27. Beginnings of modern linguistics. Pre-20th century linguistics. Ferdinand de Saussure as the father of modern linguistics.

Linguistics as an independent field of study has developed since the 1920s and 1930s. The study of language in the Western world goes back to Greek and Roman antiquity. Many of linguistics concepts we use today (e.g., gender, number, case, person) derive from Greek and medieval philosophy. Historical and comparative linguistics (comparative philology) attempted to describe and explain the historical changes which languages undergo and build up scientifically attested knowledge of the evolution of languages and dialects and the relations between them. The scholars compared language forms of ancient and modern languages, described the changes that occurs and formulated explanations or law to account for these changes. Willian Jones (1746 - 1794), a prominent British scholar, was the first to point out a scientific hypothesis that Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Gothic, and some languages of India and Europe had sprung from the same source, which no longer existed. Comparative philology scholars who defined the fundamental conception and created the historical comparative method of language study: Rasmus K.Rask, Franz Bopp, August Schleicher, Jakob Grimm,Karl Verner, Karl Brugmann. The Life and Growth of Language: an Outline of Linguistic Science (1875) by William Dwight Whitney had great influence on language study. Ferdinand de Saussure (1857 - 1913) He died without having written any book on general linguistics. Two of his former students Ch. Bally and A. Sechehaye published in 1916 Course in General Linguistics on the basis of notes taken by students during the three courses. This book defines the nature of language and sets out principles of scientific study of language. He was the founder of structural linguistics (descriptive, synchronic), which deals with the study, classification, and arrangement of the features of a language as a communicative system at a given time. - language is the system made up of collection of units, all related to each other, on different levels: sounds, morphemes, words, sentences; - a sign signifier physical sound that you make when you pronounce the word; and signified a mental concept or representation of physical object in the real world; - the primer function of language is to express and convey meaning; - the linguistic sign is bilateral, it has both form and meaning (reflects the element(object, event, situation) of the outside world and is linked with the signified). Meaning is a simplified concept; - language has two aspects: langue (language), the abstract language system shared by the members of a community; and parole (speech), actual uses of language; - language can be studied in both the historical (diachronic) approach and the synchronic approach. 28. Schools of linguistics Schools of linguistics are understood as groups of linguists sharing some basic common assumptions about problems and methods and methodology while often disagreeing on particular matters.

The most influential schools in the 20th century were: The Prague School Geneva School (Ferdinand de Saussure the founder. Charles Bally founding-father of linguistic theories of style and theories of phraseology. (French stylistics, General Linguistics and Issues of French).) Copenhagen School (Was founded in 1913 by Louis Hjelmslev, Prologomena to a Theory of Language. New theory of language Glossematics (the language manifests two distinctions: content vs. expression and form vs. substance. 4 strata: content/substance, content/form, expression/substance, expression/form).) American descriptive School Generative syntactical School London (British) School French School (French structural linguists Antoine Meillet, Joseph Vandries, Lucien Tesniere, Emile Benveniste, Andre Martinet who laid the foundations for Sociolinguistics. They stressed the social character of language and social causes of linguistics changes. Language norm and progress in language. ) The structuralist schools differ considerably in their principles and techniques, which is reflected in special designations for them: functional linguistics (London and Prague Schools), relational (glossematics) (Copenhagen School), and descriptivism (American School). 29. The Prague School Vilem Mathesius the instigator of the Circle and the President. Scholars: Bohuslav Havranek, Vladimir Scalicka, Bohumil Trnka, Josef Vachec, Nikolay Trubetskoy and Roman Jakobson. Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists in Prague (1929), wich outlined the direction of the work of the Circles members. Basis: approach to the study of language as a synchronic system; functionality of elements of language; importance of social function of language. They saw language in terms of function and focused on the function of linguistic units within the language system. Nikolay Trubetzkoy laid the cornerstone of phonology. Principles of Phonology (1939) established phonology as a discipline separate from phonetics. He defined phoneme as the smallest distinctive unit within the structure of given language. The research of the role of phoneme within the morphological system led into the establishment of a new branch of linguistics morphonology, or morphonemics. Roman Jakobson attempted at the application of the phonological theory of privative oppositions to the morphological level. He finally drew a conclusion that there is a significant difference between phonological and morphological oppositions. Zur Structur der russischen Verbums. Prague School pioneered most studies in Functional syntax, investigating the interaction between synax and communicative function. Theory of Functional sentence perspective (ESP) was elaborated by Vilem Metheius. It is intended to examine communicative properties of sentence. It entails dividing a sentence into two sections: 1 contains the starting point of the communication the theme (T), 2 the new information the rheme (R).