās izteiksmes līdzekļu izpratni un izskaidrošanu; 3) γλῶσσαι -sarežģītu, novecojušu, arī dialektiem raksturīgu vārdu un alūziju izskaidrošanu vienkāršos vārdos; 4) ἐτυμολογία -vārda īstās / pareizās nozīmes izpēti; 5) ἀναλογίας ἐκλογισμός -analoģiju ievērošanu / aplūkošanu, kas, iespējams, interpretējama kā morfoloģiskā analīze (un tādējādi atbilstu gramatikai šaurā izpratnē) (Law 2003, 55); 6) κρίσις ποιημάτων -aplūkoto dzejas tekstu kritisku novērtēšanu (Dion. ...
Eiropas kultūrvēstures antīkajā posmā svarīgo un cienījamo nodarbju – oratora, valstsvīra, protams, arī dzejas vai prozas autora – karjerā derēja tikai labi apzināta un tādējādi arī izkopta valoda. Gan grieķu, gan romiešu valodas un stila teorētiķu tekstos jēdziens „laba, pareiza valoda” ir viens (pirmais) no četriem parametriem, kuri raksturo labu vārdisko izteiksmi kopumā. Pārējie trīs parametri ir: skaidrība, atbilstība jeb iederīgums, sakārtotība jeb skaistums. Skaidrs, ka divi pirmie parametri visnotaļ balstīti zināšanās par valodas sistēmas elementiem un to savstarpējo mijiedarbi, veidojot izteikumu mutiskā vai rakstītā tekstā. Izpratne par lingvistikas (mūslaiku nozīmē) jautājumiem grieķu–romiešu kultūrlaikos veidojusies filozofiskās, rētoriskās un gramatiskās domas mijiedarbības vidē; arī hronoloģiski – minētajā secībā. Senie teksti un konteksti atklāj valodas sistēmas izzināšanu un apzinātu izpratni par tās elementiem kā priekšnoteikumu valodas iespējami veiksmīgākam lietojumam, nodrošinot izvairīšanos no kļūdām. Apskatot un kopsavelkot svarīgāko informāciju no antīko avotu materiāla, iespējams sazīmēt paralēles ar mūsdienu problemātiku, kad nereti nākas atgādināt un uzsvērt valodas sistēmas elementu izzināšanas lomu valodas apguves un lietošanas procesā.
... They may indeed be extremely rare.") logical traditions of ancient Greece, notably those founded by Plato and Aristotle in the 5 th -4 th centuries BC, for whom the study of language was a tool to be used in pursuing higher endsdevelopment and understanding of dialectic, logic, rhetoric, and poetry (Law 2003;Allan 2004). ...
This paper questions the adequacy of the notion ‘verbal agreement’ with respect to the inflectional marking of person in verbal paradigms, using Israeli Hebrew (IH) as a case study. With regard to IH, the paper argues against the verbal agreement interpretation of the inflectional affixes of the person-inflected paradigms in general, and against the assumption that third person verbs are not marked for person in particular. Adopting a corpus-based and a synchronic intra-paradigmatic perspective, it is suggested that the inflectional affixes in IH should be treated as referential elements (‘bound pronouns’) that are uniformly marked for person. More broadly, the validity of the concept of verbal agreement is questioned based on its incompatibility with observed cross-linguistic data and its historiographical origin. In this respect, the notion verbal agreement presupposes the primacy/naturalness of a particular clausal format – a bipartite structure in which the lexical subject NP and the predicate are present and morphologically independent. As this presupposition essentially reflects a logico-philosophical perspective of the clause originating in the works of the first Greek grammarians rather than a usage-based linguistic one, it is argued that the term ‘verbal agreement’ is inadequate.
... О различиях языков» в одном из писем К. Гесснера: «Mithridates meus πολύγλωττος»(Gessner 1577, 26b).2 Другие примеры книг-полиглотов упоминают:(Law 2003, 218-223, Swiggers 1997, 139-140, Simon 2018. ...
В статье рассматриваются способы представления сведений о многообразии языков мира в XVI веке — в период стремительного увеличения объема лингвистической информации (в том числе о языках Востока и Нового Света), доступной европейским ученым. Отсутствие науки о языках в качестве самостоятельной научной дисциплины в то время не означало отсутствия лингвистического интереса. Однако собираемые авторами сведения о языках включались в сочинения, относившиеся к различным жанрам и областям знания: исследования по истории и географии, справочники по естественным наукам, коллекции алфавитов и переводов молитвы «Отче наш», многоязычные словари и т. д. Соединение и сопоставление разнородной информации о языках из книжных, эпистолярных, а также устных источников стали возможны благодаря появлению особого жанра ученой литературы — «многоязычных книг» (полиглотов), которые по сути были первыми лингвистическими справочниками, собравшими образцы различных языков и сведения по их истории (наиболее известны книги-полиглоты Г. Постеля, Т. Библиандера, К. Гесснера, А. Рокки и К. Дюре). Компилятивный характер этих сочинений предопределил сохранение в их тексте жанрового многообразия цитируемых источников. Согласно классификации, представленной в статье, основными формами представления лингвистического знания в XVI в. следует считать: (1) историю о происхождении народов и языков, (2) многоязычный (сопоставительный) словарь и (3) собрание языковых образцов. На примере справочника Конрада Гесснера «Митридат. О различиях языков» (1555) показано возможное влияние этих форм на структуру книг-полиглотов, которое позволило им стать инструментом для решения ряда лингвистических задач, таких как упорядочение языковой номенклатуры и классификация языков и диалектов.
... By this time, dependency analysis was quite sophisticated, with intellectual high points in the Arabic grammars of the 9th to 11th centuries (Owens, 1988), the Speculative grammars of the European Middle Ages (Law, 2003), and the Encyclopédiste grammars of 18th century France (Kahane, forthcoming), so it was clear that some word combinations were asymmetrical, with a subordinate and (what we would call) a head. But the subject-predicate relation was different, because (so Aristotle claimed) both parts were essential; so syntax, both theoretical and practical, had a problem: how to find a unified analysis for the entire sentence. ...
Pedagogical linguistics is a two-way bridge between linguistics and education, carrying information not only from linguistics to education, but also in the other direction, where linguistics needs to explore the impact of education on language. The paper reviews the history of this bridge, and especially in the 19th and 20th centuries, arguing that the bridge worked well in the 19th but that it disintegrated in the 20th with the rise of linguistics and education as distinct research fields. The challenge for the 21st century is to rebuild it in a sustainable way.
In this article, the Language Awareness and language ideologies of secondary school teachers in a liminal zone area of Nynorsk outside Bergen are examined through the following research question: “How are teachers’ language awareness and language ideologies in liminal zone areas of Nynorsk expressed through their reported need for language skills?”. To answer this question, focus group interviews with a total of twelve teachers at four secondary schools were conducted. Through a reflexive thematic analysis, the following themes were developed: the teacher as a language user, the teacher as a language educator, and the marginal zone affecting TLA (Teacher Language Awareness). One key finding is that the teachers report needing formal knowledge of Nynorsk and Bokmål for their own writing. They describe themselves more as language users than language analysts, language teachers, and cultural educators. Their language awareness is influenced by language ideologies, which also largely guide the focus areas of the interviews. The research indicates that attention must be directed towards language in all subjects, and thus TLA in all subjects in teacher education, especially considering the Norwegian language context with two written languages.
प्रस्तुत लेख पूर्वीय दर्शनका मान्यतामा आधारित भएर अनुसन्धान र यसका अङ्गहरू प्रमाता, प्रमेय, प्रमाण र प्रमेयको भूमिका र तिनका बिचको सम्बन्धको निरूपणमा केन्द्रित छ । गुणात्मक प्रकृतिको यस लेखमा वर्णनात्मक, व्याख्यात्मक र आवश्यक स्थलमा तुलनात्मक विधिको उपयोग गरी अनुसन्धानको स्वरूप र प्रक्रियाको व्याख्या गर्नुका साथै यसका अङ्गका रूपमा रहेका प्रमाता, प्रेमय, प्रमाण र प्रमाको वैशिष्ट्यको निरूपण गरिएको छ । पूर्वीय दर्शनले अनुसन्धानप्रक्रियाको समग्र रूपरेखालाई प्रमाता, प्रमेय, प्रमाण र प्रमा गरी चारओटा अङ्गका माध्यमबाट प्रस्तुत गरेको छ । यी चार अङ्गमध्ये प्रमाताले शोधार्थी, प्रमेयले शोध्य विषय, प्रमाणले शोधविधि र प्रमाले शोधनिष्कर्षलाई बुझाएका छन् । यी चार अङ्गहरू अनुसन्धानका चार पाउ हुन् । एउटा पाउ नहुँदा वा कमजोर हुँदा अनुसन्धान अपाङ्ग वा अविश्वसनीय हुने भएकाले अनुसन्धानको पूर्णता र विश्वसनीयताका लागि यी चारै अङ्गको समान भूमिका छ । पूर्वीय दर्शनमा यी चारै अङ्गको भूमिका समान भए पनि प्रमेय, प्रमाण र प्रमाको चिन्तन चाहिँ विशिष्ट प्रकृतिको छ । प्रमेय भनेको पदार्थ हो । पूर्वीय दर्शनले पदार्थअन्तर्गत चेतन र जड गरी दुई किसिमका तत्त्वलाई लिएको छ । पूर्वीय दर्शनले यी दुवै तत्त्वलाई सत्य मानेर एउटै सत्य पनि अवस्थाविशेषका आधारमा फरक फरक रूपमा प्रकट हुने तथ्य प्रस्तुत गरेको छ । यसैले अवस्थाविशेषका आधारमा सत्य पारमार्थिक, व्यावहारिक र प्रातिभासिक गरी तीन किसिमका छन् । प्रमाण भनेको साधन ज्ञान हो भने प्रमा भनेको साध्य ज्ञान हो । यसअर्थमा पूर्वीय दर्शनका अनुसार साध्य ज्ञान र साधन ज्ञान गरी ज्ञान दुई किसिमका छन् । साध्य ज्ञान भनेको अनुसन्धानको निष्कर्ष हो भने साधन ज्ञान भनेको प्रमाण अर्थात् सैद्धान्तिक आधार हो । प्रमाताले साधन ज्ञानको प्रयोग गरी तत्त्वगत सत्य वा वैचारिक सत्यको ज्ञान गर्दछ । यसरी प्रमाता, प्रमेय, प्रमाण र प्रमा चार अङ्गका माध्यमबाट अनुसन्धानको समग्र प्रक्रिया व्यवस्थित हुने भएकाले पूर्वीय दर्शनअनुसार अनुसन्धानमा यी चारै अङ्गको समान भूमिका छ भन्ने निचोड प्रस्तुत लेखबाट प्राप्त भएको छ ।
Esta contribución es la versión actualizada en español de un artículo escrito por A. Garcea que describe la evolución del pensamiento lingüístico romano tal como lo reflejan autores fragmentarios desde la época de Elio Estilón hasta la de Quintiliano, con especial atención en autores como César y Plinio. En un nuevo apartado, J. Uría añade un breve repaso a algunas figuras menores del siglo I d.C. De este estudio podemos inferir que la historia de la lingüística antigua no debe centrarse exclusivamente en las obras conservadas por transmisión directa soslayando el material fragmentario relevante.
The notation of non-Latin onomastics in diplomas from the monastery of Irache: phonographic uses and the influence of the grammatical traditionEl objetivo de este trabajo es abordar el poligrafismo de los diplomas medievales desde la perspectiva de la formación gramatical adquirida por los escribas en materia de escritura y pronunciación. Para ello, se seleccionan, en primer lugar, pasajes de obras gramaticales tardo-antiguas y medievales relativos a la escritura y a la pronunciación con el fin de precisar las reglas fonográficas que constituirían la competencia gramatical básica de los escribas. En segundo lugar, se ofrece un análisis ilustrativo del modo en que dichas reglas se utilizan para la notación de onomástica no latina en diplomas de la colección medieval de Irache de los siglos XI y XII.
An accumulating number of studies have highlighted the importance of interpersonal neural synchronization (INS) between interlocutors in successful verbal communications. The opportunities for communication across different language contexts are rapidly expanding, thanks to the frequent interactions among people all over the world. However, whether the INS changes in different language contexts and how language choice affects the INS remain scarcely explored. The study recruited twenty pairs of participants to communicate in the first language (L1), second language (L2) and interlingual contexts. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), we examined the neural activities of interlocutors and analyzed their wavelet transform coherence to assess the INS of dyads. Results showed that as compared to the resting state, stronger INS was observed at the left inferior temporal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, pre-motor and supplementary motor cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and inferior frontal gyrus in L1; at the left middle temporal gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, and inferior frontal gyrus in L2; at the left inferior temporal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus in interlingual context. Additionally, INS at the left inferior frontal gyrus was significantly stronger in L2 than in L1. These findings reveal the differences of the INS in different language contexts and confirm the importance of language choice for the INS changes.
A menudo, se ha presentado a Antonio de Nebrija como un “debelador de la barbarie”, pero pocas veces se ha explicado en qué consistió tal barbarie. Esta contribución pretende situar la obra de Antonio de Nebrija en dos ejes. El primero, cronológico, en el que se intentará explicar en qué medida sus escritos marcaron un cambio respecto a la tradición anterior y de qué manera se deben entender su labor humanística. El segundo eje es de tipo espacial, y con él se pretende destacar cómo Nebrija fue uno de los autores –no el primero, desde luego, pero quizás sí el más importante– que cambiaron el paradigma cultural en Castilla, al abandonar la influencia que ejercía Francia y situarse bajo la de los intelectuales italianos.
While ancient metalinguistic resources such as lexica and scholia are increasingly studied in the field of ancient scholarship (Montanari 2020), they are investigated less within the historical sociolinguistics of Ancient Greek. Analysing the Atticist lexica by Phrynichus, Moeris and Aelius Dionysius, this article illustrates the historically persistent connection between social perception of and diachronic change within Ancient Greek. Although the historical relevance of Atticist prescriptivism has been observed, the evidence that these social evaluations provide for Post-Classical Greek language change is rarely assessed systematically (except for objectionable ideological reasons). I demonstrate that the Atticist lexica display metalinguistic awareness of the major mor-phosyntactic changes characterizing Post-Classical Greek (pace Lee 2013:286): paradig-matic (e.g. analogical levelling in verbal system of endings, voice and augment), category changes, category renewal (e.g. dual, pronouns, periphrasis), syntactic change (category expansion of ἔμελλον and τυγχάνω) and case changes (e.g. from case to prepositions).
The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy comprises over fifty specially commissioned essays by experts on the philosophy of this period. Starting in the late eighth century, with the renewal of learning some centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, a sequence of chapters takes the reader through developments in many and varied fields, including logic and language, natural philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, and theology. Close attention is paid to the context of medieval philosophy, with discussions of the rise of the universities and developments in the cultural and linguistic spheres. A striking feature is the continuous coverage of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian material. There are useful biographies of the philosophers, and a comprehensive bibliography. The volumes illuminate a rich and remarkable period in the history of philosophy and will be the authoritative source on medieval philosophy for the next generation of scholars and students alike.
In this book, Stanley E. Porter offers a unique, language-based critique of New Testament theology by comparing it to the development of language study from the Enlightenment to the present. Tracing the histories of two disciplines that are rarely considered together, Porter shows how the study of New Testament theology has followed outmoded conceptual models from previous eras of intellectual discussion. He reconceptualizes the study of New Testament theology via methods that are based upon the categories of modern linguistics, and demonstrates how they have already been applied to New Testament Greek studies. Porter also develops a workable linguistic model that can be applied to other areas of New Testament research. Opening New Testament Greek linguistics to a wider audience, his volume offers numerous examples of the productivity of this linguistic model, especially in his chapter devoted to the case study of the Son of Man.
Taking a broadly chronological approach, this volume of original essays traces the origins of the concept of ‘grammar’. In doing so, it charts the social, moral and cultural factors that have shaped the development of grammar from Antiquity, via the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Modern Europe, to current education systems and language learning pedagogy. The chapters examine key turning points in the history of language teaching epistemology, focusing on grammar for language teaching across different European cultural contexts. Bringing together leading scholars of classical and modern languages education, The History of Grammar in Foreign Language Teaching offers the first single-source reference on the evolving concept of grammar across cultural and linguistic borders in Western language education. It therefore represents a valuable resource for teachers, teacher-educators and course designers, as well as students and scholars of historical linguistics, and of second and foreign language education.
RESUMO: A obra de Agostinho representa um ponto de inflexão entre a tradição literária clássica e a emergência de um novo cânone cristão. Os signos do embate entre esses dois universos aparecem em várias obras deste filósofo, mantendo relações próximas com o seu pensamento sobre a linguagem. Neste artigo, temos como objetivo analisar como o embate entre a tradição literária clássica e os fundamentos filosóficos de uma doutrina cristã se apresenta no tratado gramatical escolar conhecido como Ars breuiata de Agostinho. Para isso, propomos um exame do lugar e da importância das citações literárias clássicas e cristãs nesse texto gramatical, bem como avaliar a sua ressonância em outras obras corpus Augustinianum.
ABSTRACT: Augustine's work represents a turning point between the Classical literary tradition and the emergence of a new Christian canon. The signs of the clash between these two universes appear in several works by this philosopher, keeping strict proximity with his thinking concerning language. This article aims at analysing how the clash between the Classical literary tradition and the philosophical foundations for a Christian Doctrine is reflected in the scholar grammatical treatise known as Augustine's Ars breuiata. In order to do so, an examination of the place and importance of Classical and Christian literary quotations in this grammatical text is proposed, as well as an assessment of their resonance in other works of the corpus Augustinianum.
While all agree that the language of the Septuagint does not represent a Jewish dialect, scholarship has nevertheless struggled to find ways of discussing the language of the Septuagint without implying a similar idea. Just as the notions of “biblical Greek” and “Jewish Greek” have rightly come under scrutiny, so also must scholars carefully reconsider “Septuagint Greek” and similar sobriquets. While admittedly helpful shorthand, such terminology may unintentionally license—or surreptitiously import—prescriptivist approaches to language that are now widely abandoned in linguistic scholarship. This article presents the ancient historical background to such approaches and surveys problematic terminology common within contemporary scholarship to illustrate its links (or lack thereof) with developments in general linguistics. More up-to-date frameworks, particularly from sociolinguistics, provide better concepts and terminology for discussing the language of the Septuagint. Attention is also given to evaluating the absence of external evidence and matters of style.
Irish grammatical tradition, with its thoroughly bilingual mindset, was one of the most prolific in early medieval Europe. Bringing together vernacular and Hiberno-Latin texts from ca. 700–900, this article explores Irish grammarians’ approaches to the linguistic study of sound on various levels, from single phonemes to complete phonological units. It is argued that the combination of corporeal and incorporeal views of speech sound displayed in the sources resulted from the symbiosis of Stoic and Aristotelian philosophy of language. The innovative and transformative character of Irish grammarians’ work is explored through an analysis of vernacular terminology for phonetics and phonology.
Abbreviations: eDIL: The Electronic Dictionary of Irish Language; GL: Grammatici Latini; LSJ: Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon; PL: Patrologia Latina.
This study traces the development of philology (the analysis of literary language) in the Persian tradition in India, concentrating on its socio-political ramifications. The most influential Indo-Persian philologist of the eighteenth century was Sirāj al-Dīn ʿAlī Ḳhān (d. 1756), whose pen-name was Ārzū. Besides being a respected poet, Ārzū was a rigorous theoretician of language whose intellectual legacy was side-lined by colonialism. His conception of language accounted for literary innovation and historical change in part to theorize the tāzah-goʾī [literally, “fresh-speaking”] movement in Persian literary culture. Although later scholarship has tended to frame this debate in anachronistically nationalist terms (Iranian native speakers versus Indian imitators), the primary sources show that contemporary concerns had less to do with geography than with the question of how to assess innovative “fresh-speaking” poetry, a situation analogous to the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns in early modern Europe. Ārzū used historical reasoning to argue that as a cosmopolitan language Persian could not be the property of one nation or be subject to one narrow kind of interpretation. Ārzū also shaped attitudes about reḳhtah , the Persianized form of vernacular poetry that would later be renamed and reconceptualized as Urdu, helping the vernacular to gain acceptance in elite literary circles in northern India. This study puts to rest the persistent misconception that Indians started writing the vernacular because they were ashamed of their poor grasp of Persian at the twilight of the Mughal Empire.
This is the story of the transformation of the ways in which the increasingly Christianized elites of the late antique Mediterranean experienced and conceptualized linguistic differences. The metaphor of Babel stands for the magnificent edifice of classical culture that was about to reach the sky, but remained self-sufficient and self-contained in its virtual monolingualism – the paradigm within which even Latin was occasionally considered just a dialect of Greek. The gradual erosion of this vision is the slow fall of Babel that took place in the hearts and minds of a good number of early Christian writers and intellectuals who represented various languages and literary traditions. This step-by-step process included the discovery and internalization of the existence of multiple other languages in the world, as well as subsequent attempts to incorporate their speakers meaningfully into the holistic and distinctly Christian picture of the universe.
This is the sixth volume to be dedicated to the pioneering linguistic work produced by missionaries in Asia. This volume presents research into the documentation, study and description of Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Tamil. It provides a selection of papers which primarily concentrate on the Society of Jesus and their linguistic production, but also covers linguistic works written by Franciscans, the Order of Discalced Carmelites and works of other religious institutions, such as the Propaganda Fide and the Missions Étrangères de Paris. New insights are provided regarding these works and their reception among European scholars interested in these ‘exotic’ languages and cultures. Each text is placed in its historical context and various approaches to some of the most important descriptive problems faced by these linguists avant la lettre are analyzed, such as the establishment of an adequate romanization system, the description of typological features of these Asian languages, such as tonality and aspiration in Chinese and Vietnamese, agglutination and derivational morphology in Japanese and Tamil, and, pragmatics, in particular politeness in Japanese. This volume not only looks at methodology and descriptive techniques, but also comments on missionary linguistic policies in Asia and offers articles of interest to historiographers of linguistics, historians, typologists, descriptive linguists and those interested in translation studies.
This is the sixth volume to be dedicated to the pioneering linguistic work produced by missionaries in Asia. This volume presents research into the documentation, study and description of Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Tamil. It provides a selection of papers which primarily concentrate on the Society of Jesus and their linguistic production, but also covers linguistic works written by Franciscans, the Order of Discalced Carmelites and works of other religious institutions, such as the Propaganda Fide and the Missions Étrangères de Paris. New insights are provided regarding these works and their reception among European scholars interested in these ‘exotic’ languages and cultures. Each text is placed in its historical context and various approaches to some of the most important descriptive problems faced by these linguists avant la lettre are analyzed, such as the establishment of an adequate romanization system, the description of typological features of these Asian languages, such as tonality and aspiration in Chinese and Vietnamese, agglutination and derivational morphology in Japanese and Tamil, and, pragmatics, in particular politeness in Japanese. This volume not only looks at methodology and descriptive techniques, but also comments on missionary linguistic policies in Asia and offers articles of interest to historiographers of linguistics, historians, typologists, descriptive linguists and those interested in translation studies.
The philosophy of language is central to the concerns of those working across semantics, pragmatics and cognition, as well as the philosophy of mind and ideas. Bringing together an international team of leading scholars, this handbook provides a comprehensive guide to contemporary investigations into the relationship between language, philosophy, and linguistics. Chapters are grouped into thematic areas and cover a wide range of topics, from key philosophical notions, such as meaning, truth, reference, names and propositions, to characteristics of the most recent research in the field, including logicality of language, vagueness in natural language, value judgments, slurs, deception, proximization in discourse, argumentation theory and linguistic relativity. It also includes chapters that explore selected linguistic theories and their philosophical implications, providing a much-needed interdisciplinary perspective. Showcasing the cutting-edge in research in the field, this book is essential reading for philosophers interested in language and linguistics, and linguists interested in philosophical analyses.
In modern linguistics, coherence is considered a fundamental property of text. The study of this phenomenon is quite novel, since its origin dates back to the 1960s. However, although in the historiography of linguistics we find no traces of it, both the concept and its study are not so modern as one might think. By studying text unity, current linguistics addresses a central question both in Aristotle’s Poetics and in 19th–century hermeneutical speculation. Also, linguists are addressing a basic notion of ancient Chinese literary criticism, which we cannot ignore. Thus, the objectives of this paper are to analyse these little-known antecedents, with the purpose of contrasting them; to insert the modern study of coherence in the tradition of both Western and Chinese thought; and to assess directly the contributions and merits of these traditions within the history of linguistics. The research carried out shows surprising results. A similar idea of text coherence is identified in both Western and Chinese traditions, but the most astonishing finding is the existence of a pioneering theory of coherence which was fully developed in China more than 1,500 years ago, predating modern explanatory models by many centuries.
‘What is the difference between a language and a dialect?’ is one of the questions most frequently asked of linguists. A notorious and oft-repeated answer is ‘A language is a dialect with an army and navy’, wrongly attributed to Max Weinreich. Linguists have mostly used this witticism as a handy way to end the discussion and dismiss the distinction between language and dialect as a political question irrelevant to their discipline. This book does not attempt to answer this seemingly unsolvable puzzle either but aims to shed light on a simple fact usually overlooked by linguists and laypeople alike: the conceptual pair is not a timeless given but has a history, and a much shorter one than one might assume. It starts not in Greek antiquity, as the origin of the word dialect may suggest, but in the sixteenth century. Taking the Weinreich witticism as its starting point, this book guides the reader on the remarkable journey which the conceptual pair has made. It begins with the prehistory of the language/dialect distinction in antiquity and the Middle Ages. The core of the book surveys the emergence, establishment, and elaboration of the conceptual pair during the early modern period, from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, when linguistic diversity first became an object of intense study. Finally, the much-contested and ambiguous fate of the language / dialect distinction in modern linguistics is outlined, with special reference to the persistence of earlier ideas and the rise to prominence of the political interpretation crystallized in the Weinreich quip.
This essay – which also serves as an introduction to the six other articles in this special issue – examines the development of the field of language standardisation studies in recent decades. First, it notes the change in focus occasioned by drawing on the notion of language ideologies, especially standard language ideology. That ideological awakening has, in turn, revealed that standardisation studies have, until recently, been largely ideologically monolingualist. I argue that we must consider multilingualism (broadly conceived) in at least five ways when we study language standardisation: to recognise diaglossia within a single named language; to understand the nature of polycentric standards; to analyse language purism; to appreciate the key role of (foreign/ second) language learning in codification; and to trace the transmission of ideologies across languages and cultures. The paper gives examples of the ways in which our research can be unwittingly monolingualist in its concepts and methods, and examines the role of the concepts of heteroglossia and translanguaging in challenging that monolingualism. It concludes by setting an agenda for third-wave standardisation studies, with a call for standardisation studies that are enriched both by the ideological turn and by attending to multilingualism.
The present book is a selection of papers from the 14th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (Paris 2017). The volume is divided thematically into three parts: I. Notions and categories, II. Representations and receptions, III. Learning, codification and the linguistic practices of social actors. The first part is especially concerned with data not easily handled by extant traditions of linguistic analysis, and with constructs and perspectives which proved difficult to establish in the linguist’s descriptive apparatus. Part II groups six studies dealing with alternative representations of linguistic data, and matters of interpretation and reception regarding the work of three important linguists (Saussure, Jespersen, Chomsky). The scope of part III embraces social and pedagogical practices as well as the involvement of linguists in questions of national identity.
De origine scoticae linguae (DOSL, also known as ‘O’Mulconry’s Glossary’) is an etymological glossary dating from around the late-seventh or early-eighth century. It discusses the origins of about 884 Irish words, very often deriving them from Latin, Greek or Hebrew. As such it represents the earliest etymological study of any European vernacular language. Despite this, however, the text has to date been almost completely ignored for its significance in the history of linguistics. This article analyses the authors’ methods, particularly with regard to the semantic and formal components of etymologies, and argues that the text shows considerable coherence, both internally and in relation to its sources and models in the Graeco-Roman linguistic tradition. It argues that DOSL is a serious work of scholarship that represents a milestone in the historical development of comparative linguistics.
Was Tesnière the founding father of dependency grammar or merely a culmination point in its long history? Leaving no doubt that the latter position is correct, Chapters of Dependency Grammar tells the story of how dependency-oriented grammatical description developed from Antiquity up to the early 20th century. From Priscian’s Rome to Dmitrievsky’s Russia, from the French Encyclopaedia to Stephen W. Clark’s school grammars in 19th century America, it is shown how the concept of dependencies (asymmetric word-to-word relations) surfaced again and again, assuming a central place in syntax. A particularly intriguing aspect of the storyline is that even without any direct contact or influence, authors were making key breakthroughs in similar directions. In the works of Sámuel Brassai, a Transylvanian polymath, and Franz Kern, a German grammarian, the first dependency trees appear in 1873 and 1883, respectively, predating Tesnière’s stemmas by several decades.
Was Tesnière the founding father of dependency grammar or merely a culmination point in its long history? Leaving no doubt that the latter position is correct, Chapters of Dependency Grammar tells the story of how dependency-oriented grammatical description developed from Antiquity up to the early 20th century. From Priscian’s Rome to Dmitrievsky’s Russia, from the French Encyclopaedia to Stephen W. Clark’s school grammars in 19th century America, it is shown how the concept of dependencies (asymmetric word-to-word relations) surfaced again and again, assuming a central place in syntax. A particularly intriguing aspect of the storyline is that even without any direct contact or influence, authors were making key breakthroughs in similar directions. In the works of Sámuel Brassai, a Transylvanian polymath, and Franz Kern, a German grammarian, the first dependency trees appear in 1873 and 1883, respectively, predating Tesnière’s stemmas by several decades.
Competition between alternative ways of realizing a certain category or concept, is a cross-sectional phenomenon and a perennial issue in linguistics. The present outline reviews approaches to competition in morphology across the history of linguistics, from Ancient Indian grammatical doctrines up to present-day morphological theories. After dealing with terminological and conceptual issues, the paper features the different guises in which rivalry of forms, rules, and schemas has been assessed in language theories and grammatical traditions from Greek and Roman antiquity up to the nineteenth century. It then focuses on structuralist and generative viewpoints, the notion of blocking, the organization of the lexicon, e.g., in inheritance-based models and in Optimality Theory, and the regularity-irregularity debate in psycholinguistics and computational linguistics. An overview of the contributions to the volume closes the paper.
This article attempts to reconcile, at root, longstanding tensions between intertextuality, narrative function, context-sensitive semantics and formal, repetitive structure in oral and orally derived archaic epic hexameter diction. Calling upon a revised methodological model, drawn from the natural and exact sciences and the study of stochastic, non-deterministic and non-reversible process and, more directly, from the study of complex adaptive systems in contemporary cognitive functional linguistics, the article argues for the inherent evolutionary interdependence – rather than conflict – between context and pattern and between exception and rule, in essence between dynamic, intertextual continuity and change. The article considers selected examples with an emphasis on early Greek epic and in the Epic Cycle.
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