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The paper contrasts the careers, theories and organizational contributions made by Roman Jakobson and Louis Hjelmslev respectively. Though both are prominent structuralists, they diverged on several important points as to their views of theories and language. Their histories are intertwined because they fought for supremacy in the filed of linguistics and collaborated on the journal Acta Linguistica. Their different views were, however, not fully expressed in the 1930s since an important paper by Hjelmslev was suppressed and remained unpublished until 1973. During Jakobson's escape from Czechoslovakia Hjelmslev was instrumental in bringing Jakobson and his wife to Denmark where he worked for half a year before going on to Norway. We document the various meeting points and divergencies as well as the close friendship which despite their theoretical differences united them. Keywords: Roman Jakobson, Louis Hjelmslev, history of linguistics, history of structuralism

Abstract. In this paper, we follow the development of Coseriu’s conceptual tools for variational linguistics during the 1950s. Our starting point is Pisani’s notion of “isogloss”, which Coseriu initially regarded as a core idea for his own approach and yet progressively abandoned in favour of the more structuralist-oriented notion of “functional language”, adopted in the wake of Louis Hjelmslev’s framework, through Leiv Flydal’s mediation. Finally, we speculate about the reasons and the implications of Coseriu’s failing to acknowledge Uriel Weinreich as an important source for variational linguistics.Keywords: variational linguistics, functional linguistics, diasystems, Coseriu, Hjelmslev, Flydal, Weinreich

Otto Jespersen (1860-1943) was a Danish linguist, best known for his studies of English, of phonetics and of general linguistics. In my paper, I introduce a lesser-known side of Jespersen, i.e. as an Italianist and a Romanist. A special focus is on how he deals with the passive tenses in Romance languages, in particular Italian and French. Drawing on the theory developed by the German Romanist Friedrich Diez (1794-1876), who notably differentiated between perfective and imperfective verbs, and subsequently connecting this differentiation to the general discussion of aspect and Aktionsart around 1900, Jespersen in a few pages elaborates a rather advanced analysis of the passive tenses in the Romance (and some other) languages. I suggest that Jespersen’s statement forestalls an important part of the description of the passive tenses in Italian elaborated by the Danish Italianist (and Romanist) Jørgen Schmitt Jensen (1931-2004) and published in a comprehensive Italian grammar (1990). I further propose that even though Jespersen’s text probably is not a direct source for Schmitt Jensen, it helps understanding the general frame of the latter’s presentation of the subject. Finally, I claim that the relevant pages in Jespersen (1924) are interesting concerning the historiography of the concept of Aktionsart.

In the 1930s the two Danish linguists Otto Jespersen (1860–1943) and Louis Hjelmslev (1899–1965) both referred to the Finnish case-system in their discussions of the importance of the concept of case. In my paper, I examine first the problems that arise when cases are excluded from the (syntactical) analysis as in Jespersen’s symbolic system, and thereafter the problems that arise when one tries to establish a localist based system of cases and their semantic values, as in Hjelmslev’s work. Further, I examine the problems that John M. Anderson is confronted with when he analyses the Finnish cases with his localist theory of universal cases. It is concluded (1) that Jespersen’s syntactically based symbolic system cannot capture much of the grammatically encoded information in Finnish; (2) that Hjelmslev’s localist model, which takes Finnish as a benchmark in order to explain the structure of complex case-systems, includes the semantic issue of the relationship between the localistically defined categories and the grammatical ones; (3) that Anderson uses Finnish to showcase his theory, but that his rendering of Finnish also represents a challenge for this., In the 1930s the two Danish linguists Otto Jespersen (1860–1943) and Louis Hjelmslev (1899–1965) both referred to the Finnish case-system in their discussions of the importance of the concept of case. In my paper, I examine first the problems that arise when cases are excluded from the (syntactical) analysis as in Jespersen’s symbolic system, and thereafter the problems that arise when one tries to establish a localist based system of cases and their semantic values, as in Hjelmslev’s work. Further, I examine the problems that John M. Anderson is confronted with when he analyses the Finnish cases with his localist theory of universal cases. It is concluded (1) that Jespersen’s syntactically based symbolic system cannot capture much of the grammatically encoded information in Finnish; (2) that Hjelmslev’s localist model, which takes Finnish as a benchmark in order to explain the structure of complex case-systems, includes the semantic issue of the relationship between the localistically defined categories and the grammatical ones; (3) that Anderson uses Finnish to showcase his theory, but that his rendering of Finnish also represents a challenge for this.