CONCISE HISTORY OFTHE LANGUAGE SCIENCES

FROMTHEBUMERIANSTOTHECOGNITIVISTS

Edited by E. F. K. KOERNER
University of Ottawa

University of Edinburgh

and R. E. ASHER

r /.

PERGAMON

SECTION X

20th Century Linguistics

,

Trends in Twentieth-Century Linguistics: An Overview

John E. Joseph 1. Progress and Science in Linguistics In order to evaluate and understand the twentieth century with any sort of objectivity, we need to extend our perspective backward in time. Historical continuities with the nineteenth and earlier centuries give a firmer grounding to judgments concerning the twentieth century. For linguistics, such continuities are manifest: the founders of twentieth-century linguistic theory, trained in that of the late nineteenth, rejected few of its fundamental principles but sought instead to extend their domain. Looking back over the whole of the past 200 years, a still grander continuity emerges, one that sweeps over and above the paradigmatic and methodological breaks and splinters that occupy our attention most of the time. It is the gradual realignment of the study of language away from moral science, philosophy, aesthetics, rhetoric, and philology, and in the direction of the natural sciencesfirst botany, biology, chemistry, and comparative anatomy; then geology; and finally physics, by way of mathematics. With this has come a steady elimination of.human will from the object of study, the necessary condition for any science in the modern sense. Over these same two centuries science has become virtually synonymous with academic prestige, as measured by institutionalization (creation of departments and positions, launching of journals, organizing of conferences), financial support from governmental and other grant-giving agencies, and public recognition. Not surprisingly, then, for linguists progress came to be equated with scientificization. When in the first part of the twentieth century the great achievements of the nineteenth-century forebears were stated, it was in terms of the new methodological rigor they introduced into the analysis of language, and of their success in abandoning formerly connected fields, such as philology and mythologyrather than, say, how many more languages and linguistic phenomena were described and accounted for than previously, or how far language teaching had advanced. In other words, progress was defined as the acquisition of autonomous status for linguistic science (see Sect. 3.6). As for the mid-twentieth-century rapprochement with mathematics and physics, it was carried out in full consciousness and with overt references; mathematical linguistics* (now usually called computational linguistics) would even emerge as a significant subdiscipline. 2. Linguistic Mainstreams These developments did not affect all work on language equally. Rather, the mainstream was progressively redefined in the direction of autonomous inquiry. By mainstream is meant the group having the greatest institutional power and prestige, with no implication that other approaches were backwater in any sense other than the hold they possessed on the major journals, support agencies, academic departments, and public attention. Areas the mainstream deserted continued to interest other linguists, sometimes even to inspire new disciplines like general semantics, philosophy of language, and critical theory, to name just three. But in effect, linguistics has come to designate a more orless autonomous approach to language, and this brief overview will not depart significantly from the traditional mainstream focus. Defining linguistics was in fact the main goal of the book generally credited with shaping the twentiethcentury linguistic agenda: the Cours de linguistique gPnPrafe of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). As discussed in Sect. 4, Saussure established the framework for the synchronic (nonhistorical) study of the language system, or lungue, conceived as the sociallyshared system of signs deposited in the mind of each speaker. Nevertheless, during at least the first third of the twentieth century the study of language continued to be dominated by the historical inquiry which had earned such prestige in the nineteenth century. Only gradually did synchronic linguistics gain practitioners and institutional acceptance, until eventually historical linguistics was itself partially marginalized and fundamentally refashioned in the light of synchronic findings. 221

20th Centurv Linguistics

From the 1930s through the 1950s the mainstream of linguistics was defined by various American and European schools (understood as groups of linguists sharing some basic common assumptions about problems and methodology, while often disagreeing on particular matters) which are today grouped together as structuralist (see Sect. 5). All of them had some greater or lesser intellectual debt to Saussures Cours and to the groundwork laid by historical-comparative study. From the 1960s to the present, the mainstream has been defined by the generativist approaches which originated in the work of Noam Chomsky (b. 1928; see Sect. 8). But as the twentieth century comes to a close, the synthesis of the last 30 years appears to be dissolving. Linguistics has splintered into a panoply of well-entrenched approaches that are roughly equal in prestige, and the field as a whole is coming under the shadow of emerging megadisciplines like cognitivism and connectionism (see Sect. 12). 3. Language Theory before World War I By 1900 the firm hold which historical grammar had held upon mainstream status in linguistic science was being challenged by several adjacent fields of study. Even within the historical sphere linguists did not agree which if any of the leads provided by various versions of psychology should be followed. This section surveys what part of the general linguistics territory each field claimed as its own.
3.1 Historical Linguistics

toriographical study of linguistics in the modern period, Holger Pedersens (1867-1953) Linguistic Science in the 19th Centuq* (193 1). But this progress was gained at the price of ignoring general linguistic theory and leaving most aspects of language to the inquiry of adjacent fields. In particular, psychology annexed most aspects of language production and comprehension early on, a move hastened by the enormous influence of Wilhelm von Humboldts (17671835) posthumously published treatise on language structure and mental development (1836). Even at the height of the neogrammarian ascendance, dissenting voices could be heard within the historical domainmost notably that of Hugo Schuchardt (1842-1927), who launched a major attack against the Leipzig mainstream in 1885. 3.2 Psycholog? Classical psychology of the mid-nineteenth century was the very antithesis of positivism, formulating theories of mind and thought in a mode that we would today classify as philosophical. Psychological linguists in the Humboldtian tradition like Heymann Steinthal (1823-99) saw their investigations of language as a means to the understanding of national culture and thought. In particular, their work on the typology of languages continued to explore the parallels between mental structures and morphosyntactic structures. This mode did not disappear even when, a generation later, experimental psychologists incorporated enough positivist methodology into their practice to maintain its scientific status and prestige. One of the most prominent figures of this period, Wilhelm Wundt ( 1832-1920), developed a V&lkerpsychologie (psychology of nations) with a specifically linguistic component, and it gained enormous prestige, informing for example the first book by the great American linguist Leonard Bloomfield (see Sect. 5.2). But other linguists continued to object to the fact that the psychological approach worked backward from a priori notions about the nature and structure of the mind to form theories of language that could never be empirical or objective in anything but a superficial sense.
3.3 Phonetics and Dialectology

By 1890 the mainstream of the field was definitively occupied by the approach which had been established around 1876 by the Junggrammatiker (Neogrammarians) of the University of Leipzig, whose work followed up on that of August Schleicher ( 1821-l 868). It excluded virtually all manifestations of language except historical phonology, morphology, and syntax (in descending order of attention), and was primarily concerned with the Indo-European family and particular subgroupings within it. Phonology and morphology covered that part of language that could be cataloged as positive facts; syntax, on the other hand, had to be stated in relational terms, and for most known languages it involved a considerable volitional factor. Schleicher had excluded syntax from linguistic science on the grounds that it was subject to free will. Although syntax continued to be of marginal importance relative to phonology, some important work in this area was carried out, notably by Berthold Delbruck (1842-1922). By focusing their inquiry in this way the neogrammarians succeeded brilliantly in meeting the criteria for progress of their time. It seemed to many that they had done virtually all that it was possible for a true science of language (defined according to the then dominant ideology of positivism) to do. This is the impression one takes away from the first major his222

Experimental phonetics, the detailed measurement of speech sounds, offered the first truly positivistic approach to language, and had steadily grown in prestige through the influence of such individuals as Alexander Melville Bell (1819-1905) and Henry Sweet (1845-1912). Objective and quantitative as it was, no one could dispute its claims to scientificness. But while its descriptive power was unparalleled, and its pedagogical usefulness high, its explanatory power proved disappointing, especially to those who believed phonetic principles would provide the explanations for historical change. Phonetics could only deal with

 Trends in Twentieth-century Linguistics: An Overview

individual speech acts, not the abstract linguistic systems that underlay them, and its data tended to form an end in themselves. Whereas classical psychology had suffered from being too cerebral and not empirical enough, phonetics was so single-mindedly empirical as to defy rational interpretation. Still, in the age of positivism phonetics opened the possibility of accumulating masses of previously untapped data about living dialects. Detailed research on German dialects by Georg Wenker (1852-l 9 11) in the 1870s began a trend that would reach maturity with the IO-volume linguistique de la France (1902-10) by the Swiss linguist Jules Gillieron (1854 1926) and his assistant Edmond Edmont (1849-1926). Led by Gillieron, the linguistic geographers developed their own critique of neogrammarian theory: against the dictum of absolute sound laws modulated only by analogy, Gillieron stressed the impact of factors like homophonic clashes and popular etymology. This led to the resuscitation of a doctrine originally attributed to Jacob Grimm (1785-l 863), which became the rallying cry of the anti-neogrammarian resistance: every word has its own history.
3.4 Anthropology

ognized founder, Auguste Comte (1798-l 857), and as the new century opened it had begun to seize a considerable portion of the intellectual territory once claimed by classical psychology, which by now appeared hopelessly old-fashioned and metaphysical. Emile Durkheim (1858-1917), who had gone to Germany for postgraduate study under Wundt but found his approach less than satisfactory, assumed the first chair in social science at Bordeaux in 1896 and obtained a professorship in Paris in 1902. Also in 1896 he founded the periodical L Annie sociologique, whose principal linguistic contributor would be Saussures student and close associate Antoine Meillet (18661936). However, until the Cours, anything like a sociological formulation of linguistics would remain a vague desideratum. Wundts national psychology still claimed this aspect of language for its own.
3.4 To\iard an Autonomous General Linguistics

Late in the nineteenth century, as anthropology moved from a physical toward a cultural orientation, an impressive fieldwork methodology developed based on positivistic principles. Since language was taken to be an integral element of culture, and since linguists were concerned mostly with tracing the history of Indo-European tongues, anthropologists had little choice but to undertake the description of unknown languages on their own. Franz Boas (18591942), a German emigre to America, became the organizational leader of anthropological linguistics and began a tradition of scientific description of living languages within their own cultural framework, free of preformed ideas, including those of the psychologists. This is not to say that Boas ever rejected . psychological concepts from anything but the collection and analysis of language data; nor did he reject the historical approach, since much of his activity was aimed at establishing the historical affiliations of American Indian tribes through their linguistic relations. Some have even seen a trace of Hum+ boldtian linguistic thinking in the emphasis Boas I placed on diversity over and above communality. In any case, Boass school was probably the closest thing ! to a meeting ground for the various approaches to ; language at the start of the century, and as we shall see, Y it would take a leading role in American structuralism {: with the work of Boass student and associate Edward Sapir (see Sect. 5.2). z I4.: f 3.5 Sociology F The young science of sociology also embodied the ; spirit of positivism, with which it shared the same recc ,c 6 ? ik. 5. 4:r

The roughly coeval rise to prominence of Boass anthropology in the United States, Gillierons dialect geography and Durkheims sociology in France, Sweets articulatory phonetics in the United Kingdom, and Wundts national psychology in Germany conspired to give a new impetus to the study of living languages that mainstream linguistics had long since abandoned. Not that all historical linguists had ever been content with the division of labor outlined above: some thought that historical-comparative linguistics alone could be scientific, others felt that other aspects could be studied scientifically but that this should fall to adjacent, disciplines, and still others thought that historical-comparative linguistics should be expanded to take the other areas under its wing. The last group faced the double disadvantage of having to emphasize the failures of nineteenth-century linguistic science and of offering potential students and the general public few clues as to how to reach the goals they set for themselves. Linguists with a basically historical orientation who published notable books on general linguistics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century include William Dwight Whitn e y (1827-94), Michel Brtal (1832-1915), A b e l Hovelacque ( 1843-96), Archibald Henry Sayce (18451933), Victor Henry (1850-1907), and Hanns Oertel (1868-1952). The works of Georg von der Gabelentz (1840-93) and especially Hermann Paul (1846-192 1) deserve particular mention because although cast in the historical mold they anticipate the vision of the linguistic system that would characterize the structuralist period. But it was Whitney, first and foremost, who showed the way toward a modern general linguistics that would not be a smorgasbord where psychology, phonetics, and other subspecialties were served in equal portions, but a comprehensive study of language guided by historical principles and examining language for its own sake-a truly autonomous approach.

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Century* Linguistics

One other prominent contributor to genera! linguistics needs to be discussed here: Otto Jespersen (18601943). Jespersen, who gained his early renown in phonetics and the history of English, undertook in the 1920s an attempt to delineate the logic of grammar divorced from psychological underpinnings-work that among other things anticipates future directions in its attention to syntax and child language acquisition, Yet Jespersen would expressly reject some of the key tenets of Saussures Co~lrs and structuralism, making him the last great general linguist in the prestructuralist vein. 4. Saussure and the Cows The decisive step in redirecting the linguistic mainstream to the study of living languages was taken by Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) in three courses on general linguistics he gave at the University of Geneva between 1907 and 1911, a synthesis of which was published posthumously as the Cows de linguistique gknkrale (Course in General Linguistics) in 19 16 (see the article on Saussurean Tradirion in Linguistics). Inspired in part by Whitneys views on the special fitness of linguists to direct the study of languages, living or dead, Saussure problematized these issues in a clearer and more methodical fashion than anyone before him. He maintained that language as an abstract system (langue) was the proper object of study of linguistics, and that synchronic study of language as a static system should be kept rigorously distinct from diachronic (i.e., historical, languefocused) study. Saussure delineated for the first time a program that would be neither historical nor ahistorical, neither psychological nor apsychological; yet more systematic than Whitneyan or Paulean general linguistics, so as to compare favorably in intellectual and methodological rigor with the rival approaches outlined in Sect. 3. Saussure tended increasingly toward sociological rather than psychological formulations of langue over the years in which he lectured on general linguistics. Again, this may be tied in part to the need to establish synchronic linguistics independently of either the dominant psychological establishment (Wundt) or the neogrammarians, who had combined with the psychologists to greater or lesser degrees. As suggested in Sect. 3.5, the young science of sociology offered one of the most progressive approaches to human phenomena, and was not yet so well-instituted as to pose any threat to the emergence of an autonomous general linguistics. But most importantly, Saussures program surpassed all rival approaches in crucial aspects of scientificization. The marginalization of actual speech production (parole) provided a quantum leap toward the elimination of volitional factors; the abstract language system, langue, is beyond the direct reach of the individual will. Secondly, Saussures characterization 224

of langue as a system of arbitrary* relations between spoken signifiers (i.e., sound patterns) and mental signifieds (i.e., concepts)--relations that are of pure form, where elements may in effect have any substance so long as they differ from one another-moved linguistics away from its nineteenth-century connections with biology (a science largely pass4 in academic glamour) and in the direction of mechanical physics, the mathematically-directed study of the physical universe, which was reascending to the forefront of scientific prestige after years of relative neglect. Like its predecessors, Saussures program brought progress as much through what it excluded as what it added. Although he spoke of a linguistics of parole that would cover the phonetic side of language and the products of individual will, he made it clear that investigating larlgue is the essential, real linguistics. Similarly, his program for diachronic linguistics was meant to reform, not marginalize, the historical study of language, yet such was the impact of his synchronic program that it dealt historical linguistics a blow from which it has never fully recovered. In both instances the Cows became the touchstone for developments that were probably inevitable, given the overall pressures for the rise of an autonomous science of living languages and the general evolution of academic prestige toward mathematical and physical approaches. 5. The Emergence of Structuralist Schools The end of World War I (1914-18) brought a widespread sense of liberation from a century of German linguistic dominance. Linguists outside Germany, while still respectful of the neogrammarians methods, now felt free to use, correct, or abandon them as they saw fit. In the first decade of the twentieth century the formulation of a national linguistics had meant the application of neogrammarian techniques to the study of German dialects, and even opposition views had to be defined relative to the Leipzig mainstream. But from the 1920s on a national linguistics came to mean a more or less original theoretical position held by a nations leading linguists. Clearly, the postwar generation was ready for change. In any survey of early structuralism the Geneva School deserves pride of place, for the role of Charles Bally (1865-l 947) and Albert Sechehaye (1870-l 946) in publishing the Cours and of Serge Karcevskij (see Sect. 5.3) in transmitting Saussures doctrines to Moscow and Prague, as well as for the important original work done by these and other members (see The Geneva School of Linguistics after Saussure). Yet the Geneva School would be largely overshadowed by developments in other quarters, the most significant of which are surveyed in Sects. 5.24.
5.1 Features of Structuraiism

The term structuralism (which did not come into use in linguistics until the late 1920s) indicates a number

in Twentieth-century Linguistics: An Overview

of approaches to the study of language which arose at this time, having in common the following features:

(a) The study of systematic phenomena more or

less along the lines of Saussures characterization of langue. (It has been noted that even Bally, in attempting to realize a linguistics of parole in his stylistics, ended up by incorporating stylistic phenomena into the sphere of
langue.)

W In conjunction with (a), an implied belief that @>

(4

(d

abstract levels of analysis are more fundamental, more deep-seated-in a word, more real-than concrete ones. A preference for social abstractions over mental ones, including an axiomatic faith in language as a fundamentally social phenomenon which nevertheless could best be studied through the utterances of individual speakers. In conjunction with (c), a general priority of linguistic form over meaning-though see Sect. 5.4 on the London School. (This is a continuing heritage from the neogrammarians, whose single-minded concentration on form had inspired Brial to bring forth semantics in reaction.) A deep distrust in written language, which is usually characterized as not being language at all but only a secondary representationthough see Sect. 5.3 on the Prague School. This feature seems however to be on a distinct level from the other four: contingent rather than necessary to the structuralist outlook, and certainly not restricted to it.

A s will be clear from the following survey, structuralist linguistics arose across Europe and America not in a unified fashion, but in the form of national schools-not (contrary to a long-standing mythj through lack of contact, but because of a desire for .: intellectual independence (especially after the decades ? of German domination) and for theories that would i: reflect the different linguistic interests and ideologies :, of the various countries. Yet the postwar generation * all sought approaches that appeared modern and $ scientific, and they landed on largely the same things. it The Cours was a major influence on all the strucx,:, turalist schools, though by no means the only one; it k: ,provided a theoretical program but little in the way k+ of actual work to be carried out. All in all, the struc!$.turalist period is surprising both in its unity and its i, diversity.
+. ;* 6.. >-

Both were active, together with Boas and others, in the institutionalization of linguistics in America and in developing and refining the analytical method known as distributional because of its classification of elements according to the environments in which they appear. Yet where Sapirs ideas are embedded in (though never subordinated to) a broad cultural-anthropological perspective, Bloomfield (formerly an adherent to Wundts Vdkerpsychologie) had become a behaviorist, and treated languages as systems of stimuli and responses. Meaning, being unavoidably mentalistic, was suspect to Bloomfield, unless it was determined objectively on the basis of distribution. (Some of Bloomfields students and followers would develop a still more radical position, virtually exiling meaning from the purview of linguistics altogether, though it is a mistake to associate this position with Bloomfield himself.) Despite their general convergence, then, Bloomfields view was more narrowly linguistic than Sapirs and profited from its attachment to the empirical and modern science of behaviorism. Such was the success of Bloomfields 1933 book Language that it effectively set the agenda of American linguistics for a generation to come. Sapir and his students contributed at least as much as Bloomfield and the (neo-)Bloomfieldians to the refinement of the distributional method and phonemic theory, but never forsook their broader anthropological interests. Sapirs student Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-194 1) pursued a line of inquiry into the notion that the structure of thought might be dependent upon the structure of the linguistic system. This idea, later dubbed the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis*, has roots dating back at least as far as John Locke (1632-1704). In a sense it is the ultimate expression of faith in the power of the linguistic system; but in any case it was anathema to the anti-mentalist Bloomfieldians, and even today it continues to arouse controversy.
5.3 The Prague School

ican Srructuralism).

.,$.2, American Structuralism

,The two most prominent American linguists of the first half of the twentieth century, Edward Sapir (1884-1939) and Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949) folIowed parallel and convergent career paths (see Amer-

Despite important contributions by its founder VilCm Mathesius (1882-1945) and other Czech members, the Prague Linguistic Circle (founded 1926) is best remembered for the work of three prominent Russians, Roman Jakobson (18961982), Serge Karcevskij (1884-1955), and N. S. Trubetzkoy (1890-1938) (see also Prague School Phonology). Jakobson had been a prominent member of the Moscow Linguistic Circle, a center of the Russian formalist movement, in which certain of the features listed in Sect. 5. l-most notably the priority of form over meaning-had arisen independently from Saussure (an indication that they were inherent in the Zeitgeist). Karcevskij had been at Geneva from 1906 to 1917, years that span Saussures courses in general linguistics, and when he returned to Moscow after the October Revolution in 1917 he 225

20th Century Linguistics brought back a first-hand familiarity with Saussurean thought. Jakobson and Trubetzkoy recognized the points of convergence with formalism and earlier work by Russian linguists, but also appreciated the originality of Saussures systematization. The Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists in Prague, 1929 already evince the distinctive characteristics of Prague structuralism, namely breadth-they include programs for the study of poetic language and applications to language teaching-and functionalism. The document begins: Language like any other human activity is goal-oriented (Steiner 1982: 5). Besides any immediate material goal to be accomplished, Prague inquiry assumed a constant, implicit goal of maximally efficient communication, whether in the case of a casual utterance or some manifestation of poeticity. The Prague School also devoted considerable attention to analyzing the special nature ofstandard languages, a topic in which they had a very practical interest given the need to establish and maintain a national language acceptable to both Czechs and Slovaks that had existed since the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918. In the 1930s Jakobson and Trubetzkoy took structuralism in the radically new direction of what is now called markedness theory, which holds that certain elements in the linguistic system have an interrelationship that is neither arbitrary nor purely formal, but defined by the fact that one element is distinguished from the other through the addition of an extra feature, a mark. When the distinction is neutralized it is always the simple, unmarked member of the opposition that appears. This concept, which undoes the strict separation of substance and form, first arose in Trubetzkoys phonology studies; Jakobson then extended it to morphology and other structural levels, ultimately developing it into a theory of linguistic naturalness in which unmarked elements are predicted to be those which occur most widely -across languages, are acquired first in childhood, and are lost last in aphasia. Following his emigration to America in 1942, Jakobson exercised a fundamental impact on the development of structuralism, both through his conceptual innovations and his success in exporting his brand of structuralism to (a) other human and natural sciences, where it became the dominant paradigm in the 1950s and 1960s and (b) American linguistics, through his influence (both direct and indirect) on Chomsky (see Sect. 8). Besides America, much of the later history of Prague structuralism was played out in Paris, in the work of Andre Martinet (b.1908) whose Functional Linguistics continues to this day to develop key aspects of the Prague program (see Grummur). But it is particularly with Jakobson and his followers, including Meillets student Emile Benveniste (1902-76), that the structuralist concept of the system is elaborated to near-metaphysical pro226 portions, while opening a vein of insights that linguists of many schools continue to mine.
5.4 Olher Sfructuralist Currents

Two other traditions have been particularly influential, though neither so much as those of America or Prague. The first is the Copenhagen School headed by Louis Hjelmslev (1899-1965), who went farther than any of his contemporaries toward working out the relational nature of linguistic systems as implied in Saussures Cows (see The Glossematic School of Linguisrics). In principle the concern with form over substance was a common structuralist heritage, but as carried to its logical extreme by Hjelmslev it resulted in a higher degree of abstraction than Prague functionalism or American distributionalism could tolerate. Hjelmslev anticipated the algebraic quality of post-World War II linguistics, and it is indeed in this later period that his primary influence is felt (see Sect. 7). The other important structuralist tradition, the London School founded by John Rupert Firth (1890-1960), deviates from the other schools in its treatment of feature (d), the priority of form over meaning, a fact which differentiates it most sharply from the Bloomfieldians (see Firth and Ihe London School of Linguisrics). In fact, Firth approached the whole systematic nature of language in an unparalleled way. Whereas other schools conceived of language systems as consisting of a small set of largely independent subsystems (phonology, morphology, syntax, suprasegmentals), for Firth language was polysystemic, incorporating an infinite number of interdependent micro-systems which overlap the traditional levels of analysis. The London Schools refusal to separate phonology and suprasegmentals, for example, made interaction with American structuralists almost impossible-yet it anticipated work in generative phonology by nearly half a century (see Sect. 8). The neo-Firthian systemic linguistics of M. A. K. Halliday (b-1925; see Systemic Theory) and his followers represents, together with tagmemics (Sect. 7; see also Tugmemics), one of the most robust ongoing continuations of an essentially structuralist tradition. Finally, special mention is due to Meillets protege Gustave Guillaume (I 883-1960), a relatively isolated figure on the Parisian scene who cut his own structuralist path distinct from the dominant Pragueanism of Martinet and (in a different vein) Benveniste (see Guilluumean Linguistics). Like Hjelmslev, Guillaume was largely concerned with elaborating the systematic and abstract program of Saussures Cours, but less algebraically and with more concern for linguistic data and psychological mechanisms. Guillaumes work was centered on French syntax, with a special predilection for analysis of the definite and indefinite article, which (in French at least) stands on the border between

, .

Trends in Twentieth-century Linguistics: An Overview

svntax and semantics. Here he was clearly ahead of $s time, and it may be no surprise that hehas gained his widest audience only during the 1970s and 1980s. 6, Developments in Historical Linguistics Many linguists interpreted Saussures arguments for synchronic study as implying that it alone was true linguistics-despite the fact that half of the Cours is devoted to diachronic matters. Jakobson took the lead in insisting that each of the two approaches actually implies the other. Certainly of the five features of structuralism in Sect. 5.1, none is blocked a priori from application to the diachronic dimension; and none of those linguists at the forefront of structuralism ever shied from tackling historical problems. Indeed, Jerzy Kurylowiczs (1895-1978) 1927 demonstration that the distribution of the letter in the recently identified and transcribed ancient language Hittite corresponded precisely to that of the abstract and hypothetical sonant coefficients posited for ProtoIndo-European by Saussure in 1878, did much to convince historical linguists of the value of structural inquiry, and helped remind structuralists of the valuable corroboration historical data could provide to their theories. Yet during the same period historical linguistics became the locus of a reaction against not just structuralism but the whole scientificization that had been underway for over a century. The point of departure for this reaction was Benedetto Croces (1866-1952) call in 1900 for the return of language study to the realm of moral science and the human will. In view of the development of the field as outlined in Sect. 1, it is not surprising either that most mainstream linguists ignored Croce or that certain individuals (particularly in Italy) took up his call with great fervor. Karl Vosslers (1872-1949) attempt at a linguistic appli-, cation of Croces theories attracted a wide following, especially in German-speaking lands. The mainstream linguist most deeply affected was Matte0 Bartoli (1873-1946). the founder of neolinguistics (later : called area1 linguistics), an approach to historical >: study combining Crocean ideas with the findings of id7 dialect geography to create a counterpoint to neo, grammarianism (see Neolinguisric School in Italy). i After the deaths of Bartoli and Vossler the movement I3 faded out, though not before the tenets of area1 ? linguistics became well established in the historical $5 and geographical approaches. ?; - a Another unique development arose in the former i.. Soviet Union with the work of Nikolai Jakovlevich c Marr (1865-1934), who argued for the existence of a p @and historical macro-family of languages he called r; Noetic, whose principal branches would be Semitic k and Japhetic. The latter family, another of his inven::. tions, included originally his native Georgian and the plausibly related Basque, but grew over the decades to subsume many extinct languages of the Mediterranean region (e.g., Iberian, Etruscan, Elamite) and was ultimately extended far into Asia, Africa, northern Europe (including eventually the Celtic and Germanic languages), and even America. Marr believed that this original Japhetic cultural unityclassless, communistic, and not tied to race-fell victim to Aryan conquerors whose descendants would spawn European capitalism and imperialism. He insisted that suppressing this history was the goal of bourgeois linguistics, i.e., the Western European historical-comparative tradition. Marrs New Theory of Language asserted that language was a superstructural element in Marxist terms (i.e., a direct consequence of the economic and social system), and strongly contested the Western European view of linguistic history as proceeding from unity to diversity, arguing that because of continuous language mixture we actually move in the opposite direction. Marrs paleontological analysis* reduced all the words of all languages to four basic elements-.&, her, van, and rosh, occurring singly or in combination-and analyzed their subsequent history according to his theory of stadialism, which held that economic revolution must produce linguistic evolution. Outside the USSR, Marrs theories were dismissed as methodologically unsound and ideologically driven; his fantastic etymologies and genealogies and his claims to penetrate the thoughts and mental development of prehistoric peoples were beyond the pale of scholarly objectivity. The strongest repudiation of his views came in 1950 when his own countrymen, led by Stalin himself, denied that language was superstructural, dismissed Japhetic theory and paleontological analysis, and embraced the historicalcomparative method as scientifically sound. The 1980s saw a revival of interest in linguistic mega-families like Nostratic (embracing at least Indo-European, Semitic, Georgian and Basque) and the vast American Indian reconstructions of Joseph Greenberg (see Sect. 10). These proposals, while at first attracting enormous attention in the popular press, were met with skepticism from the ranks of historical linguists and have largely retreated into specialized corners. 7. Post-World War II Algebraic Structuralism From about 1945 younger linguists showed an increasing bent toward the algebraic and mathematical aspects of structuralism, in the use of tables, formulas, and other mathematical schemata, statistics, calculations, and the generally rigorous working out of the notions of system and systematicity. Such a bent had already figured prominently in the work of Hjelmslev and Guillaume (Sect. 5.4). In the early 1950s military and commercial interest in furthering the wartime progress on computers and machine

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b@

translation improved the fortunes of many linguists, particularly in America, and gaye even more impetus to the development of computationally-based models. In America, the neo-Bloomfieldians assumed the mainstream mantle they had previously shared with the disciples of Sapir (see American Structuralism), and anthropological linguistics retreated to the status of a subdiscipline. Bloomfields mathematically inclined heir apparent Charles F. Hackett (b.1916) rose to prominence, as did Zellig S. Harris (1909-92), whose Methods o f Structural Linguistics (completed 1947, published 1951) marked the high point in the systematization of Bloomfieldian analysis. Harris, Hackett, and Jakobson also began extending their inquiry to syntax, a largely neglected area (despite a number of high-quality contributions over the years, especially in the historical domain). Although syntactic studies would not come fully into their own until the ascendence of Chomsky, who declared a sharp break with the structuralist (especially the neoBloomfieldian) tradition (Sect. 8), nevertheless in his wake further structuralist accounts of syntax were put forward, of which the most notable are the stratificational grammar of Sydney M. Lamb (b. 1929), which follows largely in the tradition of Hjelmslev (see
Stratifjcational Grammar: The Giossematic School of Linguistics), and the tagmemics of Kenneth L. Pike (b.1912; see Tagmemics).

8. Transformational-Generative Grammar, including Generative Phonology The mainstream of linguistics in the last four decades of the twentieth century has been shaped by the work of Avram Noam Chomsky (b. 1928) who had ties to Bloomfield through his teacher Zellig Harris (see Sect. 7), and to Jakobson through personal acquaintance and through his close association with Jakobsons student Morris Halle (b.1923). It is widely believed that in its concern with universal aspects of language Chomskys program is a continuation of Jakobsons; in any case, it had no precedent in neo-Bloomfieldian structuralism. Such was Chomskys success in overturning mainstream structuralist tenets that it is no exaggeration to say he revolutionized the fieldthough in broader perspective even this revolution only helped advanced linguistics further along the path it had been following for over 150 years. Chomskys avowed aim was to bring linguistics to the level of rigor of physics, at once the most mathematical and the most exact of the physical sciences. In his early years he worked directly on mathematical models of language, but finally abandoned this line of inquiry to devote himself to his context-free phrase structure models of syntax and, through the 196Os, phonology
(see Erolu tion of Transformational Grammar). 8. I Chomsky s Standard Theory (I 955-65)

Pike, who had taken courses with Sapir and Bloomfield, has had enormous influence not only for his definitive work on phonemic theory but also for his decades-long association with the Summer Institute of Linguistics and the Wycliffe Bible Translators, dedicated to translating the gospel into every one of the worlds languages. Through their auspices hundreds if not thousands of descriptive linguists have been trained in tagmemic analysis, and as a result, our knowledge of the structure of many languages exists only in this form. The religious side of Pikes activity has caused it to be neglected in accounts of modern linguistics, but it is largely the reason why the structuralist tradition continues at present to have a significant existence throughout the world. In Europe too syntactic studies were underway, following on the pioneering work of Lucien Tesniere (1893-1954; see Valency Grammar), but the focus of structuralist investigation continued to be phonology, and dialect geographic and historical linguistics continued to be more actively pursued than in the USA. Meanwhile the younger generation of European scholars looked increasingly to America for innovative ideas and technological advances. Hence the major development in structuralism during this period was its exportation to other fields-until a revolt against structuralism became part of the student uprisings of 1968. From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s European linguistics turned increasingly toward American generativism, while the other human sciences played out a poststructuralist phase. 228

Much as the search for science led nineteenth-century linguists to eliminate living languages and structuralists to eliminate parole from their sphere of inquiry, Chomsky too eliminated from consideration everything but the linguistic competence of an idealized native speaker-hearer. He utterly rejected the behaviorism that was part of Bloomfields legacy, arguing that language is not a behavioral phenomenon but a mental attribute (later he would refer to it as an organ) that is universal and innate. (Actually, the version of linguistic behaviorism Chomsky most memorably attacked was not Bloomfields, but that of B. F. Skinner (1904-90), a prominent Harvard behavioral psychologist not directly affiliated with any linguistic school or tradition.) The claim of innateness not just of general language faculties but of specific grammatical features is what most abruptly severs Chomskys thought from its predecessors, for in certain other ways it represents a continuity and furthering of the structuralist approach. In terms of the features of structuralism listed in Sect. 5.1, only (c), the preference for social abstractions over mental ones (which implies behaviorism in a greater or lesser degree), is clearly abandoned by Chomsky. The other goals are maintained or intensified. Regarding methodology, Chomsky rejected distributionalism as naively empiricist, capable only of revealing the trivial phenomena of surface structure rather than the deep structure which constitutes a languages innate, universal core. Data garnered

through introspection by the linguist-formerly suspect-were deemed superior to those acquired objectively because of the new status granted to the mind. And the transformations* which lead from deep to surface structure became a hallmark not only of Chomskys linguistics but of later structuralist thought generally. Where his work was in conflict with the structuralist mainstream Chomsky sought alignment with still earlier traditions, in particular with Cartesian linguistics which other historians of linguistics have not followed him in recognizing. More subtly, his representation of phrase structure as tree diagrams tied him to a didactic tradition that embodied much of what the structuralist enterprise had labored against. In the early 196Os, when the race for American superiority in space brought unprecedented funding especially to scientific enterprises, Chomsky attracted talented disciples from various fields and was enormously successful in getting both publicity and government funding. Despite the reticence or outright refusal of most senior structuralists to accept its leading ideas, transformational-generative grammar became mainstream linguistics in America around the mid-1960s and was on its way to having this status worldwide, the first unified paradigm since neogrammarianism to do so.
Extended Standard Theory (1966-78)

predicate-raising, logical form, lexical decomposition, globality; see further Sect. 8.3). Chomskys response to this challenge included significant revisions to the theory, although he continued to assert more strongly than ever the autonomy of syntax and the interpretative nature of semantics. The principal changes made in this period were a shift of emphasis away from phrase structure rules and toward word-specific features specified in the lexicon, and severe restrictions placed on transformations, which were no longer permitted to add or delete but only to move elements already present in deep structure. This led to a complexification of structural levels and the introduction of empty categories, traces, and filters* to do the work transformations formerly did. Chomsky still insisted that grammatical roles like subject and object must be derived from word order, despite the success of Charles Fillmores (b. 1929) case grammar in explaining these phenomena without the sometimes elaborate mechanisms to which Chomsky had to resort (see Case Grammar). The result was that by the mid-1970s the extended standard theory had reached a state of such complexity that its claims to account for the speed and efficiency of child language acquisition were growing ever poorer, and alternative models were proliferating annually.
8.3 Government and Binding Theory: Alternative Generative Theories

Within a short time, however, dissension erupted within the generative ranks, led by some of Chomskys most talented followers (see Generative Semantics). The central issue was Chomskys insistence upon the radical autonomy of syntax. In Chomskys view, syntactic rules represent the initial stage of language gen. eration; phonological and semantic rules are subsequent and interpretative. This radical version of the structuralist priority of form over meaning conflicted with the common intuition that meaning perhaps need not, but can, determine syntax to a degree sufficient to render the autonomy of syntax virtually nonexistent. The colleagues who broke with Chomsky at this time did so in the name of generative (as opposed to interpretative) semantics, and though this was no organized movement with a coherent research framework, it has had a lasting impact on the field (see R. A. Harris 1993). Besides reviving interest in semantics as a major subdiscipline of linguistics (whence it was all but banished during the neo-Bloomfieldian ascendancy), it gave rise to the thriving area of discourse pragmatics (see Sect. 11), which studies how topic and focus phenomena determine word order even in supposedly syntactic languages, and to George Lakoffs (b.1941) influential work on metaphor in language and thought. Many of the leading ideas of generative semantics were absorbed into later breakaway generative paradigms, and soon thereafter into Chomskys own program (examples include

Saussurean and Jakobsonian structuralism continued to be the dominant mode of linguistic analysis in Europe until the student revolts of 1968. Meanwhile, scores of new universities and linguistics positions were being created throughout Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. The combined result was that a large postWorld War II generation of linguists starting their careers found that the tradition in which they had been trained was intellectually passe. Some turned to the fashionable post-structuralist approaches suggested by the work of Michel Foucault (1926-84), Jacques Derrida (b.l930), and others. But another group of young European linguists became Chomskys new core constituency, and it was to them, in Pisa in 1979, that he presented his new, pared-down, neoclassical version of generative linguistics, called *Principles and Parameters or government and binding theory (GB), the objective of which is to formulate the parameters of core universal grammar in the most general possible way. Part of the new simplicity was gained through finally admitting a system of grammatical relations as primary (though without acknowledging that this represented any sort of concession to rival theories), and in the final abandonment of phrase-structure rules, with ever greater emphasis on lexical specification. But in general, GB shifted the focus of linguistic inquiry away from accounting for specific problems in specific languages, and toward relating problems within and among lan229

Century- Linguistics

guages. By tracing not obviously related problems to single sources, it seemed for several years to point toward a greater economy of explanation, and hence toward real progress in the understanding of human language structure. By the late 198Os, however, new categories and principles had begun to proliferate in the light of more detailed data, and GB moved toward a strongly lexicalist mode! that rejects any notion of deep or (D-) structure. Since 1991 Chomsky himself has turned his attention away from the kinds of problems GB was aimed at solving, and toward a minimalist program devoted to the investigation of features shared by a!! languages. At present no one approach can claim mainstream status, though it is probably accurate to say that this status is shared by the whole cluster of generative theories, including minimalism, GB, lexical-functional grammar, relational grammar, and numerous other approaches, including generalized phrase structure grammar (GPSG) and head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG), both of which restore phrase structure rules to the prominence they had in earlier transformational-generative grammar, while eliminating the transformational component completely. (For a fuller survey of these approaches, see Droste & Joseph 1991; see also Applicational
Grammar; Case Grammar; Cognitive 8.4 Generatire Phonology Grammar.)

models, and of underspecification of phonologica! units as a way of accounting for the behavior of maximally unmarked elements. Natural phonology led in due course to natural morphology and syntax, which in turn gave impetus to studies of iconicity between sound and meaning (another topic anticipated by Jakobson); and underspecification theory has been extended to other levels of linguistic structure. Even if phonology no longer occupies the central position it did during the structuralist period, it continues to spawn much original work that exports as many ideas as it imports to other linguistic realms.

9.

Sociolinguistics

Generative phonology has developed in parallel with (and sometimes in the shadow of) syntactic theory. Chomsky & Halles Sound Pattern of English (1968) established the basis of a phonological theory that would recapitulate the syntactic mode! in so far as possible (an unacknowledged bond with London School structuralism and Praguean phonology). Because phonology, unlike syntax, consists of a fixed number of elements, a degree of systematic completeness was achieved that syntactic studies could never match. Early generative phonology incorporated Jakobsons distinctive feature theory, as we!! as an extremely formalized version of markedness theory (which subsequently found a prominent place in GB as well). A less formalized version of markedness soon gave rise to various versions of natural phonology in which phonetic complexity interfaces with systemic considerations to determine marked and unmarked structures. However, from the mid-1970s on, the mainstream of phonological work shifted to more forma! analytical considerations, starting with the proper representation of suprasegmentals, most notably stress and the tones of tone languages (another unacknowledged bond with the London School). John Goldsmiths (b.1951) mode! of autosegmental phonology gave rise to numerous attempts at accounting for phonology through the use of tier and template 230

We have seen that each movement toward greater autonomy in linguistics brings an opposite (if unequal) reaction toward re-placing language in a more broadly human context. Thus Humboldtian psychologism came on the heels of early historical-comparative linguistics, Neogrammarianism coincided with the academic institutionalization of modern literature studies, and structuralism arose contemporaneously with Crocean aestheticism. So too, generative semantics may be seen as a corrective reaction against the excesses of transformationalism, as in fact may the contemporary rise of a large number of alternative approaches to language, three of which are surveyed in the following sections. The most significant of these is sociolinguistics. The origins of linguistic geography were treated in Sect. 3.3 above, which noted that its rise to prominence in the early part of the twentieth century created a momentum for synchronic linguistics. Although the arrival of structuralism kept linguistic geography from ever having mainstream status, it continued to be an active and vibrant research area in Europe and, starting in the 193Os, in America, under the leadership of Austrian-born Hans Kurath (!8911992). The shallower time depth of English in America meant that geographic isog!osses were often less clearly defined and more susceptible to socially-based considerations. Raven McDavid (191 l-84) took up these social factors starting in the mid-!940s, around the same time that a group of scholars centered at Columbia University, led by Andre Martinet (b. 1908) and his student Urie! Weinreich (1926-67), began to emphasize the importance of class dialects. At least one prominent sociologist, Paul Hanly Furfey (18961992), was training students in linguistic research as we!!, and by the early 1950s a number of individuals were actively engaged in collecting language data along social-class lines. The movement did not attract wide attention however until the early 1960s and the early studies of William Labov (b.!927), which coincided with increased US government interest in

Trends in Twentieth-century Linguistics: An Ocercie\r funding social research and the study of black English at the height of the civil rights movement. Lab&s studies established themselves at once at the forefront of sociolinguistics, to the point that earlier work was largely forgotten. The reasons are by now familiar: increased scientificness, in particular mathematicality, attained through a heavy reliance on statistical information and calculation. The use of variable rules effectively brought into the domain of langue much that otherwise would have been relegated to parole, providing a further systematization and reclaiming of territory from voluntary language production. Moreover, Labovs demonstrations of how social variation can be the synchronic reflex of diachronic change has led to a significant merger between sociolinguistics and historical linguistics in the United States and the United Kingdom. Sociolinguistics never achieved mainstream status in the United States, and while very much alive there, it has fared better still in the United Kingdom, a country that is generally more class-conscious and has a long tradition of dialect studies. The London School and systemic linguistics have always emphasized the dual nature of language as social semiotic-and unlike most other structural approaches, they have done more than focus on one aspect while paying lip service to the other. 10. Universal-Typological Linguistics Beginning in the late 1950s Joseph H. Greenberg (b. 1915), a linguist in the anthropological tradition, began rethinking long-neglected questions of language universals and typology, the latter in connection with his important work on classifying African languages. That his interest in universals arose simultaneously with Chomskys in universal grammar is, despite their considerable differences, evidence of the power of Jakobsonian structuralism on younger American linguists of the period (Greenberg admits this influence more readily than Chomsky does). While Chomsky claimed that study of any one language in its deep structure would by definition be a study of universals, Greenberg set about looking for universals in an empirical way, by examining the grammars of a sample of languages from numerous language families. He found that while absolute universals, such as having the vowel /a/, were trivial to the deeper understanding and functioning of language systems, a large number of implicational universals could be discerned that related the functioning of seemingly disparate linguistic elements to one another in previously unsuspected ways. For example, he found that while languages are almost equally divided between those which place objects before and after verbs, and between those which place objects before and after adpositions (a cover term for prepositions and postpositions), the two features correlate such that postpositional languages tend overwhelmingly to have the order object-verb and prepositional languages to have verb-object. That is, objects tend to come either before or after both verbs and adpositions in a given language, suggesting that there exists a unified process of government that supersedes that of either of these categories. Although Greenbergs work was directly in line with Chomskys both in the overall program of a search for the universal and in the more specific result of collapsing traditional distinctions into megacategories like government, Chomsky and other generative linguists have from the beginning refused to admit a meaningful connection between the two programs, arguing that Greenberg dealt with mere surface structure phenomena and drew meaningless conclusions from statistical tendencies. For the neoBloomfieldians-whose main concern had been to avoid creating pseudo-universals by imposing the categories and structures of their native language on the very different languages they were investigating-and for European structuralists generally, the empirical nature of Greenbergs work and that of others in the same vein, including Bernard Comrie (b. 1947) and John Hawkins (b. 1947), made it much more palatable than Chomskys, which appeared to admit of no disproof. Significant strides toward reconciling the Greenbergian and Chomskyan visions of language universals have finally been made in the last 15 years. 11. Discourse Analysis The final trend to be considered here is remarkable for tying together several disparate traditions in the goal of expanding language analysis beyond the level of the individual utterance. Traditionally this was the goal of rhetoric, and later of stylistics as practiced for example by Saussures associate Charles Bally. For linguistics proper, however, the amount of (seemingly willful) variation possible beyond the level of the clause seemed to establish this as a firm upper limit to the extent of langue. This may be why the impulse to go further came from sociology, particularly from the conversational analysis initiated by Harvey Sacks (1935-75) in the 196Os, within the more general paradigm of ethnomethodology founded by Harold Garfinkel (b. 1929). This work did not find common ground with Labovian sociolinguistics, but did establish bonds with the ethnology of speaking* approach founded by Dell H. Hymes (b. 1927), who had been trained in the anthropological tradition. What is more, both conversational analysis and the ethnography of communication found common ground with Halliday and the London School, as well as with Prague School analysis of sentence perspective (see also Prague School Syntax and Semantics). John J. Gumperz (b. 1922) is generally credited with having drawn these

231

2Ofh Century Linguistics various trends together in the later 1960s into the field known as discourse analysis (see Murray 1994). Discourse analysis soon received valuable input from an unlikely source: generative semantics. In making their case against the hegemony of syntax the generative semanticists gave particular attention to pragmatics, the study of topic and focus phenomena (a Praguean heritage), and pragmatics was readily incorporated into the more general scope of discourse analysis, which henceforth could claim probably the richest heritage (sociological-anthropological-Genevan/American/Praguean/London - structuralist generativist) of any current trend (see also Generatice Semantics). In the early 1990s Deborah Tannens (b. 1945) analyses of mens and womens conversational patterns achieved unprecedented popular success in America-and perhaps not coincidentally, discourse analysis appears to be emerging as a contender for mainstream status. It is drawing increasing interest from cognitive scientists (see Sect. 12) as well as from adjacent humanistic fields, including literary criticism. In this convergence of research traditions we have in a sense the final culmination of the scientificization of language study. Over the past 200 years the dividing line between the systematic and the willful has shifted progressively from phonology to morphology to part of syntax to a!! of syntax and now finally to a!! of discourse. The result of this seems to be, in other words, that no aspect of language need be considered unsystematic; no aspect cannot ultimately be accounted for in a scientific, even algebraic way. Through all the vagaries of neogrammarianism, structuralism, and generativism, behaviorism and universalism, rationalism and empiricism, this path of development has continued unbroken.
12. Conclusion

creating the most efficient mode! of artificial inte!ligence is the best possible way of discovering how the mind operates. This notion has however come into conflict with another view of the mind and its operation, called connectionism, which is skeptical about the claims of cognitive science and prefers to construct explanations through a combination of evidence acquired through direct study of neural networks and processes of perception and mental organization as well as of language structure. The challenge for linguistics as the twentieth century ends is to reassert the autonomous status of language and account for its interaction with other, equally autonomous mental faculties. It has become a commonplace to associate the rise of formalism and structuralism in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century thought with the rise of Marxism in both the intellectual and the political spheres. If the connection is indeed real, then we should not be surprised if the demise of Marxism portends radical change in Western thought, including linguistics. We should not even be surprised if the 200-year course of scientificization described at the beginning of this article were, finally, reversed. A revival of interest in problematizing the autonomy of linguistics, nascent at the time of this writing, may prove to be the first tentative step in this direction.

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