This volume offers a selection of papers presented during the 14th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (ICHoLS XIV, Paris, 2017). Part I brings together studies dealing with descriptive concepts. First examined is the notion of “accidens” in Latin grammar and its Greek counterparts. Other papers address questions with a strong echo in today’s linguistics: localism and its revival in recent semantics and syntax, the origin of the term “polysemy” and its adoption through Bréal, and the difficulties attending the description of prefabs, idioms and other “fixed expressions”. This first part also includes studies dealing with representations of linguistic phenomena, whether these concern the treatment of local varieties (so-called patois) in French research, or the import and epistemological function of spatial representations in descriptions of linguistic time. Or again, now taking the word “representation” literally, the visual display of grammatical relations, in the form of the first syntactic diagrams. Part II presents case studies which involve wider concerns, of a social nature: the “from below” approach to the history of Chinese Pidgin English underlines the social roles of speakers and the diversity of speech situations, while the scrutiny of Lhomond’s Latin and French textbooks demonstrates the interplay of pedagogical practice, cross-linguistic comparison and descriptive innovation. An overview of early descriptions of Central Australian languages reveals a whole spectrum of humanist to positivist and antihumanist stances during the colonial age. An overarching framework is also at play in the anthropological perspective championed by Meillet, whose socially and culturally oriented semantics is shown to live on in Benveniste. The volume ends with a paper on Trần Đức Thảo, whose work is an original synthesis between phenomenology and Marxist semiology, wielded against the “idealistic” doctrine of Saussure.

This volume offers a selection of papers presented during the 14th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (ICHoLS XIV, Paris, 2017). Part I brings together studies dealing with descriptive concepts. First examined is the notion of “accidens” in Latin grammar and its Greek counterparts. Other papers address questions with a strong echo in today’s linguistics: localism and its revival in recent semantics and syntax, the origin of the term “polysemy” and its adoption through Bréal, and the difficulties attending the description of prefabs, idioms and other “fixed expressions”. This first part also includes studies dealing with representations of linguistic phenomena, whether these concern the treatment of local varieties (so-called patois) in French research, or the import and epistemological function of spatial representations in descriptions of linguistic time. Or again, now taking the word “representation” literally, the visual display of grammatical relations, in the form of the first syntactic diagrams. Part II presents case studies which involve wider concerns, of a social nature: the “from below” approach to the history of Chinese Pidgin English underlines the social roles of speakers and the diversity of speech situations, while the scrutiny of Lhomond’s Latin and French textbooks demonstrates the interplay of pedagogical practice, cross-linguistic comparison and descriptive innovation. An overview of early descriptions of Central Australian languages reveals a whole spectrum of humanist to positivist and antihumanist stances during the colonial age. An overarching framework is also at play in the anthropological perspective championed by Meillet, whose socially and culturally oriented semantics is shown to live on in Benveniste. The volume ends with a paper on Trần Đức Thảo, whose work is an original synthesis between phenomenology and Marxist semiology, wielded against the “idealistic” doctrine of Saussure.

This volume brings together transcripts of ten interviews from the podcast series History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences, covering topics in the history of modern European linguistics from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. The transcripts have been reviewed and edited for clarity and completeness.

A substantial proportion of what is discoverable about the structure of many Aboriginal languages spoken on the vast Australian continent before their decimation through colonial invasion is contained in nineteenth-century grammars. Many were written by fervent young missionaries who traversed the globe intent on describing the languages spoken by “heathens”, whom they hoped to convert to Christianity. Some of these documents, written before Australian or international academic institutions expressed any interest in Aboriginal languages, are the sole record of some of the hundreds of languages spoken by the first Australians, and many are the most comprehensive. These grammars resulted from prolonged engagement and exchange across a cultural and linguistic divide that is atypical of other early encounters between colonised and colonisers in Australia. Although the Aboriginal contributors to the grammars are frequently unacknowledged and unnamed, their agency is incontrovertible. This history of the early description of Australian Aboriginal languages traces a developing understanding and ability to describe Australian morphosyntax. Focus on grammatical structures that challenged the classically trained missionary-grammarians – the description of the case systems, ergativity, bound pronouns, and processes of clause subordination – identifies the provenance of analyses, development of descriptive techniques, and paths of intellectual descent. The corpus of early grammatical description written between 1834 and 1910 is identified in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 discusses the philological methodology of retrieving data from these grammars. Chapters 3–10 consider the grammars in an order determined both by chronology and by the region in which the languages were spoken, since colonial borders regulated the development of the three schools of descriptive practice that are found to have developed in the pre-academic era of Australian linguistic description.

A substantial proportion of what is discoverable about the structure of many Aboriginal languages spoken on the vast Australian continent before their decimation through colonial invasion is contained in nineteenth-century grammars. Many were written by fervent young missionaries who traversed the globe intent on describing the languages spoken by “heathens”, whom they hoped to convert to Christianity. Some of these documents, written before Australian or international academic institutions expressed any interest in Aboriginal languages, are the sole record of some of the hundreds of languages spoken by the first Australians, and many are the most comprehensive. These grammars resulted from prolonged engagement and exchange across a cultural and linguistic divide that is atypical of other early encounters between colonised and colonisers in Australia. Although the Aboriginal contributors to the grammars are frequently unacknowledged and unnamed, their agency is incontrovertible. This history of the early description of Australian Aboriginal languages traces a developing understanding and ability to describe Australian morphosyntax. Focus on grammatical structures that challenged the classically trained missionary-grammarians – the description of the case systems, ergativity, bound pronouns, and processes of clause subordination – identifies the provenance of analyses, development of descriptive techniques, and paths of intellectual descent. The corpus of early grammatical description written between 1834 and 1910 is identified in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 discusses the philological methodology of retrieving data from these grammars. Chapters 3–10 consider the grammars in an order determined both by chronology and by the region in which the languages were spoken, since colonial borders regulated the development of the three schools of descriptive practice that are found to have developed in the pre-academic era of Australian linguistic description.

This book proposes a comprehensive discussion of the issue of linguistic feeling, the subject’s metalinguistic capacity to intuitively apprehend the normative – lexical, syntactic, morphological, phonological... – dimensions of a definite language he or she is acquainted with. The volume’s twelve contributions aim to revisit a concept that, through a fluctuating terminology (“Sprachgefühl,” “sentiment de la langue,” “linguistic intuitions,” etc.), had developed, since the late 18th century, within a variety of cultural contexts and research traditions, and whose theoretical, epistemological, and historical ins and outs had not been systematically explored so far. Beginning with a long opening chapter, the book consists of two parts, one tracing the multifaceted approaches to linguistic feeling from Herder to Wittgenstein, and one offering a representative overview of the debates about the issue at stake in current linguistics and philosophy, while addressing the question of the place of metacognition, normativity, and affectivity in language processes.

On the basis of analyzed examples from many languages, basic concepts of grammaticalization theory are explained. Grammaticalization is delimited against other types of variation and change. Degrees of grammaticalization are assessed by well-defined criteria and parameters. Many well-documented cases from different functional domains are analyzed in depth. Issues of directionality are settled on a theoretical basis. The cognitive bases of grammaticalization are identified.