A short history of structural linguistics

Bibliographic Information

A short history of structural linguistics

Peter Matthews

Cambridge University Press, 2001

  • : pbk

Other Title

Structural linguistics

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 154-159) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This concise history of structural linguistics charts its development from the 1870s to the present day. It explains what structuralism was and why its ideas are still central today. For structuralists a language is a self-contained and tightly organised system whose history is of changes from one state of the system to another. This idea has its origin in the nineteenth century and was developed in the twentieth by Saussure and his followers, including the school of Bloomfield in the United States. Through the work of Chomsky, especially, it is still very influential. Matthews examines the beginnings of structuralism and analyses the vital role played in it by the study of sound systems and the problems of how systems change. He discusses theories of the overall structure of a language, the 'Chomskyan revolution' in the 1950s, and the structuralist theories of meaning.

Table of Contents

  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Languages
  • 3. Sound systems
  • 4. Diachrony
  • 5. The architecture of a language system
  • 6. Internalised language
  • 7. Structural semantics
  • 8. Structuralism in 2000.

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Details

  • NCID
    BA52010838
  • ISBN
    • 0521623677
    • 0521625688
  • LCCN
    00045524
  • Country Code
    uk
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Place of Publication
    Cambridge, U.K. ; New York
  • Pages/Volumes
    ix, 163 p.
  • Size
    23 cm
  • Classification
  • Subject Headings
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