57
THEORIES OF THE SENTENCE IN THE PSYCHOLOGISTIC
EPOCH (AND SHORTLY AFTER)
Giorgio Graffi
Universita degli studi di Verona
RÉSUMÉ : Le débat sur la notion de phrase
qui se déroula dans la deuxième moitié
du 19e s. est strictement lié aux critiques
envers ce qui peut être appelé le « modèle
du jugement » de la Grammaire Générale.
Pourtant, les solutions proposées ont été
assez diverses l’une de l’autre . La première
critique détaillée du modèle du jugement est
formulée par F. Miklosich, qui affirme que la
phrase n’est pas nécessairement formée d’un
sujet et d’un prédicat, et qui pense trouver un
soutien pour son analyse dans la conception
du jugement chez Brentano. Steinthal, même
s’il soutient que la linguistique ne doit pas
être fondée sur la logique, mais au contraire
sur la psychologie, n’accepte pas l’analyse de
Miklosich et considère chaque phrase comme
composée d’un sujet et d’un prédicat. Paul et
Wundt, quoique dans un cadre psychologique
bien différent, partagent au fond l’opinion
de Steinthal. D’autres linguistes (comme
Wegener, mais aussi bien des néogrammairiens
comme Delbrück et Meyer-Lübke) se
concentrent sur le rôle de la phrase comme
« unité de communication ». D’autres savants
(par exemple, Bühler) remarquent le caractère
unilatéral de tous ces conceptions de la phrase.
Le livre de Ries (1931) est peut-être la dernière
tentative pour concilier les différents points de
vue, car il cherche à rendre compte à la fois
des aspects psychologiques, communicatifs
et grammaticaux de la phrase. Toutefois, il
n’eut pas de succès (il fut sévèrement critiqué
par Bloomfield et Meillet, entre d’autres) ; au
contraire, la conception de Jespersen, élaborée
dans les mêmes années que celle de Ries, et
qui distingue nettement la notion de phrase
de celle de prédication, conserve encore une
influence aujourd’hui.
MOTS-CLÉS : Psychologisme ; Modèle du
jugement ; Phrase ; Prédication ; 19e siècle
; 20e siècle ; Miklosich, Franz ; Steinthal,
Heymann ; Ries, John ; Brentano, Franz ;
Jespersen, Otto.
Histoire Épistémologie Langage 32/II (2010) p. 57-73 © SHESL
ABSTRACT : The debate about the notion of
sentence which developed during the second
half of 19th century is strictly connected
with the criticisms of what can be called the
“judgment model” of the General Grammar
tradition. However, the proposed solutions
were largely different from each other. The
first detailed attack against the judgment
model came from F. Miklosich, who denied
the necessity for the sentence to be formed by
a subject and a predicate and believed that he
found support in Brentano’s views on the nature
of the judgment. Steinthal, while maintaining
that linguistics must be not based on logic,
but on psychology, rejected Miklosich’s
analysis and analyzed every sentence into
a subject and a predicate. Paul and Wundt
(although within very different psychological
frameworks) essentially followed Steinthal’s
path. Other linguists (e.g., Wegener, but also
Neogrammarians such as Delbrück or Meyer-
Lübke) concentrated on the communicative
function of the sentence. Still other scholars
(e.g., Bühler) observed the “one-sidedness”
of all such approaches to sentence analysis.
Ries’ (1931) book is possibly the last attempt
at reconciling the different points of view,
and aims at accounting for the psychological,
communicative and grammatical aspects of the
sentence. However, it was not very successful
(it was sharply criticized by Bloomfield and
Meillet, among others); in contrast, Jespersen’s
approach, worked out in the same years as
Ries’, and which neatly separates the notion
of sentence from that of predication, is still
influential today.
KEYWORDS : Psychologism ; Judgment model
; Predication ; 19th century ; 20th century ;
Miklosich, Franz ; Steinthal, Heymann ; Ries,
John ; Brentano, Franz ; Jespersen, Otto.
58 GIORGIO GRAFFI

1. ‘PSYCHOLOGISM’ AND ‘SENTENCE’: SOME TERMINOLOGICAL AND

CONCEPTUAL POINTS

1.1. ‘Psychologistic’ linguistics

‘Psychologism’ and ‘anti-psychologism’ are attitudes that characterize the debate
within logic and philosophy between the end of the 19th century and the beginning
of the 20th. The label ‘psychologism’ was apparently coined by Husserl, according
to Brentano (1925 [1911], p. 179),1 to point out a (negative) feature of the latter’s
doctrine. Brentano (loc. cit.) replied that, if ‘psychologistic’ was intended to
indicate a relativistic approach to knowledge, his own theories could not be so
dubbed; but he boldly vindicated psychologism as the assumption that psychology
has a role in the theory of knowledge and in logic (cf. ibid., p. 181-2). I will not
enter here into the debate between Brentano and Husserl, but I only stress the fact
that the word ‘psychologism’ originally applied only to the views of Brentano
and his school. In recent decades, however, this same term has been employed
by several historiographers of linguistics, including myself (cf., e.g., Graffi 2001;
Formigari 2001), to all linguistic frameworks which state that language is essentially
a psychological phenomenon and that linguistic categories should therefore be
based on psychological ones. In particular, the majority of linguists of the period
between, approximately, 1850 and 1930, are dubbed “psychologistic”, no matter
which psychological theory they assumed as their frame of reference. As is known,
during such period psychology was split into several schools: the main opposition
was possibly that between “psychology of content” and “psychology of act”, as
Boring (1957, p. 361) labels Wundt’s and Brentano’s psychological frameworks,
respectively. In that same period, moreover, Herbartian psychology still enjoyed
considerable prestige among philosophers and linguists. As a consequence,
scholars such as Steinthal or Paul, who adopted Herbart’s psychological framework,
or Wundt, who directly intervened in the linguistic debate (see especially Wundt
1912), or Marty, a former student of Brentano, are all gathered under the label
of “psychologistic linguists”. In the present paper, I will continue to follow this
terminological usage: but it is, however, important to make explicit its (partial)
difference with Husserl’s original meaning of the word ‘psychologism’. Actually, it
seems to me that, as far as their relationships with linguistic theories are concerned,
Herbartian and Wundtian psychologies, despite their fundamental differences, also
show a certain similarity. This similarity is due to the key role that the notion
of ‘representation’ plays in both of them, as will be clear in what follows (see
especially 2.3.). I will therefore refer to them as two kinds of ‘representational
psychology’. Other “psychologistic” theories of language, especially those
originating, more or less directly, from Brentano’s psychology, show a different

1 The editorial history of this work is rather complicated. In 1874 one volume appeared,
announced as “first volume”, which was never followed by any other. In 1911, Brentano issued
again the chapters 5 to 9 of book II of the 1874 volume with the title Von der Classification
der psychischen Phänomene, adding some new footnotes and an appendix consisting
of twelve essays. The 1874 volume (without chapters 5 to 9 of book II) and the 1911 one
were reprinted in 1924 and in 1925 respectively, with an introduction and a commentary by
O. Kraus. Quotations introduced here are taken from this last edition.
 THEORIES OF THE SENTENCE IN THE PSYCHOLOGISTIC EPOCH 59

approach. One would be inclined to say that theories related to the framework for
which the label ‘psychologism’ was first invented (namely, Brentano’s) ended up
in adopting models of sentence analysis which show considerable similarities with
those proposed by linguists who did not adopt any explicit “psychologistic” view
of language (see below: 3.1.-2.). It will be also seen that the 1930s mark the end
of any psychologistic approach to sentence analysis, and to linguistics in general.
This will be the leading thread of the present paper. Before entering the discussion,
however, a few words are necessary about the notion of sentence and its history.
1.2. Two aspects of the sentence and the ‘judgment model’
As is well known, there is no agreement about the definition of the sentence: Ries
(1931) listed more than 150 definitions, to which Seidel (1935) added a further
80. Today, the problem of finding a satisfactory definition of this notion no longer
seems to raise the interest of linguists: and this is possibly an outcome of the
debate which took place in the psychologistic era and that we are going to sketch.
To better understand the roots of this debate, it is useful to refer to its antecedents,
immediate as well as remote ones.
The definition of the sentence which most largely influenced the Western
grammatical tradition is probably that given by Priscian (who in his turn had
borrowed it from Dionysius Thrax) in book II of his Institutiones grammaticae,
which reads as follows: “oratio est ordinatio dictionum congrua, sententiam
perfectam demonstrans [a sentence is a consistent combination of words, expressing
a complete thought]”. As remarked in Graffi (2001, p. 113), this definition catches
two aspects of the sentence, which could be respectively called the ‘analytical’
and the ‘holistic’ one. The former specifies the form which a sentence must have,
namely it has to be a “consistent combination of words”; the holistic aspect consists
in the fact that the sentence expresses a complete sense, a “complete thought”. For
Priscian, apparently, both conditions are necessary to have a sentence; no further
indication is given, however, about what a “consistent combination of words” should
be. My reconstruction of the debate on the notion of sentence will concentrate on
the way in which both the analytical and the holistic aspects of the notion were
dealt with during the psychologistic era of linguistics. In order to better understand
this debate it is necessary, however, to start from the model of the sentence which
was dominant immediately before the psychologistic era.
The model in question was that presented in Port-Royal’s Grammaire générale
et raisonnée, where we find a definition which accounts both for the analytical as
well as for the holistic aspect of the sentence (the Port-Royal grammarians use the
word proposition; phrase occurs very rarely, if it does at all, throughout the text).
The first aspect is accounted for by analyzing the sentence into subject, copula and
predicate; the second by equating the sentence with the judgment (“le jugement
que nous faisons des choses […] s’appelle proposition”; Arnauld & Lancelot 1676,
p. 28-29). The holistic aspect is derived from the analytical one: a proposition
realizes itself as a judgment since it consists of by a subject (the element about
which something is said), a predicate (what is said about the subject), and the
copula, which binds them with each other. This is the reason why I called the
Port-Royal model of sentence analysis the ‘judgment model’ (see e.g. Graffi 2001,
p. 111-2).
60 GIORGIO GRAFFI

This equation between sentence (proposition) and judgment was subsequently

so pervasive that we can find it in the work of scholars as different from the
epistemological point of view as the rationalist Beauzée and the sensationalist
Condillac. The adoption of this model, on the other hand, was not always devoid of
any modification. For example, Karl Ferdinand Becker, one of the last representatives
of the General Grammar tradition, in Germany and in the whole of Europe, pleaded
for an analysis into Subject and Predicate alone, without introducing the copula.
Nevertheless, the essence of the Port-Royal definition, namely the identification of
a syntactic notion (be it called ‘sentence’ or ‘proposition’) with a logical one (the
judgment) was not brought under discussion by him: Becker defined the sentence
as “der Ausdruck eines Gedankens, d.h. eines prädizierenden Urteiles”, hence
wholly adopting the Port-Royal view (Becker 1836-39, I, 37; I draw the definition
from Ries 1931, p. 208; about Becker’s analysis of the sentence, see Forsgren 1992,
p. 67-70).

2. CRISIS OF THE ‘JUDGMENT MODEL’ AND THE PSYCHOLOGISTIC

APPROACHES TO SENTENCE ANALYSIS

2.1. ‘Subjectless sentences’: Miklosich vs. Steinthal

The judgment model was a consequence of the view that General Grammar (and
especially Port-Royal Grammar) held about the relationship between language
and thought: since the former is the expression of the latter, and since language
is dealt with by grammar, and thought by logic, it is in a sense automatic that
the linguistic structure’s ‘proposition’ mirrors the logical structure’s ‘judgment’.
It is therefore not surprising that the crisis of such a model coincided with the
development of historical-comparative grammar during the 19th century: language
(or languages) was (were) no longer considered as the expression of a universal
structure of thinking, but as historical products continuously changing during the
course of time. Nevertheless, this crisis seems to have been more the consequence
of research practice than of a fully conscious change of perspective: e.g., we find
a form of sentence analysis rather similar to the Port-Royal one in the early works
of the historical-comparative linguists (Bopp, Grimm), as well as in Humboldt
(for more details, see Graffi 1998). Things began to change over the following
decades: in particular, one serious criticism of the judgment model came from the
founder of Slavic philology, Franz Miklosich, in his memoir devoted to impersonal
verbs in Slavic (Miklosich 1864), which was again published two decades later,
with several modifications, and under the more significant title of “subjectless
sentences” (Miklosich 1883). Miklosich (1864, p. 200) very clearly states that,
contrary to the standard view, the subject is not an essential part of the sentence,
since there are sentences which lack the subject, such as the Latin pluit. Miklosich
(ibid.) goes on to maintain that one cannot speak, for such kinds of sentences,
of an “undetermined” subject, as in sentences like putant, dicunt, etc.: pluit has
no undetermined subject; it lacks a subject altogether (cf. ibid.). This is shown,
Miklosich remarks, by the fact that, in the former case, the undetermined subject
can become determined (e.g., homines putant), while in the latter one it cannot.
Furthermore, the pronoun that in some languages accompanies the impersonal
 THEORIES OF THE SENTENCE IN THE PSYCHOLOGISTIC EPOCH 61

verb (es in es regnet, it in it rains, etc.) cannot be questioned: a question like quid
pluit?, or quis pluit?, is impossible. Hence this pronoun is not a subject.
Miklosich is quite aware that his analysis of impersonal verbs undermines one
of the principles of General Grammar: therefore he looks for support both from
grammarians on the one hand, and from logicians and philosophers on the other.
Among these, he quotes Herbart and Trendelenburg; among the grammarians, K.
L. Heyse, who had explicitly asserted the existence of subjectless sentences (cf.
Heyse 1856, p. 402). But it is the empirical evidence that Miklosich considers
decisive: in the history of linguistics, he says, scholars were sometimes forced “by
the facts” to eventually recognize phenomena formerly judged as inconceivable
(Miklosich 1864, p. 201). Hence it was the empirical research in the domain
of historical-comparative grammar which originated the crisis of the judgment
model: the most vehement adversary of General Grammar, namely Steinthal, had
rejected the existence of subjectless sentences, even in cases of impersonal verbs
(and this notwithstanding the fact that his own teacher, namely Heyse, had adopted
a different position, as has just been seen; about Heyse and his relationships
with Steinthal, see Bumann 1965, p. 6 ff., p. 19-27). Commenting on Steinthal’s
position, Miklosich (1864, p. 201) remarked that it seemed to be based on the
view that Steinthal himself had so successfully contested, namely that grammatical
structure mirrors logical structure.
Steinthal’s analysis of impersonal constructions is related to his doctrine of
the sentence in general: both are so twisted that it is difficult to correctly evaluate
them; besides, Steinthal’s (1855) views about impersonals (to which Miklosich
1864 referred) were partially changed a decade later, as Steinthal himself (1866,
p. 235) admitted. Despite such changes, however, he always denied the possibility
of subjectless sentences. Steinthal (1855) is the systematic exposition of his
views about the relationships between linguistics, logic, and psychology: the first
discipline is not to be based on the second (i.e. logic), contrary to what had been
assumed by the General Grammar tradition, but on the third one (i.e. psychology).
This perspective automatically implied the rejection of the judgment model:
judgment and sentence do not coincide, since the judgment is “the image of the real
activity” (das Abbild der realen Thätigkeit), while the sentence is the image of the
psychological process by which the judgment is realized (Steinthal 1855, p. 175;
original emphasis). This denial of the identity between judgment and sentence is
consistently reflected throughout Steinthal’s analyses of impersonal constructions,
which are however rather different from each other (cf. Steinthal 1855, 1860a,
1866). Steinthal (1855, p. 204) seems to allow the possibility of subjectless
sentences, while excluding that of subjectless judgments, since, Steinthal says, the
difference between sentences with and without a subject is a purely grammatical
one. Nevertheless, as Miklosich (1864, p. 209) remarks, Steinthal actually holds
the opposite view some pages later, where he analyzes a sentence like es friert as
formed by a subject, es, and a predicate, friert (cf. Steinthal 1855, p. 209). Therefore
Steinthal’s conclusion is that subjectless sentences cannot exist. This conclusion
derives from his conception of the verb, which he sees as intrinsically relational:
the personal ending of the verb cannot avoid reference to a subject.
This position is restated in Steinthal (1860a), where the hypothesis of a
verb without a subject is qualified as “self-contradictory”, since “ein Verbum
62 GIORGIO GRAFFI

ohne Subject […] nicht zu denken ist” (Steinthal 1860a, p. 84). In his review of
Miklosich (1864), Steinthal (1866) again distinguishes judgment from sentence, but
his conclusion is that neither can lack the subject, even in the case of impersonal
constructions. As judgments, their subject is the process or the state described by the
verb, and their predicate is the assertion of the existence of this phenomenon: e.g.,
a judgment like es donnert (“it thunders”) would be equivalent to a judgment like
Donner ist (cf. Steinthal 1866, p. 238). Steinthal states that such a logical analysis
seems “as simple as it is certain”, while the grammatical analysis “is difficult”.
This difficulty lies in the fact that, since the logical structure of the judgment and
the grammatical structure of the sentence do not match each other, it is necessary
to assign the function of grammatical subject of impersonal constructions to the
neuter pronoun (like German es in es friert, etc.): but what does such a pronoun
denote? In Steinthal (1855), it is described as a hint to the state of things which
lies at the basis of the judgment. In Steinthal (1860a, p. 87) it is defined as a sign
of the third singular person, as a kind of inflectional suffix: he seems, therefore,
to consider it as a purely syntactic tool. Steinthal’s (1866) position seems closer
to that of his 1855 volume, since he again considers the subject of impersonal
constructions as referring to something, which, however, the language “either
cannot or will not disclose” (Steinthal 1866, p. 241).
The origin of Steinthal’s difficulties lay in his conception of the sentence,
which he defined as “the apperception of a mental content” (die Apperception
eines Seelen-Inhaltes; Steinthal 1860b, p. 100), since it is formed by “a connection
of representations, which become a unity” (cf. Steinthal 1860b, p. 99). This is
possibly the first psychologistic model of sentence analysis. It tries to account for
both aspects of the sentence, the holistic and the analytical one: holistically, the
sentence is seen as “an apperception of a mental content”; but this apperception
necessarily derives from the connection between two different representations,
which actually correspond to the subject and to the predicate. Therefore, as
happened with Port-Royal, the holistic aspect of the sentence was made to derive
from the analytical one: Steinthal, while explicitly rejecting the equation between
judgment and sentence, continues to crucially employ its key categories. For this
reason, his approach was qualified as the “resumption of the judgment model in
a psychologistic framework” (cf. Knobloch 1984; Graffi 2001, p. 122-5). This
resumption characterizes a good deal of syntactic research in the last decades of
the 19th century, and attains its peak with Wundt, as will be seen in 2.3. Before
continuing with this topic, however, we have to examine Miklosich’s answers to
Steinthal, as well as Brentano’s analysis of judgments and its (alleged) support of
Miklosich’s views.
2.2. Brentano and Miklosich: subjectless judgments and subjectless sentences
Miklosich answered Steinthal’s criticisms in the second, enlarged edition of his
memoir (Miklosich 1883). Miklosich saw his views on the matter strengthened by
Brentano’s doctrine of the judgment, presented in Psychologie vom empirischem
Standpunkt, the first volume of which had appeared in 1874 (cf. fn. 1). In this work,
Brentano maintained that the simplest form of the judgment does not consist in
the linking of a subject to a predicate, but in the acceptance of something as true
or in its rejection as false (cf. Brentano 1925 [1911], p. 34). Miklosich resorted
 THEORIES OF THE SENTENCE IN THE PSYCHOLOGISTIC EPOCH 63

to this doctrine to reject Steinthal’s analysis of constructions like es donnert:

there would be no subject Donner and no predicate ist, but such sentences would
only consist of the predicate donnert; ist would not be a predicate, since, in line
with the well-known Kantian argument, existence is not a predicate. As can be
seen, Miklosich immediately applied to impersonal sentences what Brentano had
said about judgments. He was fully aware of this step, which, however, did not
worry him: he admitted that the relationships between logic and grammar had
been exaggerated in the past, but it was also wrong to deny them completely, as
Steinthal had done (cf. Miklosich 1883, p. 23). Hence, there could be no objection
to applying Brentano’s logical analysis to a grammatical phenomenon.
Miklosich’s analysis of impersonal constructions and its ensuing entailment of
the existence of subjectless sentences stimulated a lively debate: many scholars
accepted it and many others rejected it. I will not enter into the details of the debate
here (for more information, see Graffi 2001, p. 101-105). Rather, I would like to
discuss Brentano’s reaction to Miklosich’s (1883) volume, which, as far as I know,
has not received until now any particular attention. Brentano’s review of Miklosich
(1883) appeared in the newspaper “Wiener Zeitung” of 13-14 November 1883 and
was reprinted as chapter 12 of the Appendix to Brentano (1925 [1911]). In its first
part, the philosopher apparently expresses his agreement with the linguist; in the
second, he raises “a couple of critical remarks”, which actually show how their
positions, despite their surface similarity, were actually considerably different.
Brentano of course agrees with Miklosich on the fact that certain propositions
cannot be analyzed into subject and predicate, but he criticizes Miklosich’s
idea that subjectless sentences could also be called “predicate sentences”: since
subject and predicate are correlative concepts, if there is no subject, there is also
no predicate, and vice versa (cf. Brentano 1925 [1911], p. 190). Another point
on which Brentano disagrees with Miklosich is the extent of the phenomenon
of subjectless sentences. According to Miklosich, they are more widespread in
some languages than in others, and in some languages they may even be absent.
In contrast, Brentano (1925 [1911], p. 194) maintains that the existence of such
sentences has to be necessarily assumed for every language. Such disagreements
have to be traced back to an essential difference between Brentano’s premises and
goals, on the one hand, and those of Miklosich, on the other: the former scholar
aims at building a theory of judgments, the latter one a theory of sentences; and
while the philosopher bases his theory only on itself (with possible links to the
preceding doctrines of Kant, Herbart and Trendelenburg), the linguist, as has
just been seen, tries to find a support in Brentano’s logical theory of judgment,
not accepting the total “divorce” between linguistics and logic pronounced by
Steinthal. Brentano’s theory of judgments, however, takes “simple judgments”
(those consisting in the acceptance) or in the rejection of something) as the basis
of every judgment (cf. Brentano 1925 [1911], p. 60). Hence, subjectless sentences
would not form a subclass of the whole class of sentences, the other class being
formed by the sentences with a subject, as Miklosich’s treatment would imply:
rather all sentences would be originally subjectless, and this makes it impossible
to assume that some languages can be devoid of them. Furthermore, if one looks
more carefully to Brentano’s view of the relationship between logic and grammar,
one can see that he is far from suggesting that the structure of the sentence reflects
64 GIORGIO GRAFFI

that of the judgment: quite the contrary, for he states that the traditional idea that
a judgment always consists of a relationship between a subject and a predicate is
simply a fact of linguistic expression (cf. Brentano 1925 [1911], p. 63).
If we now compare the positions held by Steinthal, Miklosich and Brentano, a
rather paradoxical picture results. The first scholar denies the relationship between
logic and grammar, hence the equation between judgment and sentence, but his
analysis of the sentence closely parallels the traditional logically-based one (the
judgment model), since the presence of a subject and a predicate is posited as
necessary for every sentence. Of course, Steinthal’s rejection of the grammar /
logic parallelism forces him to translate the theory of judgment into psychologistic
terms. Miklosich essentially draws his own conclusions from the empirical analysis
of several Indo-European languages: but he also assumes he receives support for
them from Brentano’s logical analysis of the judgment, which, however, also
“divorces” logic from grammar, although with motivations far different from
Steinthal’s. All in all, we could say that the “old” model of judgment had come to
an irreversible crisis, to which neither the “new” psychologistic approach nor the
“new” doctrine of judgment worked out by Brentano offered a satisfying solution.
Such a state of affairs can account for the lively debate which developed about the
notion of sentence during the last decades of the 19th century and the early ones of
the 20th century.
2.3. The sentence in the framework of representational psychology
Many scholars followed the path sketched by Steinthal, attempting a translation,
more or less consciously, of the judgment model into psychologistic terms. One
of them was Hermann Paul, who resorted to the notions of ‘psychological subject’
and ‘psychological predicate’, introduced some years earlier by Georg von der
Gabelentz, with a sense similar to ‘theme’ and ‘rheme’, respectively (cf. Graffi
2001, p. 85-7). Paul was a historical-comparative linguist, as was Miklosich (only
their specialization was different, since he was mainly a Germanist, and Miklosich a
Slavicist): however, he rejected Miklosich’s claims as to the existence of subjectless
sentences and stated that every sentence is the connection of two representations,
called subject and predicate (cf. Paul 1920, p. 124; the first edition of the volume
dates back to 1880). Paul had attended, at the end of the 1860s, Steinthal’s classes
in Berlin, and this can explain his different attitude with respect to Miklosich’s.
Then, explicitly referring to Steinthal, he defines the psychological subject as “the
mass of representations which first occurs to the speaker’s conscience”, to which
the psychological predicate is added (cf. Paul 1920, ibid.). According to Paul,
impersonal sentences are simply sentences one member of which, normally the
subject, is not expressed, since it is obvious and can be recovered from the context
(cf. Paul 1920, p. 129). The ‘psychological subject’ in Paul’s sense can therefore
correspond to any element, including the situation: this happens, e.g., in the case
of vocatives or of requests, which would be the ‘psychological predicates’ of this
situation. This analysis accounts for the point of view of the speaker; from that of
the hearer, things are inverted. Think, for example, of an exclamation like Fire!:
for the speaker who notices a fire, the subject is the situation and the predicate is
the “general concept” fire; for the hearer who perceives the exclamation fire!, this
general concept is the subject, and the whole situation the predicate (cf. ibid.).
 THEORIES OF THE SENTENCE IN THE PSYCHOLOGISTIC EPOCH 65

Given the latitude he gives to both “psychological” notions of subject and

predicate, it is easy for Paul to give this definition of the sentence:
Der Satz ist der sprachliche Ausdruck, das Symbol dafür, dass sie die
Verbindung von mehrerer Vorstellungen oder Vorstellungsgruppen in der Seele
des Sprechenden vollzogen hat, und das Mittel dazu, die nämliche Verbindung
der nämlichen Vorstellungen in der Seele des Hörenden zu erzeugen (Paul 1920,
p. 121; original emphasis).
Paul clearly follows Steinthal’s path also in this definition, since he views the
sentence as a “linking of more representations or groups of representations”
(Verbindung von mehrerer Vorstellungen oder Vorstellungsgruppen). His definition
is clearer than Steinthal’s, and, as far as the analytical aspect is concerned, also
more complete: it takes account both of the speaker and of the hearer. On the
other hand, it essentially disregards the holistic aspect: nothing corresponds to
the ‘apperception’ which Steinthal considered as the characteristic feature of the
sentence as a whole.
Also Wundt’s definition of sentence (against which Paul argued strongly, starting
from the fourth edition [1909] of his Prinzipien) looks like an attempt to account
for both aspects. Wundt (1912, vol. 2, p. 244) states that the process of sentence
formation is both analytical and synthetic, but the analytical process comes first,
as the partition of a global representation. He then defines the sentence as “den
sprachlichen Ausdruck für die willkürliche Gliederung einer Gesamtvorstellung in
ihre in logische Beziehungen gesetzten Bestandteile” (Wundt 1912, vol. 2, p. 248;
original emphasis). The holistic aspect of the sentence then derives from its being
a “total representation” (Gesamtvorstellung); the analytical aspect lies in the
“logical relationships” (logische Beziehungen) that its components (Bestandteile)
bring to each other. But what are such components? No less and no more than the
subject and the predicate, as can be easily inferred from other passages of Wundt’s
(1912) treatise about language. Hence it comes as no surprise that he rejects any
analysis of impersonal sentences as consisting of only one entity, pluit, tonat, etc.,
which Wundt says (1912, vol. 2, p. 227), are dual representations just like lego,
donas, etc.: the only difference between the two classes of expressions is that,
in the former but not in the latter, the object to which the process expressed by
the verb is related has an “indeterminate quality” (unbestimmte Beschaffenheit).
Wundt’s analysis is therefore directly opposed to Miklosich’s and rather similar
to Steinthal’s, despite the fact that this last scholar was a follower of Herbartian
psychology, which Wundt opposed and aimed at superseding. We can therefore
conclude that Wundt’s position testifies to a complete resumption of the judgment
model in a psychologistic framework, which was already hinted at by Steinthal (cf.
above, p. 62).
For this reason, Wundt’s and Paul’s definitions of sentence do not actually
seem very far apart from each other, despite the criticisms that the latter scholar
directed against the former. Paul (1920, p. 122-3) held that Wundt’s definition could
only account for the point of view of the speaker, but not for that of the hearer.
According to Paul, Wundt patterned his definition upon the logical judgment (like,
e.g., “the tree is green”), not upon the sentences which most commonly occur
in real life situations. Paul’s criticisms were certainly appropriate, especially the
one referring to the essential dependence of Wundt’s definition of the sentence on
66 GIORGIO GRAFFI

the old judgment model: but, as Bühler (1929, p. 30) remarked some years later,
whether the sentence is defined as a synthetic (Paul) or an analytical (Wundt)
process within the conscience of the speaker, nothing is said concerning the essence
of the sentence. This result was due, we may add, to the intrinsic limitations of any
definition of the sentence in terms of representational psychology: the analytical
aspect was still accounted for by means of the traditional categories of subject
and predicate, and no specific feature had been found to characterize the holistic
one, except for the rather vague notions of ‘apperception’ or ‘total representation’
(which, as has been seen, Paul did not even consider).

3. ALTERNATIVES TO THE LOGICALLY-BASED AND TO PSYCHOLOGISTIC

MODELS OF SENTENCE ANALYSIS

3.1. The sentence as a communicative unit

Possibly, these inadequacies of the psychologistic analysis of the sentence inspired
some of the new approaches to the problem. One of them was the conception of
the sentence as essentially a communicative unit. Such an approach is not only
found, as may be expected, in a scholar like Wegener, who is rightly considered
as a forerunner of linguistic pragmatics (see Wegener 1885; Nerlich & Clarke
1994, p. 177-83), but also in other scholars, especially those belonging to the
historical-comparative paradigm.
Among historical linguists, and among Neo-grammarians themselves, Paul
indeed seems rather isolated in his adopting a psychologistic paradigm for the
definition of the sentence. For example, Delbrück (1893-1900, vol. 1, p. 75), in the
first volume of his comparative syntax of Indo-European languages, defines the
sentence as an articulated utterance which appears as a “connected and complete
whole” (ein zusammenhängendes und abgeschlossenes Ganzes) both to the speaker
and to the hearer. This definition is replaced, in the third volume of the work
(Delbrück 1893-1900, vol. 3, p. 4), by another, which states that the sentence is an
articulated unit found between two pauses. Delbrück (1901) attempts to reconcile
Wundt’s and Paul’s definitions of the sentence (implicitly showing, however, his
preference for Wundt’s), but, in one of his final works (Delbrück 1920, p. 8), he
literally reproduces his first definition of the sentence as a connected and complete
whole. On this conception, he says, the scholars agree.
Another Neo-grammarian, the Romanist W. Meyer-Lübke (1899, p. 3), defines
the sentence in terms rather similar to Delbrück’s, namely as a word or a group of
words which appear as a whole, as a communication from one speaker to another.
Hence Meyer-Lübke’s definition explicitly employs the word ‘communication’
(Mitteilung), witnessing the increasing tendency to treat the sentence (and language
in general) as a means of communication. This tendency appears fully developed
in the book of another Romanist, the Swedish Carl Svedelius. Svedelius rejects
both the old judgment model and its psychologistic translation. They both have
to be replaced by a communicative approach: “nous poserons en principe que la
catégorie correspondant le plus à la proposition s’appellera la communication”
(Svedelius 1897, p. 6; original emphasis). Svedelius, then, not only sees the
essential property of the sentence in its communicative function, but identifies
 THEORIES OF THE SENTENCE IN THE PSYCHOLOGISTIC EPOCH 67

sentence and communication (for more information on Svedelius, see Kuure 1990;
Graffi 2001, p. 90-4).
A communicative view of the sentence also characterizes one of the last works
of another master of historical-comparative linguistics, namely Brugmann (1918),
where the definition of sentence almost literally reproduces Delbrück’s, which
Brugmann qualifies as “usual” (landläufig). Given Brugmann’s communicative
perspective, not only are subject-predicate constructions considered as sentences,
but also expressions such as Come!, or Here!, or even Good morning! (cf.
Brugmann 1918, p. 16). It is interesting to note that Brugmann (1918, p. 1) also
distinguishes between the grammatical form of the sentence and its “psychic
content”, observing that in some cases a request or an order can be “masked” in
the form of a question.
Similar remarks are also found in Marty’s work. In one of his posthumous
essays (Marty 1950, p. 27), the sentence Passengers are kindly requested to go
out is given as an example of a statement which is actually an order. Moreover,
Marty’s general conception of the sentence adopts a communicative perspective:
the sentence is defined by him as a unit which it is considered as an exchange of
information (“eine sprachliche Einheit […], von der man üblicherweise zugibt,
dass wir durch sie zueinander reden oder dass durch sie etwas gesagt sei”, Marty
1950, p. 18-9).
Summarizing the contents of the present section, we can observe that such
communicative views of the sentence seem to anticipate in an interesting way
several notions that will become standard in speech act theory: in particular,
Brugmann’s and Marty’s comments about the possible mismatches between the
grammatical form and the communicative function of the sentence immediately
remind us of the notion of ‘indirect speech act’. We can also remark that these same
views exclusively take into account the holistic aspect of the sentence, without
discussing the analytical one: this attitude is, among other things, what allows
Brugmann to treat as sentences also the expressions quoted above.
3.2. The sentence as a sense unit
Bühler’s (1929) low evaluation of both competing models of sentence analysis
proposed by Paul on the one hand and by Wundt on the other has been quoted in
2.3., above. Bühler’s book was, as he explicitly stated, the result of some reflections
covering more than a decade, which started with his essay devoted to a “critical
assessment of the recent theories of sentences” (Bühler 1918). In this essay, Bühler
investigated three approaches to sentence analysis, which he ascribed, respectively,
to Wundt, Husserl and Marty. As far as Wundt and Marty are concerned, Bühler
refers to their definitions of the sentence we have quoted above; a similar explicit
definition is not found in Husserl, but Bühler refers to several passages of Husserl
(1900-01) dealing with the sentence. Bühlers’ assessment is based on his distinction
between the three functions of language: the function of ‘expression’ (Ausdruck),
that of ‘representation’ (Darstellung) and that of ‘appeal’ (Appell)2. Bühler states

2 Actually, these are the labels of Bühler (1934): the first and the third ones are named,
respectively, Kundgabe and Auslösung. Since Bühler’s (1934) terminology is widespread, I
resort to it for reasons of simplicity.
68 GIORGIO GRAFFI

that all three functions have to be taken into account since they correspond to
the fundamental aspects of human language: that of expressing individual inner
experiences (Erlebnisse), that of representing objects and state of affairs (logical
aspect) and that of establishing relationships between different human beings
(socio-communicative aspect; cf. Bühler 1929, p. 48; 59-61).
Given this framework, Bühler can easily conclude that all the approaches to
the sentence he is examining suffer from one-sidedness, since each of them only
accounts for a single function: Wundt’s approach that of expression; Husserl’s
approach that of representation; and Marty’s that of appeal. The definition of
the sentence proposed by Bühler, which aims at avoiding any one-sidedness,
states that sentences are “simple, autonomous, functional units”, “the sense units
of the speech” (cf. Bühler 1918, p. 18). In itself, this definition does not sound
very different from those of Delbrück, Meyer-Lübke or Marty: all of them only
account for the holistic aspect of the sentence, without paying attention to the
analytical aspect. However, its novelty lies in its relying on the notion of ‘sense’,
namely on a notion which did not occur in any of the preceding definitions, be they
psychologistic, communicative, or logically based. Hence it was the psychologist
Bühler who, to a certain extent at least, put an end to psychologistic approach to
sentence analysis: and, as a matter of fact, Bühler (1929, p. 55) hailed Husserl’s
“liberating critique” of psychologism.
Other psychologists also worked out an analysis of the sentence which explicitly
detaches itself from representational psychology and resorts to the notion of the
“sense unit”, or similar. In this connection, Clara and William Stern can especially be
quoted, who, in their book about child language (1922; the first edition dates back to
1907), define the sentence as “the expression of a unitary attitude towards a content
of conscience” (eine einheitliche Stellungnahme zu einem Bewusstseinsinhalt;
Stern & Stern 1922, p. 164). The Sterns explicitly criticize both Paul’s and Wundt’s
definitions of the sentence as a connection of representations (although judging
the second to be better than the first): ‘representation’ is neutral with respect to
a mental content, while a sentence is always the expression of an acceptance or a
rejection of a mental content (cf. Stern-Stern 1922, p. 165, fn.). In my view, this
position is clearly reminiscent of Brentano’s theory of judgment and, in general,
of Brentano’s concept of ‘intentionality’ (see Brentano 1924[1874], p. 124-5).
Intentionality consists, in Brentano’s words, in a “reference to a content”, which can
be of different kinds: in the representation (Vorstellung), something is represented
in the mind, in the judgment, something is accepted or denied (as seen above, 2.2.),
in the act of loving something is loved, in the act of hating it is hated, in the act of
desiring it is desired, etc. (cf. Brentano, ibid.). This reference to a content has no
place within Wundt’s system, or any other system of representational psychology. It
characterizes several approaches to sentence analysis proposed in the early decades
of the 20th century, not only by psychologists like Bühler or the Sterns, but also by
linguists mainly operating in the historical-comparative field, like Porzig (1924)
or Nehring (1927; 1929). While the latter scholar’s definition only accounts for
the holistic aspect of the sentence, the former’s definition (explicitly influenced
by Husserl) also considers the analytical aspect (for more information, see Graffi
2001, p. 128-9).
 THEORIES OF THE SENTENCE IN THE PSYCHOLOGISTIC EPOCH 69

3.3. Ries’ and Jespersen’s theory of the sentence

The last and possibly the most courageous attempt at giving a definition of the
sentence which is supposed to account both for the analytical as well as for its
holistic aspect is that by Ries (1931). With this work, the history of the definition
of the sentence during the era of psychologism comes to an end (Seidel’s 1935
book adds some important critical remarks on the matter, but it does not contain
any essentially new proposal).
Ries’ definition of the sentence runs as follows: “Ein Satz ist eine grammatisch
geformte kleinste Redeeinheit, die ihren Inhalt im Hinblick auf sein Verhältnis
zur Wirklichkeit zum Ausdruck bringt” (Ries 1931, p. 99; original emphasis).
Several research trends join in the formulation of this definition. One of them the
“post-representational” psychology more or less directly derived from Brentano,
which is reflected in the part of the definition which aims at accounting for the
holistic aspect of the sentence. It resorts to the notion of the “smallest speech
unit” (kleinste Redeeinheit) and to that of a “relation to reality” (Verhältnis zur
Wirklichkeit) which the sentence is said to express. To determine what the specific
function of the sentence is, it must be distinguished from speech on the one hand
and from word groups without sentential character on the other. The first condition
is fulfilled by defining the sentence as the smallest speech unit; the second one by
stating that “it expresses its contents with respect to its relation to reality”, namely
that only the sentence expresses an acceptance or a denial, an order, or a wish, or
a request, etc., while the other word combinations do not (cf. Ries 1931, p. 71-74).
As far as the analytical aspect of the sentence is concerned, Ries accounts for it
by stating that the sentence is “grammatically formed”. Under this aspect, Ries’
starting point is what can be called the grammatical conception of the sentence,
especially held, in the psychologistic era, by Kern (1888), who had maintained
that the distinctive feature of the sentence is the presence of a finite verb. Such
a conception was clearly too restricted, since in many languages there are word
combinations which do not contain any finite verb, and nevertheless are sentences
(think, e.g., of sentences with a nominal predicate in the Russian present indicative).
Ries tries to overcome this difficulty by stating that the special grammatical
form which distinguishes the sentence from any other word combination can be
differently realized across different languages (cf. Ries 1931, p. 95-7). Nevertheless,
he essentially still followed Kern’s path in defining as “perfect sentences” only
those where a finite verb occurs, or can be supplied.
More or less in the same years as Ries, Jespersen worked out a theory of the
sentence which separated the holistic aspect from the analytical one. Jespersen’s
(1924, p. 307) definition of the sentence only accounts for the former aspect:
“a sentence is a (relatively) complete and independent human utterance—the
completeness and independence being shown by its standing alone or its capability
of standing alone, i.e. of being uttered by itself”. That the analytical aspect of
the sentence, namely its grammatical form, has no importance for Jespersen is
shown by the remark he adds some lines later: “no particular grammatical form is
required for a word or a group of words to be called a sentence” (Jespersen 1924,
p. 308). Jespersen’s view of the sentence looks rather similar to the communicative
one held by scholars like Delbrück or Meyer-Lübke, as can be seen from this
other definition: “a sentence is a (relatively) complete and independent unit of
70 GIORGIO GRAFFI

communication” (Jespersen 1933, p. 106; original emphasis). Jespersen, being a

grammarian, of course does not neglect the analytical aspect, which he sees in
the relation of subject and predicate, and which he calls the ‘nexus’. However,
he detaches it from the holistic one: there can be sentences which do not contain
a nexus (such as the interjections or the expressions “yes” or “no”; cf. Jespersen
1937, p. 89-90), as there can be nexuses which do not form a sentence (“only an
independent nexus forms a sentence”, Jespersen 1924, p. 306; original emphasis).
Nexuses which do not coincide with sentences are dependent clauses, or relations
such as those between the italicized words in constructions like “I heard her sing”,
“They elected Bill president”, etc.. Also some nouns can be nexuses: e.g., arrival or
cleverness in “John’s arrival”, or “John’s cleverness”; they are dubbed by Jespersen
‘nexus-substantives’ (cf. Jespersen 1924, p. 169-72; 1937, p. 67-9). Hence Jespersen
draws his key categories of subject and predicate from the judgment model, while
at the same time abandoning it: in his framework, the subject / predicate relation is
neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for a given linguistic expression to
be defined as a sentence.
3.4. The sentence and the end of the psychologistic era
Ries’ (1931) volume was rather severely criticized by Bloomfield (1931) and
Meillet (1932). The former scholar stated that Ries’ definition of the sentence
“covers only the narrative types of Latin and their close cognates in other Indo-
European languages” (‘narrative’ sentences, in Bloomfield’s terminology, are those
containing a finite verb). In an analogous vein, Meillet (1932, p. 19) wrote that “il
[i.e., Ries] est trop dominé par la forme des langues occidentales de civilisation,
et il sous-estime la phrase nominale”. Bloomfield and Meillet did not confine
themselves to stressing the empirical limitations of Ries’ definition. Bloomfield
(1931, p. 204) assessed Ries’ whole attempt at providing a theory of the sentence as
hopelessly vain: “Ries […] does perhaps as well as can be done with the traditional
mentalistic approach to this question. I believe, however, that this approach leads
nowhere”. Bloomfield therefore turned to a definition of the sentence which fit his
distributional approach, namely that given by the aforementioned Meillet (1912,
p. 339), which he reworded as follows: “une forme qui ne fait partie d’aucune autre
forme” (Bloomfield 1931, p. 209). Bloomfield therefore put an end to the kind of
sentence analysis, and in general of syntax, practiced in the psychologistic era,
whatever the psychological framework of reference might be, whether Wundtian
or Brentanian one, or any other.
In its turn, Jespersen’s approach did not become very popular. Jespersen’s
compatriot Louis Hjelmslev, in his obituary, rejected the notion of the ‘nexus-
substantive’, and stated that “il paraît évident que la théorie ne pourra pas être
maintenue sous cette forme” (Hjelmslev 1973[1945], p. 48). In the subsequent
decades, however, while most linguists adopted Bloomfield’s view of the sentence,
despite of the general abandonment of his behaviorist framework, Jespersen’s ideas
partly revived, although often without explicit mention of his name. We only quote
one example for each of these two states of affairs, both drawn from works of the
late 1960s. Lyons (1968, p. 172) adopts the essentials of Bloomfield’s definition
of the sentence, which he reformulates as follows: “the sentence is the largest unit
of grammatical description” (original emphasis). On the other hand, the analysis
 THEORIES OF THE SENTENCE IN THE PSYCHOLOGISTIC EPOCH 71

of the so-called ‘derived nominals’ (like ‘arrival’ or ‘cleverness’) developed in

Chomsky (1970) essentially amounts at treating them as ‘nexus-substantives’ in
Jespersen’s terms, but in this essay Chomsky does not refer to the Danish linguist.
Therefore, the judgment model of the sentence, as well as its tentative translations
into psychologistic terms, appear to have been definitively abandoned since the
end of the psychologistic era. The traditional notions of subject and predicate,
however, survived and still survive: but as purely grammatical notions, and no
longer necessarily connected to the notion of ‘sentence’.

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 Histoire Épistémologie Langage

Theories of the sentence in the psychologistic epoch (and shortly

after)
G. Graffi

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Graffi G. Theories of the sentence in the psychologistic epoch (and shortly after). In: Histoire Épistémologie Langage,
tome 32, fascicule 2, 2010. Sciences du langage et psychologie à la charnière des 19e et 20e siècles. pp. 57-73;

doi : 10.3406/hel.2010.3187

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Document généré le 26/01/2017

Résumé
Le débat sur la notion de phrase qui se déroula dans la deuxième moitié du 19e s. est strictement
lié aux critiques envers ce qui peut être appelé le «modèle du jugement » de la Grammaire
Générale. Pourtant, les solutions proposées ont été assez diverses l’une de l’autre . La première
critique détaillée du modèle du jugement est formulée par F. Miklosich, qui affirme que la phrase
n’est pas nécessairement formée d’un sujet et d’un prédicat, et qui pense trouver un soutien pour
son analyse dans la conception du jugement chez Brentano. Steinthal, même s’il soutient que la
linguistique ne doit pas être fondée sur la logique, mais au contraire sur la psychologie, n’accepte
pas l’analyse de Miklosich et considère chaque phrase comme composée d’un sujet et d’un
prédicat. Paul et Wundt, quoique dans un cadre psychologique bien différent, partagent au fond
l’opinion de Steinthal. D’autres linguistes (comme Wegener, mais aussi bien des néogrammairiens
comme Delbrück et Meyer-Lübke) se concentrent sur le rôle de la phrase comme «unité de
communication » . D’autres savants (par exemple, Bühler) remarquent le caractère unilatéral de
tous ces conceptions de la phrase. Le livre de Ries (1931) est peut-être la dernière tentative pour
concilier les différents points de vue, car il cherche à rendre compte à la fois des aspects
psychologiques, communicatifs et grammaticaux de la phrase. Toutefois, il n’eut pas de succès (il
fut sévèrement critiqué par Bloomfield et Meillet, entre d’autres) ; au contraire, la conception de
Jespersen, élaborée dans les mêmes années que celle de Ries, et qui distingue nettement la
notion de phrase de celle de prédication, conserve encore une influence aujourd’hui.

Abstract
The debate about the notion of sentence which developed during the second half of 19th century
is strictly connected with the criticisms of what can be called the “ judgment model” of the General
Grammar tradition. However, the proposed solutions were largely different from each other. The
first detailed attack against the judgment model came from F. Miklosich, who denied the necessity
for the sentence to be formed by a subject and a predicate and believed that he found support in
Brentano’s views on the nature of the judgment. Steinthal, while maintaining that linguistics must
be not based on logic, but on psychology, rejected Miklosich’s analysis and analyzed every
sentence into a subject and a predicate. Paul and Wundt (although within very different
psychological frameworks) essentially followed Steinthal’s path. Other linguists (e. g., Wegener,
but also Neogrammarians such as Delbrück or Meyer-Lübke) concentrated on the communicative
function of the sentence. Still other scholars (e. g., Bühler) observed the “ one-sidedness” of all
such approaches to sentence analysis. Ries’ (1931) book is possibly the last attempt at reconciling
the different points of view, and aims at accounting for the psychological, communicative and
grammatical aspects of the sentence. However, it was not very successful (it was sharply criticized
by Bloomfield and Meillet, among others) ; in contrast, Jespersen’s approach, worked out in the
same years as Ries’, and which neatly separates the notion of sentence from that of predication, is
still influential today.