Theoretical Bases of Indo-European Linguistics

Winfred P. Lehmann

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781136926907
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book presents, for the first time in English, a complete critical survey of the theory and methodology of Indo-European linguistics, from its origins two centuries ago to the present day.

1 Aims

1.1 Concern with Indo-European Language and Culture at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century

Indo-European linguistics arose as a new field at the end of the eighteenth century for a variety of reasons. Increased interest in Asia, especially India, had led to investigation of its literature, its law and religions among cultural concerns. The Asiatic Society of Bengal, at whose meetings its founder, Sir William Jones (1746–94),¹ delivered his influential lectures, was established in the aim of pursuing those investigations. At the same time the Romantic movement, especially in Germany, devoted considerable attention to the study of earlier periods, at least in part on the grounds that knowledge of simpler eras would assist an understanding of the culture of their own time. And gifted individuals, such as Franz Bopp (1791–1867), had great interest in learning the ancient language of India, to the extent of acquiring it from the manuscripts themselves, with little help from handbooks or teachers. Such motives led to one of the most fruitful intellectual pursuits of the nineteenth century - the investigation of the numerous languages of the Indo-European language family and determination of their background, ultimately also of the language of a preliterate period now referred to as Proto-Indo-European.

From the beginning of Indo-European studies, interest was not confined to the languages alone, but was extended also to the culture of their speakers, notably its literature. One of the most important instigators of those studies, Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829), was a leading member of the older German Romantic school. After study of Sanskrit texts in Paris, he wrote a highly influential treatise "on the language and wisdom of the Indians" (1808).² The book expressed lofty aims, one of which was knowledge of the 'innermost structure' of language. It was also instrumental in prompting Franz Bopp to go to Paris, where he acquired the background that led to his treatise, which is credited as the starting point of Indo-European linguistics as well as comparative linguistics (1816).³ In accordance with the two topics of Schlegel's title. Bopp's book includes translations of selected Sanskrit literary documents as well as an analysis of the Sanskrit verb in comparison with Greek, Latin and Germanic. The translations may have been useful at the time in providing access to the literature; but the lasting value of the book resulted from its masterly presentation of the Sanskrit verbal system. Bopp's structural portrayal of that system, later amplified in successive editions of his comparative grammar, earned him the title father of Indo-European comparative linguistics.

Bopp's title for the English version of his treatise (1820), Analytical Comparison of the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and Teutonic Languages, Shewing the Original Identity of their Grammatical Structure, demonstrates his increasing confidence in portraying the linguistic interrelationships and their bases. After a series of lectures and publications on specific topics, he went on to publish his 'comparative grammar' (1833–52), which was devoted largely to morphology. During this period and subsequently he extended his control over additional languages. The third edition appeared posthumously in three volumes, with a comprehensive set of indices (1868–71). This version treats seven of the branches, as its title indicates: Comparative grammar of Sanskrit, Zend (Avestan), Armenian, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Old Slavic, Gothic and Germanic.

As Bopp's eventual concentration may suggest, the early aim of dealing with Indo-European language and culture was far too broad to be controlled by one scholar, especially during the period when additional languages needed to be mastered and analysed for their relationship to those already included in the grammatical discussion. The principal aim of Indo-Europeanists throughout the nineteenth century then came to be far narrower than that of the founders of the field. It was directed largely at the languages. Descriptions of the individual languages, and comparative studies with statements on interrelationships among them, as well as on their groupings, were not only the chief aims of Indo-European studies, but also the primary contributions of the century.

1.2 Reasons for the Narrower Aims

In order to understand the reduction of breadth of concern it is useful to recall the situation in the study of language at the end of the eighteenth century. Scholars were, of course, thoroughly at home in the classical languages. Moreover, they had comprehensive grammars, especially of Latin; and the grammars of the modern languages were based on these. The way was then open for applying the new information from Sanskrit to clarify the interrelationships in the grammatical systems, though the procedures had to be worked out. Developing the methodology, and applying it to the increasing amount of information, made up a major effort of the Indo-Europeanists.

In addition, since the time of Leibniz there had been broad interest in determining the basic characteristics of all languages for which data could be assembled, that is, the universals underlying the diverse languages. Selected patterns were determined and compiled for every known language. Among publications of such patterns, the most notable is Adelung's Mithridates,⁴ named after the king of Pontus, c. 132–63 bc, who was reputed to have mastered a large number of languages. A prime interest in compiling such data was the goal of achieving a universal grammar. This goal also led to philosophical treatises on language, and to the kind of dictionary that has survived in Roget's Thesaurus. Current editions of it still classify the lexicon under six major semantic classes that might be taken as universals (see 4.3.5). Such study was carried out with no attention to historical relationships, nor understanding of genealogical relationships. The statements published on genealogical relationships were naive, many of them deriving all languages from Hebrew.

Nor was there concern with the sound systems. Besides his compilation of languages and analyses for their characteristics, Adelung (1732–1806) produced a widely used grammar of German, and a large German dictionary. Based as these were on the procedures used for Latin, they concentrated their attention on grammar and usage rather than pronunciation. When used in speech, the classical languages were pronounced like the spoken language of the country in which they were learned; until recently Latin was pronounced like English in England, like German in Germany, and like Italian in Italy. Mastery of the correct forms and of word usage constituted the chief aim of language teaching.

Accordingly, in addition to lack of concern with historical relationships, there was virtually no understanding of phonetics. Elements of the sound system were referred to as "letters," to be sure as "letters with power [potestas]" when it seemed useful to point to spoken forms. But linguistics was virtually limited to concern with morphology in its role to teach languages, and in its theoretical pursuits of universals in meaning and grammar. When Sir William Jones made his notable pronouncement in 1786 on relationships between Sanskrit and the well-known classical languages, there was almost no experience in two fundamental prerequisites of comparative linguistics: understanding of sound systems and of historical relationships. Coming to terms with such requirements occupied a great deal of the attention in the study of language through the first half of the nineteenth century.

The efforts to gain control over these central procedures are clear in Bopp's publications. Although the third edition of his grammar is almost completely concerned with morphology, the grammar was increasingly devoted to statements on historical relationships. And unlike his first works, Bopp now dealt with the sounds; after producing a treatise on "vocalism" (1836), he devoted approximately 200 pages of the first volume of the grammar of 1868–71 to the writing and sound systems. Another 350 pages treat morphology - roots and nouns. Half of the second volume deals with adjectives and pronouns; the remainder as well as the first part of the third is devoted to verbs, before treatment of word formation. The fundamental handbook of Indo-European linguistics until about 1870 was limited in this way essentially to morphology. It is scarcely surprising that references to it today characterize it as only of historical interest.

Yet treatment of sound systems had also come to be pursued, and more precise information was gradually being assembled. At the time Bopp was working on his grammar. August Friedrich Pott (1802–87)⁵ was publishing a work called "Etymological investigations in the sphere of the Indo-Germanic languages" (1833–6). This work relied heavily on phonetic analysis for its grammatical observations; in addition it contained a comparative account of verbal roots, in this way leading to an etymological dictionary for Indo-European. The expanded version of 1859–76 occupied ten volumes. Through phonological study and attention to derivational morphology, the lexical stock of the language family was being mastered. Pott's work supplemented the grammar of Bopp with a dictionary; his work, like Bopp's, was revised in accordance with increasing information and accuracy.

Attempts to account for the exceptions to Jacob Grimm's set of rules relating the obstruents of Germanic to those of Sanskrit, Greek and Latin (1819/1822–37) also led to better understanding of individual sounds and their treatment in various environments. This understanding was greatly amplified from other sources — physicians who were interested in problems of the deaf. One of these, Ernst W. von Brücke (1819–92), produced a descriptive treatise on the sounds of language: Grundzüge der Physiologie und Systematik der Sprachlaute (1856 [1876]). Through such publications the classification of sounds by classical grammarians, as into the broad sets called Tenues, Mediae and Aspiratae, was replaced by identification based on articulatory characteristics.

Brücke was also important as one or the scientists who introduced the methods of chemistry and physics into medical and biological study. His influence in linguistics may have added to the practice of analysing and classifying languages, as well as sets of sounds and forms, much like the objects of study in these sciences. Even earlier, linguists had profited from the methods of comparative anatomy that had led them to apply similar procedures to the classification of languages, as our terminology still indicates. By identification of selected characteristics, languages were assigned to "families" much as Carl von Linnaeus (1707–78) had set up genera for plants. But the linguistic terminology was less formal than the botanical. Languages with similar characteristics are said to be related; in keeping with the feminine gender of German die Sprache, subsequent stages of a language are referred to as "daughter" languages. The term "Indo-Germanic family" was introduced in 1810, subsequently to be replaced by Indo-European. A framework to classify languages by selected characteristics, somewhat like the classification of Linnaeus, was in this way established and is maintained to this day. Moreover, sets within individual languages or groups of languages are analysed for their common features, whether with diachronic or synchronic aims.

In short, the sixty years between the date of Schlegel s publication and Bopp's death had led to more specific aims in Indo-European studies than those pursued by Schlegel, but also to greater precision in pursuing those aims and in stating the findings. The results provided Indo-Europeanists, especially the younger members, with increasing confidence. That attitude led to restatement of the phonology, the grammar, and the lexicon, with ever greater restriction of aims; extensive monographs were now published that dealt with specific sets of forms, such as the perfect (Osthoff 1884). Profiting by this achievement, the generation after Bopp's death set out to treat the original language much like languages spoken today, applying methods that they considered as reliable as those of the physical sciences.

1.3 The Neogrammarians

In this situation of increasing mastery of the essential procedures of diachronic linguistics accompanied by upgraded production of the central handbooks, a number of capable and dedicated young scholars appeared, centered around the University of Leipzig. There they had the advantage of excellent training directed by a distinguished classicist, Georg Curtius (1820–85). And even before Bopp's death a highly systematic linguist, August Schleicher (1821–68) had published "A compendium of the comparative grammar of the Indo-Germanic languages" (1861) that introduced important innovations over the treatment by Bopp and his contemporaries.⁶ Moreover, the dominant intellectual current now was not a Romantic search for origins, but a concern for the processes of development, most notably expressed in the evolutionary ideas of Charles Darwin (1809–82). Somewhat scornful of their elders, as bright young students often are, these linguists were labeled by their teachers as neogrammarians. Intelligent enough, like the early Christians, to adopt a pejorative label, they inaugurated probably the most important group of linguists that has appeared in the study of language.

Like any such group, their tenets and major figures have received various interpretations from subsequent scholars (see Jankowski 1972). What is clear is their insistence on rigor. Moreover, they sought to deal with language much as their colleagues in the natural sciences dealt with their selected topics. In their day the faculty of philosophy had not only developed much more widely than had the other three traditional faculties — law, medicine, theology — but it also came to be fragmented. Its major components were labeled "the natural sciences," which treat those areas where universally valid laws apply, and "the historical sciences," where generalizations apply differently in different periods and differing societies; today the second is generally further divided into the social sciences and, in the USA, the liberal arts or human sciences. An awareness of the structure of academic concerns and structure at that time is important because later the term "historical" has been interpreted by current views as diachronic. Equation of nineteenth-century "historical" with terms such as "social" or "behavioral" and "human" would be more accurate if these are taken to apply to all the areas not dealt with in the "physical" and "biological" sciences, which themselves cannot be equated directly with the early classification "natural sciences."

The major figures among the neogrammarians display varying temperaments and approaches. Among the more eminent, August Leskien (1840–1916) was the most insistent on attention to rigor as well as the oldest. More restrained, Karl Brugmann (1849–1919) laid down the fundamental principles of the group in an admirable essay, going on to brilliant observations and to producing its most distinguished work in his "Comparative grammar of the Indo-Germanic languages" (1897–1916, 2nd edn).⁷ By contrast with Brugmann's concentration on phonology and morphology, his early colleague, Berthold Delbrück (1842–1922), carried out basic studies in Indic, Germanic and Indo-European syntax that are still highly important; fortunately for linguistics, he was defeated in his political ambitions, so that he continued a distinguished career as a cultured academician in Jena some distance away from the hectic center of the group. His biography produced by Eduard Hermann provides an excellent account of scholarship in what Hermann accurately labels "Germany's great era." Hermann Osthoff (1847–1909) was another collaborator of Brugmann, also highly productive, but less accurate in his judgements, somewhat like Jerzy Kurylowicz at a later time. The youngest of the group, Eduard Sievers (1850–1927), was probably the most brilliant, hitting on "Verner's law" before its credited discoverer, and generous enough never himself to mention the letter in which he had stated his finding (see Streitberg et al. 1927–36: 287–8); fortunately, he has enough remarkable contributions to his name, such as concluding that the Old English Genesis was an adaptation of an Old Saxon poem before that poem came to be known through discovery of a manuscript in the Vatican. Others might still be mentioned; but these five make up the nucleus that established Leipzig as the center for linguistic studies through the second decade of the twentieth century. Virtually all contemporary students in the Indo-European languages spent some time there, many completing their doctoral degrees under the direction of one of these eminent scholars.

Yet two more figures need to be mentioned, each located elsewhere. Hermann Paul (1846–1921) in Munich wrote the acknowledged theoretical handbook of the group in his "Principles of language history," first published in 1880 and, after translations into other languages, formulated in final form by the author in its fifth edition of 1920, subsequently reprinted under the unfortunate label of further "editions."⁸ Its title as well is unfortunate, leading linguists today to assume that it is a handbook on diachronic linguistics; to be sure it treats language as changing, rather than as a socially abstract langue or as an "ideal language of an ideal speaker in an ideal society." But unlike these conceptions of language in subsequent theoretical works, Paul's Prinzipien does not downplay concern with language in use; nor does it make the sharp distinction between synchronic and diachronic linguistics that has often brought unfortunate consequences to the field. Like the other leading neogrammarians, Paul produced substantial works on language, notably his grammar of German, but also a Middle High German grammar in the frequently republished texts of the series based on the pattern of Wilhelm Braune's (1850–1926) Gothic grammar. The production of such works, in addition to theoretical writings that inevitably become outdated, is a major reason for the continued esteem in which the neogrammarians are held. Moreover, as we may note briefly, their chief tenets are irreproachable and have set th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Aims
• 2 Methods
• 3 The standard handbooks
• 4 Revisions on the basis of new data and new principles
• 5 Phonology 1: Proto-Indo-European
• 6 Phonology 2: Pre-Indo-European
• 7 Morphology 1: the nominal elements
• 8 Morphology 2: the verbal system
• 9 The syntax of Proto-Indo-European
• 10 The syntax of Pre-Indo-European
• 11 The lexicon
• 12 The community of Indo-European speakers
• Notes
• References
• Index