Chapter One Approaching a Century of Markedness

Chapter One Approaching a Century of Markedness 1.1 Comparative-Historical Origins The concept of markedness originated within the vibrant cultural and intellectual milieu of early twentieth century European structural linguistics, which itself developed largely as an alternative to the comparative-historical linguistics that dominated the nineteenth century. "The history and comparison of languages is the hallmark of nineteenth century linguistics ... [This] approach pervaded the century, and came to be viewed as the only 'scientific' approach to language" (Morpurgo-Davies 1992, 159). Comparisons between genetically related lan guages-chiefly at the levels of phonology and morphology-dominated the work of many scholars during this age, helping to establish several theoretical and methodological foundations for modem and contemporary linguistics. An important catalyst for comparative-historical linguistics was achieved through the late eighteenth century discovery of formal similarities between Sanskrit and numerous other languages, including Greek, Latin, Russian, German, and English. This recognition led to the delineation of the Indo European (IE) family of languages. 1 The German scholar Franz Bopp is gener ally credited with foundi~g modem comparative-historical linguistics by virtue of his 1816 publication, Uber das Konjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache: in Vergleichung mit jenem der griechischen, lateinischen, persischen und german ischen Sprache. As the title indicates, Bopp examined and compared the verbal systems among several IE languages in an effort to demonstrate a common genetic link between them. The novelty of Bopp's approach lay in his attention to isolating certain formal (i.e., phonological and morphological) regularities among the data he compared. Bopp realized that such regularities-or, laws could be extrapolated to reconstruct unattested linguistic forms (see Jankowsky 1972, 57-59). Bopp's approach quickly became the standard for much of nineteenth century linguistics: "Words were segmented on formal and functional criteria, and similar segments were compared across related languages, in order to distinguish inherited from innovated forms" (Morpurgo-Davies 1992, 161). Complex sound laws and sound changes in several IE languages were sys tematically delineated by the Danish scholar Rasmus Rask (Unders¢gelse om det gamle Nordiske eller Islandske Sprogs Oprindelse, 1818), and the first genuine historical grammars were produced shortly thereafter, both by Rask (Den danske Grammatiks Endelser og Former af det islandske Sprog forklarede, 1820) and by the German scholar Jacob Grimm (Deutsche Grammatik, 1819-37). This linguistics was permeated by a self-awareness of its own novelty with respect to foregoing models of language study. Comparative-historical linguists during the nineteenth century viewed their work as being genuinely scientific, 1See Arlotto 1972, 102-9 for a discussion and diagrams of the IE language family. 2 Markedness in Canaanite and Hebrew Verbs comprised of both quantifiable data and objective methods (see, e.g., Lepschy 1982, 21 ). In reality, much of the linguistics antedating the later nineteenth century-although increasingly empirical in its methods-lacked a properly scientific theoretical framework within which to conduct and interpret the data: Two philosophical assumptions-of language as an organism and of its history as a fall from perfection-specified the focus of compar ative linguistic research and the goals of historical reconstructions ... This fascination with the organic rather than the mechanical character of the world was one of the most characteristic features of Roman ticism ... Romanticism not only provided a general stimulus and legitimation to the study of comparative grammar, but by supplying the early linguists with certain conceptual resources it also shaped the manner in which they formulated problems and defined the goals of their research (Amsterdamska 1987, 35, 37, 38). Thus, despite the increased methodological rigor that comparative-historical linguistics had achieved by the mid-nineteenth century, several of its theoretical underpinnings remained influenced by nonempirical tenets. Languages were often viewed as possessing distinct national characters, as being intrinsically reflective of the peoples and the cultures utilizing them.2 Languages also continued to be viewed as devolving entities, proceeding over the course of time and use from being grammatically intact and aesthetically pristine to becoming incomplete and corrupted.3 1.2 The Neogrammarian Turn Increasingly, scholars in the later nineteenth century became dissatisfied with the theoretical extremes to which romanticist and organicist notions had pro pelled the study of language. The most significant and influential reaction emerged out of Germany in the 1870s at the University of Leipzig. There, a group of scholars distinguished themselves by calling for both a theoretical revision and a methodological sharpening of linguistics. These youthful and intellectually rebellious scholars were referred to-somewhat derisively by their colleagues-as Junggrammatiker; literally, "young grammarians," though less 2The resilience of this attitude is illustrated by a once influential work of Boman, who argues that the composition of Classical Hebrew reflects the concrete and dynamic men tality of the Israelites, whereas the composition of Ancient Greek betokens the abstract and static thought process of the Hellenes: "Greeks are logicians and Hebrews are psychologists" (Boman 1960, 9). 3The persistent latency of this view is exhibited by Ginsberg, who--although linguis tically well-informed, overall-subscribes to antiquated terminology like "The Golden Age" and "The Silver Age" of Classical Hebrew (Ginsberg 1970, 112), and who occasionally engages in evaluations such as the following: "Originally common to all Northwest Semitic languages, and always retained by the Canaanite ones, was a beautiful suppleness of the sentence" (Ginsberg 1970, 116). .

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