Neogrammarian linguistics

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 732.

The neogrammarian group was founded in the seventies of the 19^th century in Leipzig.

Leskien's contribution was his concept of sound change without exception.

Wilhelm Scherer's contribution was "A History of German", in which he rejected the notion that the languages of today represent a decline from those of the past.

The neogrammarian principles were elaborated by Karl Bntgmann (1849-1919).

Eduard Sievers (1850-1932) had identified the Old English Genesis as a translation from Old Saxon. He proposed a solution to the difference between the endings of Gothic harjis and haitdeis, which was the initial step towards recognizing allophonic variation in language.

Neogrammarian principles are:

1) language is not a thing which leads a life of its own outside of and above human beings, its true existence is only in the individual, hence all changes in the life of a language proceed from the individual speaker;

2) the mental and physical activity of man must have been at all times the same when he acquired a language inherited from his forefathers, reproduced and modified the speech forms which had been absorbed into his consciousness.

Based on this twofold concept, the two most important neogrammarian rules

1. Every sound change takes place according to laws that admit no exception.

2. New linguistic forms are created by analogy in any period of language development.