Concise History of the Language Sciences: From the Sumerians to the Cognitivists

Description

This book presents in a single volume a comprehensive history of the language sciences, from ancient times through to the twentieth century. While there has been a concentration on those traditions that have the greatest international relevance, a particular effort has been made to go beyond traditional Eurocentric accounts, and to cover a broad geographical spread. For the twentieth century a section has been devoted to the various trends, schools, and theoretical framework developed in Europe, North America and Australasia over the past seventy years. There has also been a concentration on those approaches in linguistic theory which can be expected to have some direct relevance to work being done at the beginning of the twenty-first century or those of which a knowledge is needed for the full understanding of the history of linguistic sciences through the last half of this century. The last section of this book reviews the applications of some of these findings. Based on the foundation provided by the award winning Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics this volume provides an excellent focal point of reference for anyone interested in the history of the language sciences. General. History of linguistics—the field (E.F.K. Koerner). Historiography of linguistics (E.F.K. Koerner). Antiquity to Middle Ages—The Near East. Babylonian grammatical texts (G.B. Gragg). Hebrew linguistic tradition (D. Téné). Arabic linguistic tradition (Y. Suleiman). Antiquity—The Far East. Chinese linguistic tradition (W.S.-Y. Wang, R.E. Asher). Linguistic thought in Japan (S. Kaiser). History of East Asian phonetics (E.G. Pulleyblank). Antiquity—India. Pāninian linguistics (P. Kiparsky). Indian theories of meaning (F. Staal). Ancient Indian phonetics (M.M. Deshpande). Tamil linguistic tradition (K.V. Zvelebil). Antiquity—Europe. Classical linguistics: an overview (D.J. Taylor). Plato and his predecessors (F.W. Householder). Aristotle and the Stoics on language (F.W. Householder). Dionysius Thrax, the Technai, and Sextus Empiricus (F.W. Householder). Varro and early latin language science (D.J. Taylor). Roman language science in the early empire (D.J. Taylor). Apollonius Dyscolus and Herodian (F.W. Householder). Roman ars grammatica, including Priscian (E. Hovdhaugen). Middle Ages—Europe. Early medieval grammar (A. Luhtala). Linguistics in the later middle ages (G.L. Bursill-Hall). Medieval language philosophy (D. Perler). Renaissance—Europe. Renaissance linguistics: an overview (W.K. Percival). Renaissance linguistics in Italy (B. Richardson). Renaissance linguistics in Spain (J.C. Zamora). Renaissance linguistics in France (D.A. Kibbee). 17th and 18th Century Europe. Port-Royal tradition of general grammar (G. Wheeler). Universal language schemes and 17th century Britain (J.L. Subbiondo). Early historical and comparative studies in Scandinavia, the low countries, and German-speaking lands (K. Jankowsky). Beginnings of comparative and historical studies in Britain (M.K.C. MacMahon). Origin of language debate in the 18th-century (P.B. Salmon). Discovery of Sanskrit by Europeans (R. Rocher). The Main Strands of 19th Century Linguistics. History of comparative linguistics (N.E. Collinge). History of historical linguistics (N.E. Collinge). History of typology & language classification (E.F.K. Koerner). 20th Century Linguistics. Trends in 20th-century linguistics: an overview (J.E. Joseph). The Saussurean tradition in linguistics (J.E. Joseph). Geneva School, after Saussure (R. Amacker). Neolinguistic School in Italy (J. Albrecht). Prague School phonology (J.M.Y. Simpson). Prague school syntax and semantics (E. Hajicová). The Glossematic School of Linguistics (E. Fudge). Firth and the London School of Linguistics (F.R. Palmer). Systemic theory (M.A.K. Halliday). Guillaumean linguistics (J. Hewson). Valency grammar (D.J. Allerton). Functional grammar (A. Martinet). American structuralism (J. Fought). Post-Bloomfieldian phonology (E. Fudge). Tagmemics (L.K. Jones). Stratificational grammar (D.C. Bennett). Evolution of transformational grammar (S. Harlow). Generative semantics (J.D. McCawley). Applicational grammar (J. Miller). Case grammar (J.M. Anderson). Cognitive grammar (R.W. Langacker). Special Applications—Phonetics and Translation. Phonetics: precursors to modern approaches (J.A. Kemp). History of phonetic transcription (J.A. Kemp). Early modern instrumental phonetics (H.G. Tillmann). Speech technology: historical antecedents (J.J. Ohala). History of translation (L.G. Kelly). Machine translation: a brief history (W.J. Hutchins). Machine translation in North America (W.S. Bennett). Indexes. Index of biographical names. Index of concepts and terms.