Předměty

The general goal of the course is to provide a survey of the history of linguistics as a series of
chapters from general European (and American) intellectual history, with an emphasis on links to
related fields of inquiry. Grading is based on a written test at the end of the term.

Poslední úprava: Mudrová Andrea, Bc. et Bc. (13.01.2020)

Topics covered:

• The beginnings: early reflections on language
• Ancient Greece: Plato and Aristotle, the Stoics and Alexandrian philology
• Roman grammarians: the Greek inheritance and the emerging systematic grammars (Varro,
Quintilian, artes and regulae, Donatus and Priscian)
• The Christian dimension of words, meaning and grammar (St Augustine)
• The Middle Ages: reassessing and repositioning the tradition (insular grammars, the
Carolingian renaissance, modistic grammar, pedagogical grammar)
• Renaissance and humanism: the empirical turn and the beginnings of vernacular grammar
• The early modern period: the return of philosophical issues in the study of language
(artificial languages, abstract approaches to natural languages; Leibniz, Wilkins)
• The origins of language: the Cartesian view and reactions to it
• The typology and the classification of languages: the rationalist tradition and its opponents;
syntactic structure and the structure of thought
• The comparative and typological study of languages; The beginnings of Finno-Ugric and
Indo-European comparative linguistics (Sajnovics, Jones, Schlegel, Bopp)
• Historical linguistics as a maturing discipline (Grimm, Schleicher, Humboldt)
• The Neogrammarian movement and the great debates of the late nineteenth century
(Brugmann, Verner, Osthoff, Paul)
• The horizon at the turn of the century (dialectology, semantics, theoretical phonology,
syntax and psychology: Schmidt, Schuchardt, Wundt, Baudouin de Courtenay;
institutionalisation and professionalisation)
• Saussure and his place in the history of linguistics (the Mémoire, the Cours and their
afterlife)
• Early structuralism and its major trends in Europe and America (functionalism vs.
descriptive linguistics; the Prague School, French functionalism)
• The second half of the twentieth century: generative linguistics, its variants and its
competitors

Poslední úprava: Mudrová Andrea, Bc. et Bc. (13.01.2020)

Topics covered:
• The beginnings: early reflections on language
• Ancient Greece: Plato and Aristotle, the Stoics and Alexandrian philology
• Roman grammarians: the Greek inheritance and the emerging systematic grammars (Varro,
Quintilian, artes and regulae, Donatus and Priscian)
• The Christian dimension of words, meaning and grammar (St Augustine)
• The Middle Ages: reassessing and repositioning the tradition (insular grammars, the
Carolingian renaissance, modistic grammar, pedagogical grammar)
• Renaissance and humanism: the empirical turn and the beginnings of vernacular grammar
• The early modern period: the return of philosophical issues in the study of language
(artificial languages, abstract approaches to natural languages; Leibniz, Wilkins)
• The origins of language: the Cartesian view and reactions to it
• The typology and the classification of languages: the rationalist tradition and its opponents;
syntactic structure and the structure of thought
• The comparative and typological study of languages; The beginnings of Finno-Ugric and
Indo-European comparative linguistics (Sajnovics, Jones, Schlegel, Bopp)
• Historical linguistics as a maturing discipline (Grimm, Schleicher, Humboldt)
• The Neogrammarian movement and the great debates of the late nineteenth century
(Brugmann, Verner, Osthoff, Paul)
• The horizon at the turn of the century (dialectology, semantics, theoretical phonology,
syntax and psychology: Schmidt, Schuchardt, Wundt, Baudouin de Courtenay;
institutionalisation and professionalisation)
• Saussure and his place in the history of linguistics (the Mémoire, the Cours and their
afterlife)
• Early structuralism and its major trends in Europe and America (functionalism vs.
descriptive linguistics; the Prague School, French functionalism)
• The second half of the twentieth century: generative linguistics, its variants and its
competitors

Poslední úprava: Mudrová Andrea, Bc. et Bc. (13.01.2020)