Darwin-L Message Log 7:22 (March 1994)

Academic Discussion on the History and Theory of the Historical Sciences

This is one message from the Archives of Darwin-L (1993–1997), a professional discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences.

Note: Additional publications on evolution and the historical sciences by the Darwin-L list owner are available on SSRN.

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<7:22>From lgorbet@triton.unm.edu  Thu Mar 10 09:22:59 1994

Date: Thu, 10 Mar 94 08:22 MST
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: lgorbet@triton.unm.edu
Subject: Re: Historical and Structural Linguistics

I'd like to second Sally Thomason's remarks that

>...it isn't true, for historical linguistics, that structuralism
>was antithetical; structural linguistics has provided many useful
>ways of attacking the problem of unraveling linguistic history,
>though nothing as exciting as Saussure's Laryngeal Theory.

and add, of course, the converse: that throughout this century and
increasingly, I believe, in the past 20 years or so, historical linguistics
has contributed essential insights, clarifications, and tests to efforts to
understand synchronic structure.  Hmm...that's ambiguous---I mean not so
much that the historical linguists have been contributing more but that
linguists more concerned with synchronic matters have paid more attention,
taken more advantage of historical linguistic resources.

Larry Gorbet                         lgorbet@mail.unm.edu
Anthropology & Linguistics Depts.    (505) 883-7378
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM, U.S.A.

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