The Importance of Techmer's 'Internationale Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft' in the Development of General Linguistics

Koerner, E. F. K.

doi:10.1075/sihols.1

Cited by 9 publications

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“…9 There was a journal of general linguistics in the 19th century (Friedrich Techmer's Internationale Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, 1884-1890), but this was almost forgotten in the 20th century (see Koerner 1973). (The journal Language was founded even before Lingua, in 1925, but its mission was originally much broader, and in the first few decades, it mostly published studies on particular languages.)…”

Section: General Linguistics and Theoretical Linguistics: A Brief History Of The Termsmentioning

confidence: 99%

General linguistics must be based on universals (or non-conventional aspects of language)

Haspelmath

2021

Theoretical Linguistics

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This paper highlights the importance of the distinction between general linguistics (the study of Human Language) and particular linguistics (the study of individual languages), which is often neglected. The term “theoretical linguistics” is often used as if it entailed general claims. But I note that (unless one studies non-conventional aspects of language, e.g. reaction times in psycholinguistics) one must study universals if one wants to make general claims. These universals can be of the Greenbergian type, based on grammatical descriptions of the speakers’ social conventions, or they can be based on the natural-kinds programme, where linguists try to describe mental grammars as made up of universal building blocks of an innate grammar blueprint. The natural-kinds programme is incompatible with Chomsky’s claims about Darwin’s Problem, but it is indispensable for a general linguistics in the generative tradition. The Greenbergian programme, by contrast, can make use of framework-free descriptions because its comparisons are based on independently defined universal yardsticks.

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Section: General Linguistics and Theoretical Linguistics: A Brief History Of The Termsmentioning

confidence: 99%

General linguistics must be based on universals (or non-conventional aspects of language)

Haspelmath

2021

Theoretical Linguistics

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“…Of these three scholars Techmer appears to be the least known, and yet his contribution to the history of phonetics (as well as to the science of phonetics itself) was by no means small (Seelmann 1892; Koerner 1973). It was of Techmer's Beitrage to the history of French and English phonetics and phonography (Techmer 1890) that Vietor said after the author's death: "Had the author ... left us only these Beitrage, a grateful remembrance of him with all colleagues would be secured as a thorough expert and discerning scholar" (English translation in Koerner 1973 (Techmer 1890), adding detailed introductions to both in which the historical development of phonetics is sketched. Panconcelli-Calzia, writing two generations later, still made frequent reference to Techmer's findings.…”

Section: Pioneer Historians Of Phoneticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historiography of Phonetics: the State of the Art

Koerner

1993

Journal of the International Phonetic Association

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If we are to believe Panconcelli-Calzia (1941), the history of phonetics goes back three millenia, and probably as far back as the study of language in general. However, while the history of linguistics has in recent decades become a widely practised field of scholarly endeavour, with a specialist journal and several associated monograph series available since 1973, nothing comparable has occurred with regard to the history of phonetics. There is no indication that a concerted effort is under way to remedy the situation and to establish the history of phonetics as an integral part of the study of phonetics as has been done with regard to the history of linguistics for well over fifteen years. The present paper offers a critical survey of previous scholarship in the historiography of phonetics and presents a few ideas that may strengthen the interest in the historiography of (linguistic) phonetics and encourage someone to undertake a major, comprehensive work in this field.

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“…The fact that Schleicher should have managed to devise a Darwinian theory of language is not 'remarkable'; it finds its justification in the recent but vigorous tradition established by Bopp, by the Schlegels, by the Grimm brothers of considering biology as a science similar in method and problems to linguistics. Moreover, that in the first decades of the 19th century there was a 'flight of concepts', and exportation of models, from the science of life to the science of language, and a persistent recurrence in the latter of metaphors of the former, is a verdict commonly accepted by scholars of philosophical and linguistic training alike (Cassirer 1923;1945;1950;Arens 1969;Malmberg 1964;Foucault 1966;Marx 1967;Brown 1967;Koerner 1972;Salmon 1974).…”

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confidence: 96%

Some Problems of Classification in Linguistics and Biology, 1800–1830

Picardi

1977

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Jener entscheidende Punkt aber, der hier alles aufhellen wird, ist die innre Structur der Sprachen oder die vergleichende Grammatik, welche ganz neue Aufschlusse uber die Genealogie der Sprachen auf ahnliche Weise geben wird, wie die vergleichende Anatomie uber die hohere Naturgeschichte Licht verbreitet hat.Friedrich Schlegel (1808:28)Überhaupt muss man sich wohl hüten, die Vergleichung des Sprachsystems mit Natursystemen weiter zu fuhren, als der Gegenstand es erlaubt. Eine Sprache kann nicht, wie ein Naturkorper, zerlegt werden* sie ist, auch nicht einmal in der durch sie gegebenen Masse von Wortern und Regeln, ein geistiger Prozess, wie das Leben ein korperlicher. Nichts, was sich auf sie bezieht, kann mit anatomischer, sondern nur mit physiologischer Behandlung verglichen werden, nichts in ihr ist statisch, alles dynamisch. ... Von der Seite ihres lebendigen Wirkens aus muss daher die Sprache betrachtet werden, wenn man ihre Natur wahrhaft erforschen, und zu einer Classification mehrerer gelangen will.

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The Importance of Techmer's 'Internationale Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft' in the Development of General Linguistics

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

General linguistics must be based on universals (or non-conventional aspects of language)

General linguistics must be based on universals (or non-conventional aspects of language)

Historiography of Phonetics: the State of the Art

Some Problems of Classification in Linguistics and Biology, 1800–1830

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