Gerda Haßler

On the evidential use of English adverbials and their equivalents in Romance languages and Russian: A morpho-syntactic analysis

The present study investigates the use of equivalents of the English adverbials seemingly and apparently with a specific morphological structure in Romance languages and Russian, i.e. Spanish al parecer, Portuguese ao parecer and ao que parece, French avoir l’air de, Italian all’apparenza and in apparenza as well as Russian по-видимому. The underlying hypothesis is that the function and syntactic behaviour of these adverbial locutions are motivated by their morphological composition. It is to investigate whether the adverbials may be used sentence-initially, parenthetically, as an adverbial with broad or narrow scope or as a component of a modalised predication. The adverbial locutions are treated as means of expression where evidentiality and epistemic modality represent overlapping functional-semantic categories.

Temporalität, Aspektualität und Modalität in romanischen Sprachen

Gegenstand des Buches ist die sprachliche Gestaltung der Temporalitat, Aspektualitat und Modalitat in den romanischen Sprachen. In die Betrachtung dieser drei Kategorien werden neben dem Tempus, Aspekt und Modus weitere Ausdrucksmittel, wie zum Beispiel Verbalperiphrasen, Adverbien und lexikalische Bedeutungen von Verben, einbezogen. Die Beschreibung erfolgt auf der Grundlage einer funktionalen Sicht der Grammatik und das Zusammenwirken verschiedener Strukturebenen der Sprache bei der Markierung temporaler, aspektueller und modaler Verhaltnisse wird betrachtet. Neuere Forschungsansatze im Bereich der Typologie und der kognitiven Linguistik werden berucksichtigt. Insbesondere wird die Interaktion zwischen den drei Kategorien, die in den romanischen Sprachen nicht streng getrennt sind, dargestellt. Im Zentrum stehen das Franzosische, das Italienische, das Portugiesische und das Spanische, wobei auffallige Erscheinungen in anderen romanischen Sprachen gleichfalls erwahnt werden. Neben einer Uberblicksdarstellung, die den aktuellen Forschungsstand reflektiert, werden Ergebnisse eigener Forschungen zur funktionalen Struktur der Kategorie der Aspektualitat, zur coverten Modalitat und zur Evidentialitat in romanischen Sprachen vorgestellt.

El Curso de lingüística general de Saussure y su importancia en el desarrollo de la lingüística estructural

En esta contribucion se explicara la influencia que tuvo el Curso de linguistica general de Ferdinand de Saussure en la linguistica estructural, asi como el desarrollo de algunos conceptos prominentes en esta obra antes y despues de Saussure. El estructuralismo es un fenomeno que se ha caracterizado por ser una corriente importante de la linguistica europea americana del siglo XX. Se demostrara que la linguistica estructural no hace mas que acentuar una actitud que ya se encontraba presente anteriormente en la linguistica y que todavia sigue estando presente. Esto tambien se puede ver en Espana donde la linguistica estructural no se puede explicar solamente como una importacion tardia. Tambien se observara, por el otro lado, que el pensamiento de Ferdinand de Saussure, considerado el fundador del estructuralismo, es menos opuesto a todo lo que se considera ajeno al estructuralismo. En esta contribucion me propongo hacer una revision de los conceptos que se consideran iniciadores del estructuralismo. La publicacion de los manuscritos de la linguistica general de Saussure (2002) permite adquirir una vision mas amplia y mas detallada de los conceptos de las teorias linguisticas en cuestion.

18th Century Linguistic Thought

The 18th century has been characterized as a century of debate on language, leading to the formation of new conceptions. The focus on language has also been supported by the role of public opinion and by profound changes in society. The discussion of signs and their influence on thought has given rise to several applied subjects of discussion (the abuse of words, grammar teaching, construction of a philosophical language, and synonymy). The diversity of human languages and universals of thought may be regarded as one of the main subjects of the discussion. The empirical reality of the diversity of languages was a challenge to the universalistic principle.

Beauzée, Nicolas (1717–1789)

Nicolas Beauzee was one of the most important collaborators of the French Encyclopedia, contributing mostly articles on grammar and language. Following the traditional explanation of the Bible, Beauzee argued for language as a divine gift. Beauzee professed a strictly rationalist grammar. He defined general grammar as a science and opposed it to the grammars of particular languages which he called art. The rules of scientific grammar should be universal and not depend on arbitrary properties of particular languages. He also continued the study of French synonyms and improved metalinguistic terminology.

Alarcos Llorach, Emilio (1922–1998)

Emilio Alarcos Llorach was educated in Madrid by Damaso Alonso. The full integration of Spanish linguistics into global approaches was one of Alarcoss accomplishments. The numerous disciples he trained in Oviedo, where he lived and taught for nearly half a century, as well as his works on Spanish functional grammar, testify to the fruitfulness of his activities.

Brosses, Charles de (1709–1777)

Charles de Brosses was a French magistrate and scholar, who was appointed first president of the Burgundian parliament. De Brosses aimed to provide a naturalistic interpretation of symbolic functioning. Language is for him primarily an organic phenomenon. He developed a phonetic theory which allowed him to link up words of different languages with their organic roots. But his emphasis on etymology and the study of regularities of sound change does not make him a forerunner of historical linguistics.

Bello, Andrés (1781–1865)

Andres Bello was a Venezuelan poet, educator, and scholar. His life was led in three settings: (1) in Caracas (1781–1810), one of the most scholarly and culturally developed cities of South America, (2) in London (1810–1829), which was emerging as the capital of a new global empire, and (3) in Chile (1829–1865), where Bello realized most of his fruitful plans. His Gramatica de la lengua castellana para uso de hispano-americanos was the first scientific study of Spanish; with this work, Bello was the first to propose a single linguistic standard for all of Latin America·