Contenu du sommaire : De la grammaire à la linguistique

De la grammaire à la linguistique

• Articles

  • Épigraphe - F. de Saussure p. 1-1
  • Préposition, cas et syntaxe latine dans l'Encyclopédie - Bernard Colombat p. 3-20
    Bernard COLOMBAT: Préposition, cas et syntaxe latine dans l'«Encyclopédie». This paper aims at studying how Du Marsais and Beauzée consider the system of Latin cases in the numerous grammatical articles dealing with this language in < d'Encyclopédie». For them case must be studied in conjunction with the preposition. A preliminary study of the connections established between case and preposition throughout the history of Latin grammar shows the emergence of this part of speech: having long been considered as a simple intermediate element, in Sanctius the preposition becomes an essential component. For Du Marsais, case is the sign of a relation between words, and so is the preposition. The difficulty springs from the co-occurrent use of the preposition and case which, according to Du Marsais, cannot be «governed» by the preposition. So, it must be admitted that any case, after a preposition, loses the value it has when used on its own. Beauzée bases his analysis on different grounds: it cannot be admitted that case could have a primitive purpose and at the same time could be arbitrarily related to such and such a preposition. The solution consists in distinguishing «adverbial» cases, equivalent to prepositional phrases, and «completive» cases which can only be connected to a preposition. In this way Beauzée relationalizes the description of the case system in Latin, which seemed partial1y inconsistent to his predecessor.
  • Court de Gébelin (1725-1784) et le comparatisme : deux textes inédits - Sylvain Auroux, Anne Boes, Charles Porset p. 21-67
    S. AUROUX, A. BOES, avec la collaboration de Ch. PORSET: Court de Géhelin (1 725-1 784) et le comparatisme. Deux textes inédits. This paper deals with manuscripts from the French Protestant Antoine Court de Gébelin (1725-1 784), one of the first scholars to have developed a historical and comparative approach to world languages (Monde primitif, 1773-1784), before the great compilations of Hervas (1 784, 1800-1805) AdelungjVater (1806-1807) and Balbi (1826). With these two texts we have material that enables us to construct elements of a seriaI history of the comparative method. The first text (which deals with the Tahitian language and assumes its Malaysian origin) is particularly important for this purpose: it exists in three different versions and we can replace · it in the wider context of a whole series on this topic (Reeland, De Brosses, Pereire, Humboldt, Buschmann). In the introduction we give a probable date for the texts and an essay on Court's methodology. Our epistemological approach is influenced by Lakatos' scientific research programmes. After a description of Court'g programme, the characteristic feature of which is the assertion of a universal, organic and · primitive language, we attempt to answer the question of its failure. We assert that the rejection by later comparatism of such a hypothesis cannot be based on empirical falsification. Court's theory is an empirical one, and the scholar refers to facts which largely confirm it. Each of the three versions deals with new facts which support the claim to the primitive language and also new assertions on the relationship between particular languages. But one cannot at the same time collect facts for the universal connection between languages and empirical evidence for localized language grouping. This epistemological contradiction is the main reason which explains Court's failure and perhaps the new directions taken at the outset of the nineteenth century.
  • R. Rask (1787-1832) et la transcription des langues amérindiennes — Une lettre inédite à J. Pickering - Jean Rousseau p. 69-83
    Jean ROUSSEAU: R. RA8K (1 787-1832) et la transcription des langues amérindiennes -une lettre inédite à J. Pickering. The basis for this article is a hitherto unpublished letter from Rasmus Rask (1787-1832) to the Americanist John Pickering (17771846), bearing the date 29th October 1831. It is to be found in the twelfth volume of John Pickering's Papers in John Pickering House, Salem. The letter deals with the problem of transcribing the sounds of aIl the languages of the world into the Latin alphabet. Rask com pares his systems for transcribing, drawn up more particularly for the European and Asian languages, with the one put forward by Pickering for the Amerindian languages. In the numerous notes the editor provides a running commentary of the text, relating how it came to be written and giving a detailed analysis of the debate on transcription initiated by Sir William Jones for the Asian languages.
  • G. de Humboldt et la linguistique générale - Jean Quilien p. 85-113
    Jean QUILLIEN: G. von Humboldt et la linguistique générale. The conception of the sign as the central element of language is a constant feature in the history of language theories and becomes essential with Saussure who, by considering the arbitrary sign, the semiotic unit, as the theoretical matrix of the science of language, lays the foundations of modern structural linguistics, which he situates within the general field of semiology. G. von Humboldt, who was the theoretical source of nineteenth century historical and comparative linguistics, developed a theory of language that took structural analysis into account. Language is ergon, a system of signs, and the word, bringing together signifiant and signifié, is the semiotic unit; this, however, is only one dimension, and not the most important. In order to understand language, semiotic analysis must give way to semantic analysis. The definition of language as a semiotic system is only the condition of speech, and not speech itself; it is a virtuality and is not actualized, whereas speech is essentially in actu. Language should not be considered separately from its realization in discourse, that is, the discourse of an actual speaker in a given culture, the member of a community and heir to its history. In short, language is in essence energeia, an infinite production of meaning, and every language includes a certain view of the world. Humboldt tried therefore to account for the two dimensions of language, the semiotic and the semantic, the former being subordinate to the latter. If it is the word sign which is the keyword for Saussure, in the case of Humboldt it is the word meaning.
  • Bréal, la sémantique et Saussure - Hans Aarsleff p. 115-133
    Hans AARSLEFF: Bréal, la sémantique et Saussure. This essay presents an extension of arguments 1 have advanced in essays on «Bréal vs. Schleicher» and «Taine and Saussure». It is devoted to Bréal's linguistic thought, based both on the late Essai de sémantique and on his earlier essays, dating from the late 1860' s, on the same subject. The essay argues that Bréal's'sémantique' is a'linguistique générale', and that it was directed against Schleicher's organicism and its consequences. Bréal shifted the emphasis to the mindbound nature of language and linguistic processes, and in this context he developed concepts that recur in Saussure's linguistic thought as presented in the Cours. Thus we find in Bréal a conceptualization that includes such Saussurean concepts as diachrony, synchrony, valeur, structure, binary opposition, and syntagmatics. The essay argues that Saussure owed a substantial debt to Bréal. It is further argued that Bréal's thought is an expression of the late 19th-century reaction against the residue of romantic thought in scholarship. This turn of mind is best known under the term already then used: le réalisme.