Background
Jens Otto Harry Jespersen was born on July 16, 1860, in Randers, Jutland.
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
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( This volume, first published in 1960 to commemorate the...)
This volume, first published in 1960 to commemorate the one hundredth birthday of Jespersen, collects together as many of his writings as possible in order to allow students of the English language, or indeed of language in general, to read those shorter papers which have hitherto escaped their notice. The layout of the book largely follows the nature of the subjects dealt with: English grammar, phonetics, history of English, language teaching, language in general, international language and miscellaneous papers.
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(The science of language began, tentatively and approximat...)
The science of language began, tentatively and approximately, when the minds of men first turned to problems like these: How is it that people do not speak everywhere the same language? How were words first created? What is the relation between a name and the thing it stands for? Why is such and such a person, or such and such a thing, called this and not that? The first answers to these questions, like primitive answers to other riddles of the universe, were largely theological: God, or one particular god, had created language, or God led all animals to the first man in order that he might give them names. Thus in the Old Testament the diversity of languages is explained as a punishment from God for mans crimes and presumption. These were great and general problems, but the minds of the early Jews were also occupied with smaller and more particular problems of language, as when etymological interpretations were given of such personal names as were not immediately self-explanatory. The same predilection for etymology, and a similar primitive kind of etymology, based entirely on a more or less accidental similarity of sound and easily satisfied with any fanciful connexion in sense, is found abundantly in Greek writers and in their Latin imitators. But to the speculative minds of Greek thinkers the problem that proved most attractive was the general and abstract one, Are words natural and necessary expressions of the notions underlying them, or are they merely arbitrary and conventional signs for notions that might have been equally well expressed by any other sounds? Endless discussions were carried on about this question, as we see particularly from Platos Kratylos, and no very definite result was arrived at, nor could any be expected so long as one language only formed the basis of the discussioneven in our own days, after a century of comparative philology, the question still remains an open one. In Greece, the two catchwords phúsei (by nature) and thései (by convention) for centuries divided philosophers and grammarians into two camps, while some, like Sokrates in Platos dialogue, though admitting that in language as actually existing there was no natural connexion between word and thing, still wished that an ideal language might be created in which words and things would be tied together in a perfectly rational waythus paving the way for Bishop Wilkins and other modern constructors of philosophical languages.
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( Here the great Danish linguist Otto Jespersen puts forw...)
Here the great Danish linguist Otto Jespersen puts forward his views on grammatical structure in a kind of shorthand formalism, devising symbols that represent various grammatical elements and then analyzing numerous sentences in terms of these symbols. The contemporaneity of these analyses is remarkable, for they allude to concepts that were uncongenial to linguists in 1937 when the book was first published, but which have come to be generally accepted in the linguistics community during the past twenty-five years.
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( A classic of English grammar, Essentials of English ...)
A classic of English grammar, Essentials of English Grammar provides a common ground for the traditionalist and the structural or descriptive linguist. Jespersens work provides insight into the fundamental concepts that underlie the linguistic approach, but at the same time the foundation of the traditional approach is retained.
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( This study grew out of a series of lectures Jespersen g...)
This study grew out of a series of lectures Jespersen gave at Columbia University in 1909-10, called â??An Introduction to English Grammar.â? It is the connected presentation of Jespersen's views of the general principles of grammar based on years of studying various languages through both direct observation of living speech and written and printed documents. â??The Philosophy of Grammar and Analytic Syntax set forth the most extensive and original theory of universal grammar prior to the work of Chomsky and other generative grammarians of the last thirty years.â?â??Arne Juul and Hans F. Nielsen, in Otto Jespersen: Facets of His Life and Work â??Besides being one of the most perceptive observers and original thinkers that the field of linguistics has ever known, Jespersen was also one of its most entertaining writers, and reading The Philosophy of Grammar is fun. Read it, enjoy it.â?â??James D. McCawley, from the Introduction Otto Jespersen (1860-1943), an authority on the growth and structure of language, was the Chair of the English Department at the University of Copenhagen. Among his many works are A Modern English Grammar and Analytic Syntax, the latter published by the University of Chicago Press.
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(Excerpt from Language: Its Nature, Development, and Origi...)
Excerpt from Language: Its Nature, Development, and Origin KZ Kuhn's Zeitschrift fur vergleichende Sprachforschung. Lasch S R. Lasch, Sondersprachen u. Ihre Entstehung, Wien 1907. Lph O. Jespersen, Lehrbuch der Phonetik, 3te Au? Leipzig 1920. Madvig 1857 J. N. Madvig, De grammatische Betegnelser, Copenhagen 1857. K1 Kleine philologische Schriften, Leipzig 1875. Me. Middle English. Meg O. Jespersen, Modern English Grammar, Heidelberg 1909, 1914. Meillet DI A. Meillet, Les Dialectes indo-europe'ens, Paris 1908. Germ. Caracteres généraux des Langues Germaniques, Paris 1917. Gr Apercu d'une Histoire de la Langue Grecque, Paris 1913. LI Introduction a l'étude comp. Des Langues indo-europe'ennes, 2e éd Paris 1908. Meinhof Ham C. Meinhof, Die hamitischen Sprachen, Hamburg 1912. Msa Die moderne Sprachforschung in A frilca, Berlin 1910. Meringer L R. Meringer, Aus dem Leben der Sprache, Berlin 1908. Misteli F. Misteli, Charakteristilc der haupts. Typen des Sprachbaues, Berlin 1893. Msl Me'moires de la Société de Linguistique de Paris. Fr. Miiller Gr Friedrich Muller, Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft, vvien 1876 ff. Max Muller Ch F. Max Muller, Chips from a German Workshop, vol. Iv, London 1875. Ned A New English Dictionary, by Murray, etc., Oxford 1884 ff. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Jens Otto Harry Jespersen was born on July 16, 1860, in Randers, Jutland.
In 1877 Otto Jespersen entered the University of Copenhagen when he was 17, initially studying law but not forgetting his language studies. In 1881 he shifted his focus completely to languages, and in 1887 earned his master's degree in French, with English and Latin as his secondary languages. In 1887–1888, he traveled to England, Germany and France and attended lectures at institutions like Oxford University. Following the advice of his mentor Vilhelm Thomsen, he returned to Copenhagen in August 1888 and began work on his doctoral dissertation on the English case system. He successfully defended his dissertation in 1891.
Otto Jespersen decided to explore language studies at a time when phonetics and reform in language teaching were prime concerns. In 1886, the year before receiving his master’s degree in French from Copenhagen University, he published his first important paper, on phonetic laws, and helped to establish a Scandinavian association for the reform of language education. As professor of English at Copenhagen (1893–1925), he led a movement for basing foreign-language teaching on the use of conversational speech rather than on textbook study of grammar and vocabulary, and he wrote a number of textbooks used in Denmark and other countries. He presented theoretical considerations of language teaching in Sprogundervisning (How to Teach a Foreign Language, 1901). Jespersen published extensively on English, one of his most vital works, Growth and Structure of the English Language (1905), was reprinted in 1969. His great work in this area was the encyclopaedic Modern English Grammar (1909–1949).
Jespersen gave particular consideration to the relationship between sound and sense in language. Another major concern, linguistic progress, was influenced by Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theories and early reflected in Progress in Language, with Special Reference to English (1894). His Fonetik (Phonetics, 1897–1899) long remained the best scientific treatment of general phonetics. In 1910 Jensen received honorary degree from Columbia University in New York. Jespersen made a highly original contribution to grammatical theory in Sprogets logik (The Logic of Language, 1913). His principal work on linguistic evolution, and also probably his most brilliant achievement, was Language: Its Nature, Development, and Origin (1922). His belief in the efficiency of linguistic change was evidenced in The Philosophy of Grammar (1924). In 1925 Jespersen received honorary degree from St. Andrews University in Scotland.
After his retirement in 1925, Jespersen remained active in the international linguistic community. In 1927 he received honorary degree fromthe Sorbonne in Paris. Long interested in international auxiliary languages, he helped to elaborate Ido, but his main achievement in this area was devising Novial, which he presented in International Language (1928). A Novial lexicon followed in 1930. In addition to continuing to write, he convened and chaired the first International Meeting on Linguistic Research in Geneva in 1930, and acted as president of the Fourth International Congress of Linguists in Copenhagen in 1936.
Jens Otto Harry Jespersen died on April 30, 1943.
(The science of language began, tentatively and approximat...)
( This volume, first published in 1960 to commemorate the...)
( Here the great Danish linguist Otto Jespersen puts forw...)
( A classic of English grammar, Essentials of English ...)
( This study grew out of a series of lectures Jespersen g...)
(Excerpt from Language: Its Nature, Development, and Origi...)
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)