A short history of structural linguistics / Peter Matthews.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Matthews, P. H. (Peter Hugoe), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Structural linguistics--History.

Structural linguistics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 163 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Preface

Introduction

Languages. Linguistics as the study of language systems ; Languages as sets of utterances ; The autonomy of linguistics

Sound systems. The prehistory of the phoneme ; Phonology ; Structuralism

Diachrony. Diachronic phonology ; System and norm ; Universals

The architecture of a language system ; Expression and content ; Phonology and grammar ; Deep structure and surface structure

Internalised language ; Generative grammars ; Knowing a language ; Universal Grammar and diachrony

Structural semantics. Meanings as invariants ; Semantic fields ; Semantic interpretations

Structuralism in 2000.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

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

ISBN:

1-107-11505-1

1-280-41893-1

0-511-17353-9

0-511-15264-7

0-511-32502-9

0-511-61259-1

0-511-05064-X

OCLC:

50188084