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Chapter 2. Type or descent?

The philosophical, romantic, and biological sources of typology in Soviet linguistics of the 1920s–1940s
  • Patrick Sériot
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History of Linguistics 2021
This chapter is in the book History of Linguistics 2021

Abstract

Either science aims at universal validity, or it is no science. The idea that science can be culturally or nationally determined is unanimously considered as an outdated Romantic cliché. Nonetheless, it is usual to speak of the Western thought, without wondering where its Eastern limit is to be found. In the history of linguistics, Russian science of language is often proclaimed by Russian thinkers as being “fundamentally different” from Western linguistics. This paradox is examined here after R. Jakobson’s works in the interwar period and their links to Goethe’s and Naturphilosophie research in biology: idealistic morphology appears to be a way towards typology.

Abstract

Either science aims at universal validity, or it is no science. The idea that science can be culturally or nationally determined is unanimously considered as an outdated Romantic cliché. Nonetheless, it is usual to speak of the Western thought, without wondering where its Eastern limit is to be found. In the history of linguistics, Russian science of language is often proclaimed by Russian thinkers as being “fundamentally different” from Western linguistics. This paradox is examined here after R. Jakobson’s works in the interwar period and their links to Goethe’s and Naturphilosophie research in biology: idealistic morphology appears to be a way towards typology.

Chapters in this book

  1. 日本言語政策学会 / Japan Association for Language Policy. 言語政策 / Language Policy 10. 2014 i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Foreword & acknowledgments 1
  4. Editors’ introduction 3
  5. Part 1. General and particular issues in the history of linguistics
  6. Chapter 1. Can linguistics and historiography of linguistics profit from each other? 14
  7. Chapter 2. Type or descent? 31
  8. Chapter 3. Le futur antérieur des linguistes (fin 19 e – début 20 e siècle) 47
  9. Chapter 4. Ethics and language in (and around) Philipp Wegener 60
  10. Chapter 5. Walter Benjamin’s idea of language 77
  11. Chapter 6. Eléments pour une histoire de l’interprétation 88
  12. Chapter 7. “Computational linguistics” as the horizon of projection of early machine translation 102
  13. Part 2. Antiquity
  14. Chapter 8. Declension and description 116
  15. Chapter 9. Constituent-order in Sanskrit Bahuvrīhi compounds 129
  16. Chapter 10. The internal order of Sanskrit compounds 145
  17. Part 3. Sixteenth to twentieth century works
  18. Chapter 11. How far are the horizons of descriptive linguistics? 160
  19. Chapter 12. The relevance of B. Delbrück’s work on Indo-European syntax (a century after his death) 179
  20. Chapter 13. Three documents bearing on the foundation of the Linguistic Society of America in the age of scientific racism 198
  21. Chapter 14. Archival resources for the study of the historiography of American linguistics 211
  22. Chapter 15. Courses in general linguistics by Roman Jakobson at the École Libre des Hautes Études 220
  23. Chapter 16. Contribution de Agostino Gemelli (1878–1959) à l’analyse des variations phoniques du langage 238
  24. Chapter 17. The structuralist quest for general meanings 248
  25. 日本言語政策学会 / Japan Association for Language Policy. 言語政策 / Language Policy 10. 2014 279
  26. 日本言語政策学会 / Japan Association for Language Policy. 言語政策 / Language Policy 10. 2014 283
https://doi.org/10.1075/sihols.133.02ser

Chapters in this book

  1. 日本言語政策学会 / Japan Association for Language Policy. 言語政策 / Language Policy 10. 2014 i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Foreword & acknowledgments 1
  4. Editors’ introduction 3
  5. Part 1. General and particular issues in the history of linguistics
  6. Chapter 1. Can linguistics and historiography of linguistics profit from each other? 14
  7. Chapter 2. Type or descent? 31
  8. Chapter 3. Le futur antérieur des linguistes (fin 19 e – début 20 e siècle) 47
  9. Chapter 4. Ethics and language in (and around) Philipp Wegener 60
  10. Chapter 5. Walter Benjamin’s idea of language 77
  11. Chapter 6. Eléments pour une histoire de l’interprétation 88
  12. Chapter 7. “Computational linguistics” as the horizon of projection of early machine translation 102
  13. Part 2. Antiquity
  14. Chapter 8. Declension and description 116
  15. Chapter 9. Constituent-order in Sanskrit Bahuvrīhi compounds 129
  16. Chapter 10. The internal order of Sanskrit compounds 145
  17. Part 3. Sixteenth to twentieth century works
  18. Chapter 11. How far are the horizons of descriptive linguistics? 160
  19. Chapter 12. The relevance of B. Delbrück’s work on Indo-European syntax (a century after his death) 179
  20. Chapter 13. Three documents bearing on the foundation of the Linguistic Society of America in the age of scientific racism 198
  21. Chapter 14. Archival resources for the study of the historiography of American linguistics 211
  22. Chapter 15. Courses in general linguistics by Roman Jakobson at the École Libre des Hautes Études 220
  23. Chapter 16. Contribution de Agostino Gemelli (1878–1959) à l’analyse des variations phoniques du langage 238
  24. Chapter 17. The structuralist quest for general meanings 248
  25. 日本言語政策学会 / Japan Association for Language Policy. 言語政策 / Language Policy 10. 2014 279
  26. 日本言語政策学会 / Japan Association for Language Policy. 言語政策 / Language Policy 10. 2014 283
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