HISTORY AND LINGUISTICS

LINGUISTICS AND ITS HISTORY

                         Linguistics   is   the   study   of   language   (Crane,   1981:4).                               It   is concerned   both  in  spoken  and  written   language.                            Crystal (1974: 27) considers that “Linguistics is the scientific way of studying language”.  These definitions are completed  by Finegan and Besnier,  (1989:8). They  say that linguistics  is the scientific  inquiry into human language--into its structures and uses and into relationship between  them.  In  short,  linguistics  is used  empirical  and  scientific approached.   Linguistics   is  best  regarded  as  an  enterprise  whose principal                      objective      is      to      provide      an      increasingly      adequate understanding of particular facets of languages, thereby gradually building our understanding of the nature of language itself.
The definitions of linguistics above raises two further questions: what is the meaning of ‘scientific’? and what is the meaning of ‘language’? Scientific means we attempt to study language in much the same way as                 a                 scientist      studies                        physics                 or             chemistry,           that is SYSTEMATICALLY,    and   possible   without   prejudice.   Then,   a language is a set of signals by which we communicate--to  represent thoughts and ideas by means of sounds (or letters). 

Nasr (1975) states that linguistics is science. In saying that linguistics is a science, he says:
1.  that  deals  with  particular  body  of  material;  spoken  and  written language
2.  that  it  proceeds  by  operations   that  can  be  made  known  and described; and
3.  that the body of facts it discovers can be justified by referring them
to principles  and to a theory  that can be stated.  The purpose  of linguistics   is  to  examine   the   material   and   to  make   general statements about its various elements that relate to regular rules. In its operations  and  statements  it is guided  by three  principles  of science:
(i)   that material should be complete
(ii)  that the material should show agreement between its different parts; and
(iii) that the statements about the material should be brief; a shorter
statement is to be preferred to a longer one
When we say that a linguist  aims to be scientific,  we mean that he attempts to study language in much the same way as a scientist studies physics  or  chemistry,  that  is systematically,  and  as  far  as possible without prejudice.
Linguistics        includes       both       language       structure       (grammatical competence)       and                           language       use       (underlying communicative competence). In studying a language, according to Traugott (1980:12-
14), linguists study the ways in which the sound-meaning  correlation of languages are structured and how they function. There are several ways to do this. For example, a linguist analyzes the sound meaning correlation.  Some  linguists  undertake  to construct  grammars  on the basis of what is found in specific utterances  sample,  for example,  a body of elicited texts provided by informants. Many linguists are interested  not only in describing  languages  but also  in constructing theories,                      that  is  well-organized   hypotheses  about  how  language works.
Linguistics   can   be   divided   into   two   broad   branches,   (i)   pure linguistics)  and (ii) applied linguistics.  Pure linguistics is component of the grammar of the language, namely:


(a)  phonetics:  the study  of speech  sound;  how they are articulated (articulatory phonetics); their physical properties (acoustic phonetics); and how they are perceived (auditory/perceptual phonetics)
(b)  phonology:  the  study  of  sound  system  of  language;  how  the
particular sound used in each language form an integrated system for encoding  information  and how such system  differ from one language to another
(c)  morphology: the study of word formation; the study of the way in which words are construed out of smaller meaningful unit.
(d)  syntax: the study of phrase and sentence  structure;  the study of the way in which sentences are construed; how the sentences are related to each other.
(e)  semantics:  the study of meaning;  how words and sentences  are related  to the (real  or imaginary)  objects  they  refer  to and  the situation they describe
(f)   pragmatics:   the   study   of   language   use;   how   the   meaning
conveyed by a word or sentence depends on aspects of the context in  which  it  is  used  (such  as  time,  place,  social  relationship between speaker and hearer, and speaker’s assumption about the hearer’s beliefs)
(g) discourse analysis: the study of discourse, such as structure information, adjacency pairs, turn-taking, etc
Today, linguistics (the empirical and scientific study of language) has taken on additional importance in an age where communication  is as important   to  social,   intellectual,   political,   economics,   and  moral concerns as before. In other words, the result and application of linguistics can be applied to such other areas. This is called as applied linguistics, such as:
anthropological    linguistics:    the   study   of   the   interrelationship between  language  and  culture  (particularly  in  the  context  of  non- Western cultures and societies)
historical  linguistics:  the  study  of  how  languages  change  through time, the relationships of languages to each other.
(a)   neurolinguistics: the study of the brain and how it functions in the production, perception and acquisition of language.
(b)   psycholinguistics:  the study of the interrelationship  of language and cognitive structure; the acquisition of language


(c)   sociolinguistics: the study of the interrelationship of language and social structure, linguistic variation and attitudes toward language
History of LinguisticsAs Crane  (1998)  suggests  that linguistics  is the study  of language, linguist   is              more                   concerned    with                 spoken                  language      and     its anthropological,   psychological   and  sociological   ramification.   This study of spoken language goes back thousands of years. During some periods, linguists have been most interested in the changes in language through history; during other periods, they have concentrated  on the study of languages at just one time. Some linguists have concentrated on describing how language is used; others, on how it should be used. Language has been seen by some linguists as a mirror of the mind and a  key  to  the  understanding  of  thought;  to  other  linguist,  mind  is irrelevant to the study of language. At one tome or another, both empirical  studies  and  philosophical  analysis  have  dominated linguistics; the earliest linguistic inquires were almost purely philosophical.  Among  the  questions  that  early  linguists  asked  were What is the origin  of speech?  What is the relationship  between  the human intellect and the structure of language? How are words related to ideas?  But both the ancient  Indians  and the ancient  Greeks  also studied how words are produced, formed, and changed.
The Ancient GrammariansThe  earliest  grammar  of  any  language,  as  far  as  we  know,  was Parnini’s grammar of Sanskrit, the classical language of India. Written in about the fourth or fifth century B.C., Parnini’s remarkable  work represents a highly developed approach to linguistics.
The ancient Indian linguists identified the chief parts of the vocal tract involved   in   producing   sounds,   and   they   associated   them   with particular  sound  segments  like  p  and  m.  They  also  studied  vowel length, tone, syllables, and other aspects of phonetics; and they investigated  the rules that govern  the proper  combinations  of sound segments and words in sentences.
Long ago, the Indian linguists recognized the verb as central to a sentence. They saw that all other words in a sentence bear a particular relation to the verb. But they also recognized that not all sentences are grammatical.  For example,  a sentence  like The student  reads writes


buys a novel, which disobeys the rule that a sentence cannot contain three consecutive  verbs, cannot be grammatical.  Nor can a sentence like The rain ate the sun, which involves contradictions  in meanings of the words, be considered grammatical.
In general, the linguistic accomplishments of the ancient Indian grammarians   were  superior  to  those  of  their  contemporaries,   the Greek. But like most of the western sciences and humanities, the study of  language  in  the  Western  world  began  with  the  ancient  Greeks. Among the very early studies of language, Plato’s Cratylus is perhaps the best known—largely  because of its naïve approach in seeking the origin of words. If Plato were  living today, he might seek the source of the word like catastrophe by noting that it seems consist of three parts; which sound like the word cat, astro, and fee. He might point out the cat is characterized  by its ability to strike quickly; that astro refers to something extraordinary, colossal, and out of this world; and that fee refers to something  costly, or something that is paid. Puttng these meaning together, Plato might then explain that the word catastrophe  means  something   that is “quick,  colossal,  and costly.” The problem  with this simple  and superficially  plausible  method  is that   almost   anything   can   be   made   to   mean   anything   as   just demonstrated.  Despite  Plato’s  misguided  approach  to  the  origin  of words, he offered valuable insights into language, including a differentiation  between  vowels  and  consonants,  an  appreciation  of word accent, and a division of the sentence into nominal and verbal parts.
The study of language was more fruitful under Plato’s successors, Aristotle and Dionysius Thrax. Aristotle classified the parts of speech in the third century B.C., and he is often regarded as the founder of classical European grammar. But the oldest known grammar of Greek was written by Dionysius Thrax, who lived near the end of the second century B.C. Thrax’s grammar, the Techne grammatike, made inroads into  the  study  of how  sounds  are  produced;  but  it was  even  more useful in its treatment of word classes and functions.
Thrax identified eight basic word classes: nouns, verbs, pronouns, articles, participles, prepositions, conjunctions and adverb. He further noted important properties of classes of words—such as the properties of gender, number, and case for nouns and those of conjugation, tense, voice, mood,  and person for verbs. To Thrax, the principal  units of grammatical   description   were   the   word   and   the   sentence.   He


considered  the  sentence  to  be  a  group  of  words  that  expresses  a complete   thought—a   definition   that   remained   popular   until   the twentieth century.
Another major force in ancient Greek linguistics was the Stoic school of grammar, which enjoyed its greatest success in the second century B.C.  The Stoics’  most  valuable  contribution  was their  treatment  of case as a grammatical  category of nouns expressed by word endings, and they distinguish between proper and common nouns.
The approach  of the ancient  Greeks to grammar  was continued  and modified  by  the  Romans.  Writing  in  the  first  century  B.C.,  Varro noted that the word endings discussed by the Stoics and Thrax could be further  subdivided  according  to type.  Some  endings  are used to derive   new   words;   others   are   inflectional,   indicating   a   word’s relationship to other words in a sentence. To use a modern example, a word like sunny contains the derivational ending –y, meaning roughly “of or pertaining to.” Thus, the word sunny is derived from the noun sun.  The  word  sun  can  also  take  inflectional   ending  –s,  which indicates possession.  Varro realized that derivational  endings like –y cannot be attached to all nouns (for example, they cannot be attached to Varro) but that inflectional  endings like –s are more general and can be applied regularly to all nouns to indicate possession (Varro’s). Latin grammar achieved its most precise formulation in the works of Priscian and Donatus, who wrote grammars of Latin at approximately the   time   of   the   Roman   Empire’s   decline.   For   centuries   these descriptive  grammars  served  as the basis for learning  Latin and for learning about language in general.
The   Middle   Ages,   the   Renaissance,   and   the   Age   ofEnlightenmentAfter the Fall of Rome and through the Dark Ages, Latin continued to be a respected language,  both in scholarly and religious circles. The grammars  of Priscian  and  Donatus  remained  in vogue  for  teaching purposes,  thus ensuring  a continuation  of linguistic  awareness.  The first  major  new  development  in  linguistics,  however,  did  not  take place until the thirteenth century, when speculative, or modistic grammar rose to popularity.


Speculative  grammar  resulted  from the collision  of traditional  Latin descriptive   grammar   and   scholastic   philosophy,   represented   by Catholic philosophers like St. Thomas Aquinas. It sought a theoretical basis for Latin grammar by attempting to specify the ways, or modes, by which we perceive and signify things. Thus, the speculative grammarians   sought  to  explain  the  differences   between  parts  of speech such as nouns and verbs by looking for differences in the ways the  mind  perceives  the  thing  referred  to  by  nouns  and  verbs.  For example, a chair differs from the act of laughing in that it possesses existence or substance. This property of chairs and similar objects is perceived by the mind, which expresses objects of this class by means of the part of speech we call noun. The speculative grammarians described other modes for perceiving and signifying verbs, pronouns, particles  and  so  on.  Like  the  ancient  Indians,  they  recognized  that words may be combined in sentences only according to certain relationships between parts of speech and meaning.Although  the  speculative  grammarians  concentrated  on  Latin,  their work led to the assumption that language has a universal basis, that all languages  are essentially  the same in nature and differ only in their surface characteristics. This was the view held by Roger Bacon (1214-
1294), one of the first speculative  grammarians,  who studied Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew, as well as Latin.
With  the  coming  of the  Renaissance  and  Columbus’s  discovery  of new world, several linguistic developments occurred, and views of language became more diverse. A strong interest in literature and the discovery                   of                    printing         combined   to      draw           attention                to                       the inconsistencies  between spelling and pronunciation,  thus leading to a fuller understanding of their relationship. Furthermore, as the chief of descendant language of Latin—French, Italian, and Spanish—were elevated in status, linguists became more aware of changes that had taken place since the days when Latin was spoken regularly. Linguists thus  were  provided  with  written  proof  of  what  they  had  always suspected:  languages  change.  Finally,  explorers  and missionaries  in the Orient and the Americas discovered new languages for which grammars   eventually   were   written.   Thus,   the   fifteenth   and   the sixteenth centuries were marked by an increased awareness of the differences among languages.


Then,   in   the   seventeenth   century,   the   idea   that   beneath   these differences  all languages  are essentially  the same in nature surfaced again. The Port Royal grammarians, under the influence of Descartes, stressed the universality of thought, which they said was reflected in language.  They also recognized  that creativity  is inherent  in human language, and they viewed the phrase as corresponding  to a complex idea.  In  many  ways,  their  ideas  are  similar  to  Noam  Chomsky’s modern theory of transformational-generative grammar.
While the French grammarians following Descartes were investigating universal grammar, the English grammarians were studying phonetics, or the physical sound system of language. Much of what the English discovered  about the articulation  of sounds had already been known by the ancient Indians, but one great triumph of the English was their elucidation  of  the  relationship  between  pronunciation  and  spelling. The English interest in phonetics,  along with the discovery of many new languages,  led to the first attempts to create universal phonetic alphabets.  These  are  sets  of  symbols  used  to  represent  the  most common sounds in known languages. The work done by the English in universal phonetics foreshadowed some of the most important advances in linguistics.
The Nineteenth Century: Linguistics Becomes a ScienceIn the nineteenth century, new developments in linguistics were stimulated by close attention to concrete data and exciting philological studies. Thus, a new approach emerged—historical-comparative linguistics. The earliest significant work in comparing languages was done by William Jones (1747-1794), an Englishman who noted certain similarities among Greek, Latin, Gothic, and Sanskrit. Although Jones assumed  that  these  languages  had  a  common  origin,  he  somehow missed the importance of his discovery—the seeds of the comparative method,  which  allows  one to establish  the relatedness  of languages within a family and to reconstruct the probable forms of the original parent language. Through the work of Franz Bopp, Rasmus Rask, the Grimm    brothers and                        other                 nineteenth    century         scholars,                the comparative  method  was recognized  as a scientific  procedure.  This procedure      established   the              relatedness             of                        the          Indo-European Languages,  a  family  that  includes  Greek,  Latin,  Gothic,  Sanskrit, English,  Russian,  and  others.  Soon  linguists  grouped  Oriental  and other languages into similar families.



In  conclusion,  nineteenth-century  linguists  were  challenged  by  the growth  of the natural  sciences,  and they were wise  enough  to turn their attention  to a scientific  method  of dealing with language  data. Their efforts also included many first attempts to expand the horizons of linguistics,  such as the beginnings  of acoustic  phonetics  and the study of dialects and bilingualism.
Traditional   and  Structural   Linguistics   in  the  TwentiethCenturyThe study of linguistics  has often been divided  into synchronic  and diachronic  linguistics.  Synchronic  linguistics  is concerned  with the analysis of a language at a particular time; for example, English at the time   of  American   Revolution.   It  is  also   known   as  descriptive linguistics. Diachronic linguistics, or historical linguistics, deals with different  states  of language  through  time,  such  as the changes  that took place between Old English and Middle English. In the twentieth century, historical comparative studies, which preoccupied nineteenth- century linguists, have assumed a secondary role to synchronic linguistics.
From the mid-eighteenth  century until twentieth  century, synchronic linguistics   was   essential   normative   or   prescriptive;   that   is,   it attempted to prescribe the nor of “proper” language usage. Because it did little but expand on the classifications of ancient Greek and Latin grammarians, it is sometimes referred to as traditional linguistics.
The structuralist theory of language was the first major new approach to descriptive  linguistic  in the twentieth  century.  Introduced  by the Swiss  linguist  Ferdinand  de  Saussure  and  pioneered  in  the  United States by Leonard Bloomfiled, structuralist flourished for about thirty years, until the early 1960s.  In its emphasis  on the investigation  of concrete linguistic data, structuralism logically followed the late nineteenth-century   neo-grammarian   school.  But,  structuralism   was geared toward descriptive linguistics.
One criticism of structural linguistics is that it made no attempt to deal with how humans understand and interpret the meanings of sentences; that is, Bloomfield’s  theory of structuralism  excluded the mind from linguistic consideration.  For this reason, structuralism  is often linked


with the psychological theory of behaviorism, which similarly restricts itself to that which is concrete and observable.
Transformational-Generative GrammarTransformational-Generative     grammar      emphasizes     that     human language is creative—that human are able to produce and interpret an infinitely large number of sentences that they have never before heard. It attempts to describe what a person knows about his or her language, but it also claims that all languages are grounded in universal facts and principles.  By postulating  deep structure,  which are representations that  contain  the  essential  meanings  of  sentences  and  that  underlie actual utterances, transformational-generative grammar is in direct opposition to structuralism
Linguistic       theory     has      undergone      considerable      revision       and modification  in the past fifteen years, particularly  in its approach  to meaning. Linguistics has also drawn on other sciences to form a large number of linguistic subfields, most notably psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics.