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The paper examines the scientific contribution and creative work of the lesser-known Polish linguist, Baudouin de Courtenay (1845-1929), a distinguished Slavist and Indo-Europeanist. The paper discusses numerous aspects of his modernist theories and provides an overview of the most significant reflections on language that can be considered as precursors to contemporary linguistic thought. In his long academic career from the Kazan period to his engagement at the universities of Dorpat, Kraków, Saint Petersburg, and Warsaw, the paper highlights the various influences he exerted on the linguistic research of his time as well as on the later generations of linguists with a special reference to de Courtenay's influence on Ferdinand de Saussure and the development of general and structural linguistics. The paper examines the evolution and development of de Courtenay's thought in various domains such as the theory of phonemes and phonetic alternations, which positioned him as the forerunner of the Prague Linguistic Circle, psycholinguistic research and the definition of language as a psychosocial phenomenon, South Slavic dialectology and lexicology, as well as the study of the use of language in other sciences and disciplines.

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Conceptual innovations in science ('paradigm shifts' in the sense of Kuhn) come with changes in the meaning of basic terminology in that field. Linguistics is no exception. But linguistics is in the peculiar position that it comprises the study of the meaning of linguistic items, and the way these meanings change. Some basic ideas of cognitive semantics, especially the concept of metonymy, shed light on the risk of miscommunication in a scientific field in a period of innovation. Paradoxically, these risks are instantiated in a controversy in the field of linguistics itself that was triggered by the then new, Darwinian understanding of evolution. The paper ends by exploring a recent theoretical innovation (the 'usage-based' approach, especially its most recent variants) that holds a promise for overcoming the controversies, provided theoretical linguists accept that terminology also in their own field is to be semantically more precise than in everyday language use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of the analysis are terms recorded in the 17th-19th-century grammar nomenclatures. The most numerously represented ones were terms from the field of inflection (naming parts of speech and grammatical categories), there were few terms from the field of phonetics and word-formation, and terms from the field of sentence syntax had not appeared in glossaries until the 19th century. This share of terms from various branches was determined by the utilitarian nature of grammatical works: they were intended for learning Polish or foreign languages. It was assumed a priori, so to speak, that the learner already had the knowledge of the rules of Latin grammar, and the point of reference for Polish terms (or German ones, as in Dobracki's grammar book) was the Latin terminology. The outcome of the development of grammatical knowledge is the redefinition of grammar itself and its branches, the independence of the grammatical description of modern languages from Latin grammar, as well as the codification and standardisation of grammatical terminology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Semilingualism' is one of the most questionable theories produced in the language sciences. Yet, little is known about its origins. We present a critical account of the history of semilingualism, tracing its roots in the work of Nils Erik Hansegård, (1918–2002), inaugural chair of Sámi at Umeå University (1975–1979), who developed a theory of semilingualism (halvspråkighet) in the 1960s. We show how Hansegård theorized semilingualism using ideas from Nazi German linguistics, producing an unforgiving theory of linguistic pathology directed at minoritized bilinguals in Sweden's far north. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Prague School of Linguistics is one of the most important groups in the history of twentieth-century structuralism. Ever since Qixiang Cen wrote on it at the end of the 1950s in his book on the history of linguistics, it has continued to attract the interest of Chinese linguists. This essay explores the half-century in which the Prague School was introduced and studied in China and aims to identify the features of the three stages of these linguists' efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the influence of Vladimír Šmilauer on the character of the Journal of Modern Philology (Časopis pro moderní filologii, ČMF). Šmilauer was associated with the Journal for Modern Philology as an author and an editor for Slavic studies (1939–1951). The article describes the main linguistic/philological topics contributed to the magazine by Šmilauer (Slovak studies and the history of the Slovak language, new Czech, e.g. orthography, reports on foreign literature, etc.). The period of Šmilauer’s work at the ČMF falls into a time of socially problematical political systems: the Nazi protectorate after 1939 and the communist terror after 1948. On the example of the case of Šmilauer, we will show how and when political systems were directly reflected in the philological content of the Journal for Modern Philology.

The term grammaticalization originally denoted a particular outcome of language change (lexis > morphology), then got expanded to practically all studies involving language change, the processes that create such changes, and a theory modeling these. These expansions have been challenged in the literature as conceptually flawed. A usage-based analysis of the evolution of the concept culminates in the use of the term grammaticalization as a "flag" of a particular approach to linguistics. However, the theoretical premises of grammaticalization studies are entirely compatible with the premises of Diachronic Construction Grammar (DCxG). All studies within the "expanded" concept of grammaticalization can be explicitly modeled within DCxG, which provides formalism of sufficient detail to map the gradual nature of language change in cases of grammaticalization and beyond. Consequently, the most vigorous attacks on grammaticalization lose power when grammaticalization is seen as part of a larger, more complete theory of language and language change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some of the earliest voice recordings of Arabic made for linguistic purposes date from World War I and were made by German authorities who recorded prisoners of war in the Halbmondlager camp outside of Berlin. This study analyzes two voice records in particular, which are labelled 'Tripolitanisch-Arabisch (Tunesien)' and stem from what is now southern Tunisia. This study seeks to historicise the scientific context of these voice records as well as interpret the linguistic data preserved by them in the light of Arabic dialectology. It also raises questions about the reliability of both voice recordings and printed linguistic data from the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enigmatic final sūtra of Pāṇini's Grammar has long challenged commentators to interpret it as an ingenious illustration of phonology, involving a reinstatement of a rule, suspended in the body of the grammar, that the open vowel a is closed in fluent speech. The possibility is considered, though ultimately rejected, that the sutra is predicate-first and not predicate-last. Parallels are drawn with other passages in Pāṇini, where multiple readings are possible for the same passage. Given the creativity we know to have been pervasive in his work, a reinterpretation of the final sūtra is proposed, whereby the rule suspension is situated in the text itself, to be read as an uroboros. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyril Graham’s The Avar Language, a treatise consisting of a linguistic description and an extensive English-Avar wordlist, originally appeared in the late nineteenth century in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and has been republished in the early twenty-first century in book form, with Russian translation and commentary by Boris Ataev of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Makhachkala. Welcoming Ataev’s contribution in making it accessible to the modern Russophone audience, I discuss the linguistic qualities and shortcomings of Graham’s article as well as the complex and revealing history of its composition. Engagingly written and in some respects perceptive, while in other respects outmoded even in its own time, it provides an insight into the early development of Caucasian linguistic study in the West.

The reception of structuralism by Italian linguists can be divided into three periods. In the first of them (roughly, from the 1930s to the end of the 1950s), structural linguistics, while by no means ignored, is essentially rejected (with some exceptions, such as G. Contini or L. Heilmann). The second period roughly coincides with the 1960s, when structural linguistics reaches the height of its success, thanks, primarily, to the work of scholars such as T. De Mauro, G. Lepschy and L. Rosiello. The success of structural linguistics in Italy began to decline from the 1970s onwards: various linguists turned to other conceptual frameworks, such as generative grammar. Some possible reasons for this decline are investigated here.

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The article presents unknown evidence of epistolary communication of S. I. Ozhegov and his “correspondents” — Professor A. M. Egolin, Prince P. Obolenskiy, Mr Nedzvetskiy. The linguistic informativeness of the letters is noted. The value of the presented materials for the study of lexicology, stylistics, author’s punctuation and speech culture is indicated. Attention is drawn to the range of problems discussed in the letters, including the selection and interpretation of definitions in dictionaries (pilyonyi sakhar ‘sawn sugar’, plavlenyi syr ‘processed cheese’, gromootvod ‘lightning rod’), haplology, the formation of appellatives from the names of writers (nekrasovoved or nekrasoved), social and phonetic adaptation of foreign language vocabulary (t’emp — temp), etc. The facts given in the correspondence are commented on from the standpoint of the history of philological science, the necessary references are given, possible comparisons are made with the events and persons mentioned in the epistolary. The texts are evaluated as a fragment of a special linguistic picture of the world, in which the main place is occupied by the linguistic personality of S. I. Ozhegov, who attracted scientists of different schools and generations. The conclusion is made about the relevance of the publication of archival sources that reveal interesting circumstances of the scientific life of philologists, exposing their searches and discoveries. These materials supplement the available information about the linguistic discussions of the 1950s and 1960s, represent living portraits of scientists.

This paper examines the contribution of the Norwegian historian, politician, and ethnologist Ludvig Kristensen Daa (1809–1877) to the study of the Indigenous languages of North America. We focus on his accounts of sound systems, where he argued that North American languages are characterized by greater linguistic diversity, small consonant inventories and gaps in inventories, unusual sounds, and indistinct pronunciation of consonants. Daa attributed these features to the use of the languages in small and isolated communities, thus anticipating more recent discussions in which the degree of linguistic complexity is attributed to social and demographic factors. While some of his claims reflect methodological shortcomings of pre-20th-century phonetic study, the factors which according to Daa shape languages spoken in isolation are analogous to the parameters now examined by typologists, thus providing a sense of continuity across centuries in the links sought between structural diversity among languages and external factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the controversy that followed the 1987 publication of Joseph Greenberg's book, Language in the Americas, attending to the role of language and linguistic research within overlapping disciplinary traditions. With this text, Greenberg presented a macro‐level tripartite classification that opposed then dominant fine‐grained analyses recognizing anywhere from 150 to 200 distinct language families. His proposal was the subject of a landmark conference, examining strengths and weaknesses, the unpublished proceedings of which are presented here for the first time. For specialists in the anthropological and comparative‐historical study of Indigenous American languages, Greenberg's intervention highlighted the tension between language, conceived as an abstract object of study, and languages, understood to be carriers of specific cultural knowledge. For physical anthropologists and archaeologists, his theory was initially fortuitous on programmatic, substantive, and methodological grounds. The essay will show how interdisciplinary appeals were figured by supporters as a virtue, and by critics as a vice. The essay further highlights ethical reasons for integrating historical narratives of science and the humanities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After outlining the life and works of interpreter Yoshio Gonnosuke, this paper introduces the manuscript witnesses of his hitherto unstudied comparative Dutch–Japanese syntax written in the mid‐1820s, which was modelled on Pieter Weiland's Nederduitsche spraakkunst (1805). This is followed by a closer look at the process of compilation and publication of Philipp Franz von Siebold's "Epitome linguae japonicae," of which only the first part was published in 1826. Evidence is provided to confirm Yoshio's involvement in this work and to suggest that Yoshio's syntax was in fact intended to form the core of its unpublished second part. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work examines, in addition to Paul Pierre Broca’s psycholinguistic contributions, his adherence and contribution to Basque linguistics. Three areas have been analyzed: neurolinguistics, anthropology and Basque linguistics. Thus, critical interpretations of neurological discoveries are exposed. We have examined the paper «Sur l’origine et la répartition de la langue basque. Basques français et basques espagnols» (Broca, 1875), in order to present the main hypotheses and reflections that appear in it, referring to the geographical drift of the Basque language and the sociolinguistic situation of the 19th century, among other areas.

The article analyses the influence of Vladimír Šmilauer on the character of the Journal of Modern Philology (Časopis pro moderní filologii, ČMF). Šmilauer was associated with the Journal for Modern Philology as an author and an editor for Slavic studies (1939-1951). The article describes the main linguistic/philological topics contributed to the magazine by Šmilauer (Slovak studies and the history of the Slovak language, new Czech, e.g. orthography, reports on foreign literature, etc.). The period of Šmilauer's work at the ČMF falls into a time of socially problematical political systems: the Nazi protectorate after 1939 and the communist terror after 1948. On the example of the case of Šmilauer, we will show how and when political systems were directly reflected in the philological content of the Journal for Modern Philology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the methodological issues involved in the selection of sources for a corpus-based study of the English metalanguage that was created to analyse and compare, appraise and classify, teach and learn the vernacular languages of Europe between 1500 and 1700 (MetaLing corpus). Source selection is in fact a critical aspect presenting multiple challenges, since, in a period predating the establishment of comparative philology and linguistics as academic disciplines, language-related discussions are to be found not just in grammar books and language manuals, but in works pertaining to different fields and presenting a large variety of aims. Building on previous research and combining lexicographical analysis and corpus linguistics, the aim of this paper is to explore the potential of (semi-)automated searches of online digital resources for the retrieval of underexplored or non-canonical texts. Integrating what may be conceptualised as bottom-up (lexis to subject) approaches, with top-down (subject to lexis) approaches, the results indicate that onomasiologicaloriented approaches have the potential to make terminological blind spots emerge, and that the combination of different onomasiological and semasiological oriented approaches interfacing with the same corpus helps overcome the limits of each individual approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the translational practices of Dominican missionaries who worked in multilingual settings in the Guatemalan highlands in the colonial period. It is argued that the missionaries developed the emerging ideas of European Renaissance linguistics and applied methods of contrastive linguistics to indigenous languages long before this discipline came into being. The main argument derives from an 18th-century collection of missionary writings in Q'eqchi' and Poqomchi', two Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala. An uncommon phrase-by-phrase alignment of bilingual texts allows for the assumption that a contrastive approach to genetically related languages could be the underlying principle in language learning and translation at that time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Historiografía Lingüística (BSEHL) is the property of Sociedad Espanola de Historiografia Linguistica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Historiografía Lingüística (BSEHL) is the property of Sociedad Espanola de Historiografia Linguistica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article attends to "questionnaires" in linguistic fieldwork defined by the inclusion of sensory stimuli. It shows that such non-verbal protocols have been used to help elucidate and compare semantic content, which has generally been subordinated to formal analysis in the history of linguistics. To explain and exemplify this relationship, I target the color questionnaire developed by Hugo Magnus, which included ten standardized color chips and a long list of interview questions on language use. Magnus's questionnaire (Fragebogen) decoupled perception and denotation in its day, though similar protocols have recently been employed to restore the connection between meaning and form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work in stylistics of Charles Bally (1865–1947) attempts to analyse that subset of a language system in which meaning is not purely conceptual or intellectual, but has an affective, emotional dimension. It is not concerned with literary language, but with everyday language used in the service of 'life', a word which is central for Bally. This paper adds to the definitive study of Bally's stylistics (Taylor 1981) by bringing in material which came to light after its publication, including Médina's (1985) study of Bally's reliance on the work of Henri Bergson, who reconfigured the affective-conceptual dyad and whose writings are the source, Médina shows, of Bally's use of 'life'. This paper also adduces more recently published documents on Bally's intellectual and professional relationship with Ferdinand de Saussure, which figures prominently in Taylor's (1981) account, and which can now be reassessed in a new light. • Re-examines Talbot Taylor's 1981 study of Charles Bally's stylistics in the light of subsequent discoveries concerning Bally's work. • Situates Bally's stylistics in its relationship to Saussure's linguistics, and looks at how both articulate with psychological theories of the time. • Considers the implications of Bally's remarks on Henri Bergson for an understanding of the key concept of 'life' in Bally's Le langage et la vie (1913) and other work. • Looks at how Taylor's study of Bally links to Taylor's later work on understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An Introduction to Manchu (Qīngwén qǐméng 清文啟蒙, 1730) is one of late imperial China's most important Manchu-Chinese bilingual primers. Its third chapter, entitled 'The Manchu Empty Words and Grammatical Particles', is devoted to grammatical description and uses Chinese linguistic categories and terminology to describe Manchu morphology. An Introduction to Manchu was used as a teaching tool for European learners of Chinese and Manchu. Both Wylie and Hoffman adopted a contrastive approach for their English and Italian translations of 'The Manchu Empty Words and Grammatical Particles', in which they added references to Western linguistic categories and comparisons with European languages (Latin, Greek, French, English, Italian). The result was a merging of linguistic paradigms and terminologies. After briefly introducing this bilingual primer, the present paper focuses on the Western translations and presentations of its third chapter. The adaptation of Western and Chinese linguistic categories and terminologies to the description of Manchu is an interesting case of the hybridisation of descriptive categories and the circulation of linguistic knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

La riflessione di Coseriu sul contatto interlinguistico si inserisce in modo coerente nell’edificio teorico complessivo dello studioso romeno richiamandone e confermandone i capisaldi e le principali antinomie. Così ad esempio gli influssi esogeni entrano in gioco sullo sfondo della sua concezione del cambio linguistico e in particolare della dialettica tra “innovazione” e “adozione”.Un altro criterio fatto valere dallo studioso si collega con la nota distinzione tra ‘sistema’ e ’norma”: non tutte le innovazioni che agiscono sulla ‘norma’ producono effetti sugli equilibri del ‘sistema’. Il contributo prende poi in esame singoli aspetti del contatto tra lingue, tra cui le peculiari manifestazioni dell’interferenza nel parlante adulto e colto e il peso da assegnare agli influssi di sostrato. Pur non ignorando il contributo di Weinreich alla tematizzazione del contatto, la posizione teorica di Coseriu si caratterizza per il fatto di elaborare un modello esplicativo che incorpora l’innovazione esogena “in den Rahmen einer Theorie des Sprechens”, collocata sullo stesso piano delle creazioni interne ad una lingua.

The text refers to the publishing series entitled My z Nich - it concerns a series of publications presenting the heritage of Polish linguists. The author of the review presents the value of the publication: he emphasizes that the authors of the articles in each volume resemble the achievements of the late masters, but also present a critical look at their scientific achievements and contribution to the development of the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of Polish linguistics of the last century should be analysed in three periods corresponding to the development stages of the Polish language: interwar period (1918-1939), second half of the 20th c. (1945-1990), contemporariness (since 1990), excluding the period of the Second World War and occupation (1939-1945), when there were no scientific publications in this field. Polish linguistics has developed progressively, gradually achieving the status of an autonomous sub-discipline within Polish philology and developing the methods and instruments for a comprehensive analysis of the status of Polish, as regards both synchrony and diachrony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The little-known factsof the work of N. S. Ashukin, S. I. Ozhegov and V. A. Filippov on the original lexicographic edition of the 1940s — “Dictionary to the plays of A. N. Ostrovsky” is analyzed in the article. The connection between the socio-cultural situation in the country and the scientific research of those years is shown. Special attention is paid to the facts of ideological pressure on philological thought. The circumstances that hindered the publication of the Dictionary are revealed. For the first time, genuine letters from the participants in this project, telling about the ambiguous situation in Glavlit (Soviet Main Administration for Safeguarding State Secrets in the Press) and the intention of the authors to save the manuscript from death are published in the appendix. It tells about further attempts of scientists and their descendants to resume the preparation of the publication of the book in the 1960—1970s. The facts given in the correspondence are commented on from the standpoint of history and philosophy of science, the necessary references are indicated, possible comparisons are made with the events and persons mentioned in the letters. The presented fragment of the linguistic picture of the world is also considered in the key of the development of linguistic personality and its role in the era of dictatorship. Attention is drawn to the high historical value of the undertaken work and its place in the lexicographic tradition of the XX century. It is concluded that archival materials play a key role in reconstructing the real picture of the life and activities of Soviet scientists, supplement the chronicle of science with valuable observations and contribute to an objective assessment of the achievements of philologists, show their firm position in upholding the interests of science during the dominance of ideologization in society.

The attention of Guillaume Budé (1468-1540) for the Greek etymologies of certain French words derives from his extensive lexicographical studies. His scholarly works, notably the Commentaries on the Greek Language (Commentarii linguæ Græcæ, 1529, 1548), contains several examples of this intellectual curiosity for Greek traces supposed or present in French, including in everyday language; the pride that would spring from such a prestigious linguistic descent seems to motivate the speech of the Parisian humanist about these etymologies.

This paper aims to show the role played by the relations of comparison and associativity, as they are introduced in Saussure’s Cours de linguistique générale, in the theories of Luis J. Prieto. This is done, first, on the basis of a historiographical approach, and second, on the basis of an exegetical approach to Prieto’s works. Thus, the paper first presents and analyses three programmes, corresponding to three courses Prieto gave at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba during the early 1950s. The analysis of these programmes will show the centrality of Saussure’s Cours in Prieto’s linguistic theorizing. After this, an attempt will be made to show the continuity between the theoretical tenets presupposed by the courses’ programmes and the main proposal advanced in Prieto’s article “Classe et concept. Sur la pertinence et sur les rapports saussuriens ‘de comparaison’ et ‘d’échange’”. By constructing this continuity we attempt to show: (1) the constant influence the Cours exerted upon Prieto’s thinking throughout his whole career, and (2) that such influence is manifested in the fact that Prieto did not generalize linguistic principles as such, but rather posited that linguistic principles were instances of more general semiotic ones.

Imagery is viewed as a hidden linguistic-stylistic category of a scientific text, the explication of which depends on the characteristics of the individual speech culture and the time of understanding the problem. The connection between scientific thinking and the figurativeness of the text is shown. It was determined that the imagery of a scientific text, in contrast to an artistic one, is not associated with the reproductive register of speech, it is formed by two linguistic and stylistic categories: the image of the subject of knowledge and, according to Yu. V. Rozhdestvensky, “the image of a scientific subject”. It is noted that scientific phraseology is formed in the same ways as poetic, but functionally different from it. The method of descriptive analysis revealed the associative and metaphorical fields of the key terms for linguistics. It has been established that scientific thinking is based on images of language-movement, language-space and language-social phenomenon. The authors believe that an appeal to related disciplines (linguistic personalology and the history of philology) makes it possible to develop fragments of a common scientific picture of the world at a certain historical stage, and to see the nature of their changes during the period of scientific paradigms change. The idea of the reproducibility of an image not as a “decoration” of speech, but a means of “figurative cohesion” (I. R. Galperin), a way of storing and transmitting information is fundamentally important in the article. The conclusion that the figurative paradigmatics influences the formation of the linguistic personality of the scientist-philologist is made.

Jan Blahoslav (1523–1571) was one of the first – if not the first – to devote a separate chapter to the phenomenon of vernacular diatopic variation in his Czech grammar. His pioneering attempts at making sense of this issue have thus far remained understudied, especially outside of the Czech Republic. In this contribution, we open up this important text, largely written in Czech, to a wider audience by means of an annotated English translation. In addition, we frame his interest in dialectal variation in the intellectual trends of 16th-century language study, especially within the Protestant circles in which Blahoslav was active. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After his emigration to the West, Georgij (Gappo) Baev (1865–1939), an outstanding cultural figure in Prerevolutionary Ossetia, spent many years in Germany, where he was involved in the translation of biblical texts into Ossetic and also taught his mother tongue as a lecturer at the Berlin Oriental Seminary (1922–1939). In the manuscript department of the Berlin State Library his personal archive is kept, containing a lot of interesting material, a real treasure of information not only about his personal life, but also and above all on Ossetic culture and history. The present paper features his correspondence with the Georgian linguist Giorgi Akhvlediani (1887–1973), whose personal archive is housed at the Tbilisi State University. The so far unpublished letters and postcards cover a relatively short time frame, namely from the 8 th of September 1927 to the 16 th of October 1928. Besides showing the deep respect and sincere appreciation of the two former colleagues for each other, the texts, all written in Russian, provide interesting facts which shed more light upon their biography and scientific activity. All in all, the professional and at the same time friendly correspondence, being a significant contribution to Ossetic studies, provides an insight into the nostalgic mood of the emigrant, on the one hand, and the interested tone of his counterpart, on the other.

The article examines the dialectological and folklore fieldwork organized between 1924 and 1930 by the prominent linguist and literary scholar Viktor Zhirmunskii. Zhirmunskii conducted his fieldwork in the ethnic German communities of the Southern USSR (Ukraine, Crimea, Transcaucasia), as well as in the Leningrad region. Unpublished field materials are held at the archive of the St. Petersburg’s Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences and in the archive of the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkinskii Dom). These materials include field reports, which describe noteworthy details on the goals, participants, collected data, and the itineraries of the aforementioned expeditions. These valuable materials shed light upon some understudied aspects of Zhirmunskii’s life and work.

This paper aims to show the role played by the relations of comparison and associativity, as they are introduced in Saussure's Cours de linguistique générale, in the theories of Luis J. Prieto. This is done, first, on the basis of a historiographical approach, and second, on the basis of an exegetical approach to Prieto's works. Thus, the paper first presents and analyses three programmes, corresponding to three courses Prieto gave at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba during the early 1950s. The analysis of these programmes will show the centrality of Saussure's Cours in Prieto's linguistic theorizing. After this, an attempt will be made to show the continuity between the theoretical tenets presupposed by the courses' programmes and the main proposal advanced in Prieto's article "Classe et concept. Sur la pertinence et sur les rapports saussuriens 'de comparaison' et 'd'échange'". By constructing this continuity we attempt to show: (1) the constant influence the Cours exerted upon Prieto's thinking throughout his whole career, and (2) that such influence is manifested in the fact that Prieto did not generalize linguistic principles as such, but rather posited that linguistic principles were instances of more general semiotic ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this response article to Emmanuel Ngué Um's piece published in Language, Culture and Society, I examine Ngué Um's thesis that structural linguistics has no reality in the African context, which he presents in the form of a critique of Saussure and Western linguistics. Ngué Um imagines Saussure as a (native) speaker of an African language, who would have refrained from theorizing languages the way he did, namely as theoretical fictions, if only he had received a formation in linguistic anthropology. Against this, I argue that we must assess Saussurean thinking as part of the history of linguistics, i.e., in its proper historical context, and acknowledge that linguistics as we know it is the product of Western metaphysics. Saussure just carried forward the intellectual legacy of which he was a product. Ngué Um wishes to adapt Saussurean linguistics to the contemporary linguistic world and make it a fit for the postcolonial and posthuman paradigms. However, the notions of langue and parole have a precise function in Saussure's theorizing, and it is questionable whether a decolonial linguistics should approach the African linguistic experience based on any of the Western metaphysical concepts. Doing so will, arguably, lead to a watered-down version of metaphysics and to a not fully emancipated southern linguistic theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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