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A Detailed Program of Lectures for the Academic Year 1876–1877
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A. PHONETICS
I. Statics of Sounds (Continuation)
1. The Purely Physiological Aspect of the Statics of Sounds ( Continuation).
The influence of foreign languages on the phonetics of a given language.
The influence of external conditions on the sounds of a language, on a peoples pronunciation. The influence of a peoples occupations, its way of life.
The uniqueness of seemingly identical sounds in different languages.
Characterization of languages according to their phonetic make-up. The range of sounds peculiar to each language.
The statistics of sounds. Ratios of individual sounds in the living usage of a given language.
The beginnings of dynamic sound changes in the synchronic state of a language. .. .
The beginnings of sound changes (alterations) conditioned by their physical (physiological) properties.
The stability of sounds.
The relative ease or difficulty of sounds.
Different categories of sound changes: assimilation, dissimilation, metathesis and others. Comparison with similar phenomena in writing (slips of the pen) and in everyday events.
Static features of sounds.
General concepts (categories) of phonetics.
The distinction between sound correspondences, sound laws, and sound processes. Distinction of sound processes, laws, and forces.
Sound laws and correlations of sounds: 1) static ones, appearing at one moment in the existence of a language; 2) dynamic ones, appearing in the development of a language.
2. The Psychological (Psycho-Physiological) Aspect of the Statics of Sounds.
Examination of individual sounds in connection with the meaning of words.
Psychological-static mobility of sounds.
Gradation of vowels (Lautsteigerung). The original quantitative and prepositional gradation of Indo-European vowels. The secondary, qualitative type of gradation. Gradation of consonants.
The discrepancy between the physical nature of sounds and their significance in the mechanism of language and in the peoples linguistic feeling.
Rudimentary gradations that have ceased to be mobile.
Different layers of productive gradations.
The disappearance of psychological mobility of sounds in the secondary, analytic Indo-European languages.
The influence of analogy on sound changes (this, strictly speaking, is a part of the dynamics of sounds). Different types of analogy.
The phonetic factor which plays the role of cement with respect to words, i.e., which connects (unifies) syllables into words or several words into one word. Indo-European stress. The Turanian (Finno-Turkic) harmony of vowels, etc.
II. The Dynamics of Sounds, i.e., the Historical, Etymological Aspect of Phonetics
... 1. Dynamic changes of sounds. Changes of sounds with time. The two major dynamic factors of the changes (alterations) of sounds:
1) The purely physical (physiological) factor, whose operation is determined by sound laws.
2) The psychological factor, consisting of the analogy of sounds.
The properties of sounds, complexes (combinations) of sounds, and words. The property of sound as the product of the tension of muscles and nerves in an infinitely small unit of time and the duration of a sound. The property of a vowel, obtained by multiplying its median breadth by its duration (continuity). The definiteness of a vowel is reduced in proportion to the reduction of its properties.
Stability of sounds:
1) Static stability, i.e., resistance to changes at a given moment in the existence of a language;
2) Dynamic stability, resistance to historical changes. A limit is placed on the changeability of sounds.
2. General cause of dynamic sound changes (substitutions).
Changes of sounds:
a) independent of the influence of other sounds, merely as the result of the tendency toward convenience.
b) due to the influence of other sounds, owing to contact with other sounds.
c) as a consequence of the place occupied by a certain sound in a word or phrase. The effect of different positions in the word on the quality of sound changes: the begining, middle, or end of the word. The law of word-final combinations of sounds (Auslautgesetz).
The preservative action (influence) of some sounds on others with which they are combined. This influence is reflected, of course, also in the disappearance of the originally influencing sounds.
Sporadic shortenings of sounds in some categories of words.
3. General sound changes in the Indo-European languages in general, and in the Balto-Slavic languages in particular.
The parallel development of sounds. Proportions of sounds in their change in three directions: (1) the historical, the transition from an old to a new state; (2) the geographic, dialectological; (3) the static, at one and the same in the same dialect.
Physiologically identical sounds of different languages have a distinctive value depending on (their place within) the entire sound system, and their relation to other sounds. Another range of sounds. Comparison with the tones of music.
4. Etymological kinship and identity of sounds within one language or in related languages, which is based on their history, i.e., on their development from one and the same original sound. Phonetic translation.
The splitting of one sound into two or more. The fusion of several sounds into one.
5. Characterization of general tendencies in the development of the sounds of Indo-European languages and of the general directions of this development.
1) The main direction of dynamic, purely physiological changes of sounds. The tendency toward convenience, i.e., toward the reduction of the properties of sounds. The law of shortening or narrowing of vowels in historical perspective.
Seeming exceptions to this direction in the development of sounds. Appearance of a new sound, polnoglasie , compensatory lengthening, etc. The explanation of such phenomena, either in purely physiological terms or in terms of the influence of popular word formation, analogy, and other types of unconscious generalization (apperception).
2) The tendency toward compensation for the shortening of sounds.
Compensatory lengthening and, more generally, compensatory strengthening of a sound, i.e., increasing its substance as a result of the conflict between the tendency toward convenience and habit.
Different forms (kinds) of compensatory strengthening of sounds. Compensatory strengthening of the vowel. Contraction. Compensatory strengthening of the consonant.
The increase in stability of sounds, both vocalic and consonantal.
6. Gradual loss of the definiteness of sounds.
The qualitative shading of quantitative distinctions.
The loss of the significance of sounds, as well as of their internal vitality and mobility.
Weakening of the esthetic character of a language regarding its sounds.
Linguistic formulas and abbreviational symbols in phonetics.
B. MORPHOLOGY
. . . Morphological distinctions in languages of different structure. The basis for a morphological classification of languages.
The intimate connection of morphology and syntax.
Subdivision of morphology. Morphological statics and morphological dynamics. Forms and their functions, i.e., their inner meaning.
I. Roots
As the main, governing parts of words, i.e., roots from a staticmorphological point of view. . . .
Concepts of the root of a word. Determination of the root by its external appearance and meaning.
The three-way principle of the subdivision of roots: (a) phonetic (open, closed, etc.); (b) genetic (primary, secondary, etc.); (c) by meaning, by the role of the roots in a given language (verbal roots, nominal roots, material (lexical) roots, and pronominal, demonstrative, formal roots, etc.).
Reduplication (geminado) of the root.
Root determinants (determinants of roots); (Wurzeldeterminative). The distinction between root determinants and suffixes.
Reflexes (representatives, substitutes) of the primordial roots of the Indo-European proto-language in individual Indo-European languages.
Phonetic differentiation of roots, that is, the differentiation of roots as a result of sound laws.
Parallel roots.
The overlapping of formerly distinct roots.
Relative stability of roots.
Change in the form of roots. Change in the form of roots under the influence of analogy. Ascribing a different meaning to a root under the influence of analogy.
Transfer of the center of gravity of a word from one root to another, that is, transfer of the role of the main root to the subordinate root which previously had a secondary role (of prefix, affix, or other) in the word. Cf. my review of the work Issledovanija drevneslavjanskogo perevoda XIII Slov Gregorija Bogoslova ... A. Budilovi ća (in ŽMNP, November 1872, pp. 170-84).
Traces of independent roots in contemporary languages, either only in meaning or in meaning and external form. Sanskrit roots in the meaning of independent words.
The uninterrupted formation of new words.
Verbal particles. Cf. I. I. Sreznevskij, Glagolnye časticy (Materialy dlja sravnitel’nogo i ob jasnitel’ nogo slovarja i grammatiki, II, pp. 334-36).
The different form and meaning of verbal particles.
Impersonal verbs. Cf. F. Miklosich, Die Verba impersonalia im Slavischen von Dr. . . . , Wien, 1865. Steinthal, [Review of] Carl Philipp Moritz, Über die unpersönlichen Zeitwörter (in Zeitschr. für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft, I, 1860, pp. 73-89).
Vocative case and imperative mood.
The gradual elimination of roots. The gradual weakening of the vitality of roots.
Languages with and without roots. The complete elimination of roots as categories of language in analytic languages.
Words with and without roots. Words belonging to a family and isolated words.
Words that have no roots, even in synthetic languages:
1) native words with a forgotten root;
2) alien, foreign, borrowed words from other languages. . . .
Semi-assimilation and full assimilation. The distinction between
foreign words (.Fremdwörter) and assimilated words (Lehnwörter).
What criteria should be applied to borrowed words?
A) with respect to the source, to the language from which it is borrowed:
1) place: from which dialect was it assimilated?
2) time: when was it assimilated?
B) with respect to the borrowing language:
1) place: by which dialect was it assimilated? by which social class of the people? was the assimilation colloquial or bookish? etc.
2) time: when was it assimilated? The strength of the assimilation process earlier and now. The temporal distance of the assimilation as a factor in the loss of the foreign character of the borrowed word. Cf., among others, my O dr evnepolshom jazyke do XIV stoletija , §§113, 114, 44.2.
C) was a certain word borrowed from another language directly or through the intermediacy of other languages, i.e., is it a natural, unborrowed word in the language from which it was borrowed, or was it borrowed from some third language?
The profound distinction between several (two or more) words borrowed from one and the same source, i.e., representing variants of one and the same foreign word.
The fate of borrowed words, their wanderings. Return of a borrowed word, in reshaped form, to the language from which it was originally borrowed.
Assimilated common nouns borrowed from the names of peoples or from the names of persons and surnames or from place names of a particular type.
International words which are, so to speak, the product of a compromise between two peoples.
Thorough assimilation, as a result of which the foreign word ceases to be foreign. Analogously, the root is forgotten in native words.
Different ways of assimilating foreign words:
1) purely phonetic;
2) the borrowed word acquires suffixes and endings by analogy to native words. The converse is the combination of foreign suffixes and endings with native words;
3) assimilation through folk etymology or popular word formation (Volksetymologie).
. . . Folk etymology as a force that revives words which have become ossified in their composition and have lost their connection with the former root.
Folk etymology as proof of the vitality of roots as a linguistic category.
The effect of folk etymology on truly foreign (borrowed) words and on native words with a forgotten root.
Comparison of folk etymology with gravitation in planetary systems.
Different categories of folk etymology:
A. External categories, producing change in the external form of a word, contrary to sound laws: (1) adaptation to a root of similar meaning; (2) mere adaptation to a comprehensible form.
B. Internal categories, consisting in a new interpretation of a given word, without a change in form (its external shape): (1) interpretation by meaning, adaptation to a form with a similar meaning; (2) subsumption under some category and the assignment of a meaning.
Incorrect (false) interpretations of the composition of words in writing.
The role of folk etymology in the confusion of graphic signs.
Etymological myths.
Puns based on folk etymology.
Learned word-formation resulting from ignorance of the laws of a language. Conclusions drawn from it by mythologists, historians, ethnologists, etc. . . .
II. Affixes, Suffixes, Prefixes and Infixes. Stems (Themes). Stem-formation (Derivation).
. . . Suffixes, as distinct from root determinants.
The origin of suffixes.
Primary and secondary suffixes.
Classification of suffixes acording to (a) external form (simple, compound, etc.), (b) meaning, function.
Distinction of primary and secondary, synthetic and analytic languages with respect to suffixes.
Whole words which become suffixes.
The descriptive principle of the analytic stage of development.
Replacement of suffixes by separate words. The complete loss of suffixes as a productive category of language.
Prefixes. Are there prefixes in Indo-European languages? Prefixes in Finno-Turkic (Uralo-Altaic, Turanian) languages.
Prefixes whose meanings have been forgotten.
Origin of the augment in Sanskrit and Greek.
Can prepositions be considered prefixes?
Infixes, e.g., in the Semitic languages.
Seeming infixes in Indo-European languages.
Stems (themes) of different grade.
The independent existence of stems in Indo-European languages.
Stems in primary languages and their loss in secondary languages.
III. Compounding (compositio)
. . . Three degrees of compounding:
1. Compounding of roots
a) externally
1) of different roots (the possible source of root determinants and of suffixes);
2) of the same root, reduplication (geminado);
b) internally
1) through the intensification of the meaning (root de termi- nan ¿ï« geminatio);
2) through the expression of a certain relationship or the addition of a nuance of meaning (suffixes, reduplicatio).
Compounding of suffixes.
Tautology in folk poetry and in language generally.
2. Compounding in the narrow sense of the word (σύνθεσις, compositio, Zusammensetzung).
Categories of compounds:
compounds of two nominal or verbal stems;
compounds of nouns with nouns;
compounds of verbs with nouns;
compounds whose composition has been forgotten, as a result of either the loss of the autonomy of one of its parts or of shortening; and
compounds of nominal or verbal stems with particles.
3. Compounding of existing forms, juxtaposition ( παραθεσις, Zus a mmenrückung).
Juxtaposition of dependent and coordinate forms.
Epitheta ornatia.
Expressions unified into one fixed form. . . .
IV. Formation (and Origin) of Declined and Conjugated Parts of Speech. . . .
V. Inflection (Flexio)
. . . The distinction between inflection and word formation. Declension, conjugation.
The distinction between the noun (substantive, adjective) and the verb.
Formation of inflected forms. Different theories. The theory of agglutination and the theory of adaptation.
How is inflection accomplished?
Mobility of endings, mobility of inflection.
1. Declension (Declinatio).
The meaning of the cases.
The origin of case endings.
Number. The dual (dualis). External expression of number distinctions in the declension.
Gender from a formal point of view.
The development of genders in different languages. Languages that do not now and never have designated genders.
Gender in the Indo-European languages. Fusion of genders. The gradual elimination of this category in the Indo-European languages.
What is meant by gender form (motion) and the case endings in adjectives? Congruence (agreement) of the adjective with the substantive.
What is meant by gender and number in verbs?
The Turanian languages.
The meaning of gender in declension.
The development of forms of declension.
Diversity in declension.
The declension of substantives and pronouns. The declension of pronouns and adjectives. Secondary development of the compound declension of adjectives in the Slavic and Baltic languages.
Change in the forms of declension. Their shortening and simplification.
Stems (themes) of declension.
Primordial stems of the Indo-European proto-language. Primary stems, equal to roots, and secondary stems formed from roots by means of suffixes.
Stems endings in vowels and stems ending in consonants. (Vocalic and consonantal stems).
Different layers in the development and formation of the forms of declension.
Different views on the character and meaning of the stems (themes) of declension. The genetic point of view. What are stems from this point of view?
Change of stems. The transition of ancient stems of the proto- Indo-European language to new stems, for example, in the Slavic languages.
The gradual shortening of the stems of declension as a result of phonetic laws and the interaction of phonetic and morphological factors.
In Slavic there are no vocalic stems of declension. Proofs of this statement.
The loss of endings and, in general, the shortening of the end of a word favors the development of exclusively consonantal stems. The loss of endings, but not of the need to express case relationships by means of inflection. Only two solutions are open to language in such situations. The assignment of new functions to rudimentary suffixes.
Fusion of the end of the stem with the ending.
The rudimentary existence of vocalic stems (themes) in Slavic languages is real from an external point of view as well as from the point of view of their meaning. Traces of original final vowels of stems (themes) in present-day case endings and in compounds. Traces of the distinction between vocalic and consonantal stems in the diverse declensions.
Parts of former stems in the role of endings.
Revival of declension with the help of new, exclusively consonantal stems.
The formation of consonantal stems in place of vocalic ones even at the oldest historically attested stage of the Indo-European languages.
Differentiation of stems. Fusion of stems.
The influence of analogy on the stems (themes) of declension.
Disappearance of the less frequently used categories of stems.
Diversity of the declension in the Indo-European languages.
Strictly, one should not speak of the diversity of the declension of nouns or stems in all (grammatical) cases, but only of the diversity of the declension in some (grammatical) cases.
2. Conjugation (Conjugado)
. . . Stems (themes) of conjugation.
Personal endings. Their origin and development.
Number in the verb in general and in the personal endings in particular.
The significance of voice in general and in the personal endings in particular.
The gradual loss of diversity in personal endings.
The replacement of personal endings by pronouns.
Tense. Different categories of tense. Objective and subjective tenses. The intersection of categories.
Stems of the tenses.
Reduplication, gemination, as a feature of completed action.
Stems of past tenses.
The augment. Its origin.
The future tense and its bases.
Moods. Means of expressing their distinction.
Aspects. Number and duration of action. Means of designating aspects: (1) special suffixes, (2) prepositions (prefixes), (3) gradation of the root vowel.
Deverbal substantives: participles, gerunds, infinitives, supines.
The meaning of the infinitive.
The conjugations. Their subdivision. Different systems of dividing the conjugations of verbs.
Primary and secondary conjugation.
Distinction between verbal stems and presenttense stems. Stems of aspects, moods, tenses.
Vocalic and consonantal stems (themes) of conjugation.
Morphological and phonetic shortenings of the stems of conjugation (cf. the stems of declension).
Compound verbal forms.
The analytic state of verbal forms.
The loss of feeling of stems and endings. Ossification of verbal forms in secondary languages.
The prevalence of the descriptive (periphrastic) principle.
VI. Analogy
. . . Analogy as a force of language operating against tradition and sound laws. Analogy as a special case of the force of unconscious generalization (apperception). The difference between analogy and folk etymology.
Factors of analogy: (1) phonetic, (2) syntactic, (3) purely morphological.
The interaction of analogical factors in the historical development of language.
Different manifestations of analogy in the forms of declension and conjugation (in the forms of nouns and verbs).
Analogy of stems and analogy of endings.
Directions in the working of analogy:
1) external, when one form is replaced by another without change of meaning;
2) internal, when the form remains unchanged but acquires a new meaning, is interpreted differently. Its effect upon linguistic feeling.
The effect of the second category on the change of the system of declensions and conjugations, i.e., on the morphological shortenening of bases.
On the other hand, the entire declined or conjugated form may become a stem.
Various tendencies and special causes (reasons) for the operation of analogy (evoking the influence of analogy):
1) the preponderance of the feeling of identity of forms over their external diversity and sound laws;
2) the loss of the original function (meaning) of certain forms;
3) the tendency toward distinctiveness of forms;
4) the tendency toward simplification of forms, etc.
The effect (influence) of analogy:
1) at the beginning of a word;
2) within a word;
3) in final clusters, at the end of a word, in desinences, etc.
The effect of the last type of analogy manifests itself in: (1) stems, (2) desinences, and (3) whole, complete forms.
General conclusions about analogy.
VII. The Elimination of Inflection
... The distinctiveness of desinences is suppressed (obscured). Substitu tes for desinences. Prepositions. Pronouns: (1) demonstrative pronouns in the function of articles, (2) personal pronouns in the function of personal endings.
Analytic (separate from the word) substitutes for desinences appear at first in support of desinences, then take their place.
On the origin of the article, cf. Jakob Grimm, Über das Pedantische in der deutschen Sprache,Kleinere Schriften, I (Berlin, 1864), p. 338.
Which part of grammar should deal with the article, prepositions and the personal pronouns which modify verbs: syntax or the study of inflection?
Ossification of certain forms.
The complete loss of some inflectional categories.
VIII. Particles
. . . Ossified inflected forms in the function of particles and auxiliary words.
Adverbs are by origin case forms of nominal (substantive, adjectival) and pronominal stems, verbal forms or entire expressions.
Prepositions develop from adverbs.
The splitting of one preposition into two or more. The merger of several prepositions into one as a result of sound processes and analogy.
Subordinate particles. Subordinate expressions. Desultory wordexpressions and desultory expressions.
Integral, fixed forms and even expressions serve as the basis for further formations. Cf. my Wortformen und selbst Sätze, welche in der polnischen Sprache zu Stämmen herabgesunken sind, Beiträge zur vergleichenden Sprachforschung, VI (1870), pp. 204- 10; I. I. Sreznevskij, Ob izučenii rodnogo jazyka,Izvestija Akademii nauk, IX, p. 288.
Statistics in morphology. Cf., among others, F. F. Stawiński, Obliczenie wyrazów zawartych w trzech slownikach: (1) Lindego, (2) w Wilkeńskim, (3) Rykaczewskiego, przez . . . ego (Warsaw,1873).
IX. Etymology. Kinship of Words
As a part of morphological dynamics.
The genetic kinship of words, roots, affixes, desinences, stems (themes), etc. . . .
X. The Meaning of Words. Semasiology
. . . Changes of meanings. Main tendencies and currents.
Loss of the original meaning of a root.
Splitting of roots with respect to meaning.
Merger of the meaning of different roots under the influence of sound laws and analogy.
Fusion of borrowed and native words.
Directions in the development and change of the meaning of roots: (1) from indefiniteness (vagueness) to definiteness, (2) from the concrete to the abstract.
The substitution of words (of space) by words of time.
Roots of Indo-European languages for which no basic concrete meaning has been found. Cf. George Curtius, Grundzüge der griechischen Etymologie, pp. 101, 178, 312, 231.
Internal form (innere Form) in language.
The influence of foreign words on a peoples world-view with relation to the native language. Foreign meanings present in native words.
C. SYNTAX
. . . Division of syntax:
1) the meaning of parts of speech and forms of words;
2) linking (connection) of words (of separate sentences and the linking of sentences).
Two parts of syntax (as in phonetics and morphology):
A. Statics: (1) the form of expressions and sentences and of parts of sentences; (2) the meaning of expressions and sentences and of parts of sentences.
B. Dynamics: (3) the origin of expressions and sentences and of parts of sentences.
Etymological explanation of syntactic phenomena and, conversely, syntactic explanation of the appearance, development, and loss of various forms.
Interpretation of the various parts of speech as constituents of the sentence.
The meaning of forms as means for linking words into a whole. Languages with and without form.
Analysis of analytic forms. Particles and auxiliary verbs.
Replacement of words of place by words of time.
Replacement of one case by another.
The connection of words, the sentence.
Agreement of words as distinct from their subordination or dependence. Congruence as distinct from attraction.
Congruence and attraction as they appear (manifest their action): (1) in the linking of words, (2) in the linking of sentences.
Congruence, fusion of two concepts into one.
The distinction between the attribute and predicate.
The influence of syntax on inflection. The formation in Slavic (and Lithuanian) of two adjectival declensions. The article.
Attraction (gravitation) in comparison with assimilation of sounds. Different categories of attraction: regressive and progressive, etc. Attraction in the linking of words and sentences. Shortenings and omissions due to attraction. Sporadic, isolated attraction and permanent attraction which lends form to individual expressions and determines the development of a language.
So-called tmesis (τμήσις) of the Scholastics. The gradual transition of adverbs into prepositions. Free juxtaposition of words due to frequent repetition and habit becomes constant and obligatory. Repetition of the same preposition, owing to congruence, before the substantive, the adjective, and the verb.
The synethetic and analytic structure of language from a syntactic point of view.
The linking of sentences.
The transition of independent sentences into dependent ones, and of the so-called natural construction into the artificial construction.
The transition of demonstrative pronouns and conjunctions into relative pronouns and conjunctions. Division into demonstrative, relative, and interrogative particles.
The independent use of different forms and particles, outside any grammatical connection with the sentence or sentences.
The distinction between grammar and logic.
The influence of foreign languages on the syntactic structure (construction) of a given language.
D. A GENERAL VIEW OF GRAMMAR
Parallel development and identical laws of language from the standpoint of phonetics, morphology, and syntax. The generalization of particular data from phonetics, morphology, and syntax. The history of language. . . .
Parallelism between the state and development of a language in phonetics, morphology, and syntax. The similarity between static and dynamic laws in the three domains of grammar.
A brief (concise) survey of the laws and forces operating in a language. Can general categories of linguistics be viewed as forces and laws?
The purely physical and physiological aspects of language, and a peoples feeling for its language.
Forces operating in language: (1) habit, i.e., unconscious memory, (2) the tendency toward convenience, (3) unconscious forgetting and misunderstanding, (4) unconscious generalization or apperception, (5) unconscious abstraction, the tendency toward separation, differentiation.
Laws and forces: (1) static, i.e., operating in the synchronic state of a language; (2) dynamic, determining the development of a language. Statics and dynamics in grammar.
Inheritance (Vererbung) and adaptation (adjustment, Anpassung) in language.
The succession of processes in the development of a language.
Rudiments in language.
Comparison of the development of language with biological and social development.
Changeability of language.
The development of langauge due to individual stimuli, slowly, with no sudden jumps. The formula: О X ∞.
The effect (influence) of inertia (vis inertiae) on language.
Explanation of changes in language.
The greater or lesser degree of changeability of a language with relation to geographic, historical, and ethnographic-anthropological conditions. The influence of climate and soil. The influence of the nature of a people and of its education.
The influence of consciousness on language. The influence of books.
The relationships between literary and popular languages.
The history of a language. Methods of recreating and illustrating the history (development) of a language: (1) individual development of particular persons, investigation of childrens language, etc.; (2) literary monuments in chronological order; (3) examination of the structure and composition of living languages in all their diversity and the separation of the various layers of their formation.
Stratification in language.
The chronological principal in the examination of the structure and composition of language and languages. The chronology of phonetic, morphological, and syntactic processes.
Two aspects of the history of language: the external and the internal.
Having studied the course of the development of a certain language in comparison with others, one should be able to predict its further internal development.
E. CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES
. . . The definition of morphological classification. Its principles. Refutation of the theory which sees in individual groups only different degrees of perfection of a single principle (element) of morphological structure that leads gradually from monosyllabicity and agglutination to inflection.
Can a morphological classification (characterization, description) of languages be based on their phonetic properties? The sameness of phonetic processes and laws in languages of completely different morphological structure. Compare the sameness of chemical and physical processes in organisms of morphologically different structure. To what extent and from what standpoint are the data of phonetics suitable for a morphological classification?
Which morphological and syntactic aspects (pertaining to the structure of words and sentences) should be considered in a morphological classification of languages?
Is a morphological classification of languages possible at the present time? Is a morphological classification altogether possible, and should it not be replaced by a characterization of individual groups (branches) of languages? Linguistic geography and ethnography.
What language types have been determined scientifically?
Is it possible to reduce these types to a common denominator, i.e., to derive all of them from a common type? Can we assume the common origin of the inflected Indo-European, the inflected Semitic, and the agglutinative Turanian languages?
The relationship between the morphological and genetic classification. Is genetic kinship between languages of different morphological types possible? Is there a necessary coincidence between genetically related languages and languages of identical morphological type?
Morphological translation from a language of one type (structure) into a language of another type. Its distinction from phonetic translation and translation of meanings.
Characterization of languages of the Indo-European branch in comparison with those of the Finno-Turkic (Turanian, Uralo- Altaic) branch. What is the major morphological difference between the two branches?
The phonetic cement which in both branches conjoins several syllables into a whole, i.e., into one word as a syntactic unit comprising morphological (formal) parts. Stress and vowel harmony. Stress unifies the syllables into one word only phonetically, as syllables, while vowel harmony unifies the syllables not phonetically, but morphologically (roots in the role of suffixes).
On the one hand, preservation of the autonomy of syllables as morphological units, and on the other, subordination of all syllables to one syllable. Variability vs. invariability of the root. Gradation of vowels vs. their psychological immobility; in the latter case, flexional relations are expressed through suffixes instead of vowel gradation, etc. On the one hand, integration of all syllables (including those of the suffixes) into one word, and on the other, distinctiveness and autonomy of the suffixes which enter, so to speak, only temporarily into a union with the main root.
On the one hand, the endings and affixes form a tight unity with the stem (or root); on the other hand, almost all affixes and endings function as autonomous units.
On the one hand, regressive sound change (when following sounds influence preceding ones) and, on the other hand, progressive sound change (e.g., vowel harmony, the assimilation of following consonants to preceding ones, the disappearance of following consonants and not of preceding ones).
[Compare the parallel distinctions in social life and in history in general: (1) (parallel to regressiveness in language) the striving toward ideals of the future influences social and political movements and brings about political upheavals (the life of the mind, ideals, ideas, etc., outstrip reality and are so strong as to evoke at times attempts at their immediate implementation); (2) (parallel to progressiveness in language) social and political conservatism wherein the course (of the present and future) is almost exclusively controlled by the past.]
The Turanian languages lack genders Ègenera ) etc., and personification in general is far less often manifested than in the Indo- European languages.
A verbal character prevails in the Indo-European languages, and a nominal (adjectival and substantival) character in the Turanian languages. To compensate for the weak development of independent verbs, the Turanian languages employ a large number of auxiliary verbs.
In the Indo-European languages there is grammatical congruence of subordinate words with the main word; in the Turanian languages, only the main word is logically speaking declined and conjugated; congruence does not exist at all.
The Turanian languages preclude internal analogy of forms consisting in a new interpretation of the same form, such as the reinterpretation of the former nom. sg. feminine (collective) gospodá as a nom. pl. masculine.
The completely different word order in the sentence of the two types of languages.
From a historical, developmental point of view, all Indo-European languages are predisposed, because of their very structure, to change from a synthetic state to an analytic state, while the conservative Turanian languages are safeguarded against this kind of change: because of agglutination, they are, to begin with, analytic and have the means of replacing suffixes that have lost their distinctiveness with new, productive, and meaningful suffixes. In the Indo-European languages that are subject to strong sound changes and shortenings, it is possible to preserve the synthetic structure for some time by means of analogy, etc.; but in the end, all such means are exhausted, and the transition to an analytic state follows inevitably.
The genetic classification of languages, based on their common provenience from one original language. Original basic forms and derived ones. The importance of geographical and chronological criteria.
Phonetic translation (the rendering of the sounds of individual words of a given language by the sounds of another language by observing strictly defined sound laws and established sound correspondences) as a firm and irrefutable test of the genetic kinship of languages. Is such phonetic translation possible in the case of all genetically related languages? Distinction of stages, different degrees of development (for example, the synthetic and analytic languages of the Indo-European branch). Phonetic translation: (1) between synthetic languages; (2) between synthetic languages and their descendant analytic languages; (3) between analytic languages going back to a single synthetic language (for example, between French, Italian, Roumanian, etc.); (4) between analytic languages that developed from different, but genetically related synthetic languages (for example, between English, French, and Modern Greek). In the last case, phonetic translation is usually impossible; and consequently, it is impossible to establish the genetic kinship between such languages (for example, between Hindu, Modern Persian, Albanian, a Neapolitan or French dialect, Celtic, English, Bulgarian). If these secondary languages were the only representatives of Indo-European, no one would have thought of their genetic relationship. The great importance of the most ancient synthetic languages in defining genetic kinship.
Discrepancies in the lexical material because of the loss of words and roots in some languages, or because of borrowings.
The distinction between synthetic and analytic languages based on morphological and genetic classifications. Cf. H. Chavée, La science positive des langues indo-européennes, son présent, son avenir,Revue de lingistique. . ., I, pp. 9, 22-23.
Much more rapid changes and phonetic decay in analytic languages than in synthetic languages. The transparency of synthetic languages, whose words are felt not only singly, but also in their morphological make-up. The words of analytic languages are subject to the action of sound laws alone, and are not protected from change by a live awareness of their morphological structure. The lack of mutual intelligibility among peoples speaking closely related analytic languages, as opposed to intelligibility among speakers of synthetic languages which may be genetically more remote. For example, Avestan and Sanskrit vs. the dialects of Milan and Naples.
Identical sound-changes in analytic languages and in synthetic languages from which the former are derived.
The question of mixed languages.
The question of the influence of foreign languages on the syntax of a given language.
The Kjaxta dialect of the Russian language. Cf. S. I. Čerepanov, Kjaxtinskoe kitajskoe narecie russkogo jazyka. Zapiska . . . , lORJaS, II, pp. 370-77.
The probable influence of the Finnic and Turanian languages in general on Lithuanian and Celtic.
Phonetic influences: (1) between genetically related languages; (2) between languages of differing morphological type (here the influence is much more pervasive, penetrating the entire phonetic structure of a given language).
The probable influence of foreign languages on the phonetic propetries of various Slavic dialects. The loss of vowel length and of mobile stress.
Germanized dialects of the Slovenized Germans of southern Austria.
The Rezian dialects (of Slovenia).
The Romansch dialects of northern Italy, Switzerland, Tyrol, and Gorizia.
The great importance of similar questions for ethnology as ethnic and national history.
The Genetic Classification of the Indo-European Languages
Different views of the basic question: how are we to interpret the genetic relationship of the Indo-European languages?
The theory of gradual disintegration of a basic, primary language into derivative, secondary languages, which is represented by the genealogical tree (Stammbaumtheorie). The main variants of this theory. The Indo-Italo-Celtic group and the Germano-Balto-Slavic group; the Asiatic and the European groups.
The modern geographic theory which rejects the concept of gradual disintegration of large linguistic entities into smaller ones and which posits instead a series of wave-like transitions from one linguistic entity into another (Wellentheorie).
Critique of both theories. Cf., among others, my Opyt fonetiki rezjanskix govorov ..., §300, statements 1-3, pp. 124-25.