History of Linguistics (from the perspective of language technology)
Language technology and computational linguistics are young fields
which we normally think of as dating back to perhaps the 1960's at the
earliest. Yet they build on more than two thousand years of thought
about the nature of language. For example, parts of
speech which we use in modern taggers and notions of logical inference
which are important for theorem proving both have their origins in the works
of classical antiquity. Here we try to trace the development of some
of these ideas and highlight their relationship to modern work.
Requirements
The idea is to produce a single integrated document to which all
contribute and to which students reading this course in the future can
contribute, possibly as an asynchronous web course. Therefore, LaTeX,
English...
- For each of the eight periods (15 hrs per period)
- a list of ideas that are reflected in modern computational
linguistics
- a list of ideas that have been forgotten but might be worth
reviving
- for one of the ideas on the lists (each person chooses a
different idea)
- half page or page on the original idea
- half page or page on its modern relevance
At least seven such papers must be submitted in order to pass
the course.
- a research paper (10-20 pp) either going in depth into one
particular idea or tracing a theme over several periods. The paper
should study the modern relevance of the idea or theme. (80 hrs)
- active contribution to maintenance of web page, document
integration, literature searches, team spirit etc.
Units
- The Greeks
- The Romans
- The
Indians
- China
& Arabia
- The
Middle Ages
- The
Renaissance & the 17th Century
- The
Enlightenment and Romanticism
- Romanticism and the 19th century
- News in the 20th century
Literature
Harris, Roy and Talbot J. Taylor (1989/1997) Landmarks in
Linguistic Thought: Western Tradition from Socrates to Saussure,
Routledge (pp 1-185)
Hovdhaugen, Even (1982) Foundations of Western Linguistics,
Universitetsforlaget, Oslo
Robins, R. H. (1967/1997) A Short History of Linguistics,
Longman. (pp. 1-259)
More to come
- The Greeks: Hovdhaugen 12-67, Harris & Taylor 1-35, Robins
1-57.
- The Romans: Hovdhaugen 68-105, Harris & Taylor 47-75, Robins
58-78.
- India: Itkonen chapter 2.
- China & Arabia: Itkonen chapters 3 & 4.
- The Middle Ages: Kneale & Kneale 224-297, Harris & Taylor
76-86, (Hovdhaugen 106-139), (Hist. of Ling. 358-375), Robins 79-109.
- The Renaissance and the 17th century: Hist. of Ling. 375-391,
Harris & Taylor 110-138, Robins 110-151, Harris & Taylor
95-109.
- The Enlightenment and Romanticism: Rousseau, Herder, Harris &
Taylor 139-154, Robins 152-188.
- Romanticism in the 19th century: Pedersen 241-277, Robins
189-221, Harris & Taylor 185-195.
The book
pdf
LaTeX
History of Linguistics course bibliography in bibtex notation (under construction by Karin Cavallin)
Additional literature
Review of
proceedings from the latest conference on the History of the Language
Sciences Conference
home page
Vivien Law - The
History of Linguistics in Europe Useful bibliography at end of
sample chapter.
History
of Linguistics in the Nordic Countries
Miller, D. Gary. 1994. Ancient Scripts and Phonological Knowledge.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
A useful survey?
Conscise Routledge
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Edwards, P. (ed). 1967. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Macmillan.
Kiparsky, Paul (2002) On
the Architecture of Panini's Grammar
Lepschy, Guilio, ed. (1994) History of Linguistics, Vol.1: The
Eastern Traditions of Linguistics, Longman.
Gérard
Huet's Sanskrit site