Raíces de la fonología: pensadores preestructuralistas

Abstract

In the present paper some remarks are made on more remote periods of the history of linguistics, like on the ancient tradition or on implicit and explicit linguistic knowledge of medioeval writers (like the anonymous writer on Icelandic from the 12th century) but it focusses the attention especially on the history of phonology in the 19th century. The main parts are dedicated to the implicit division of phonology and phonetics in the historical philological tradition (esp. in the school of the neogrammarians), to the phonetic (Sievers) and descriptive (Winteler) tradition of the late 19th century, to the Kazan school, and finally to the point that structuralism as a clearly formulated scientific device should better be seen to start with the Praguean and the American structuralists than with Saussure. If the Cours de Linguitique Générale contains many elements taken over in the more recent developments, hardly any of the descriptive phonological principles had been formulated by Saussure himself. This position, to my advice, seems to be supported by the letters from Trubetzkoy to Jakobson and by Jakobson's own historiographical writings.