Die Formierung der grammatischen Analyse: Die Rolle des baskischen auf dem Weg Humboldts als Grammatiker. Einige editorische Anmerkungen zu den frühen baskologischen Arbeiten

Resumen

Wilhelm von Humboldt had been actively interested in Basque studies for more than two decades. The first years of this period, starting in Paris between his two journeys to Spain (1799/1800) and to the Basque Country (spring 1801) and spanning well into the Rome years, have sometimes been called the period of grammatical formation. Besides Hebrew (which was handled more like a classical language though), Basque was the first language in which Humboldt, due to the autochthonous grammarians like Astarloa, discovers for his own analytical framework completely new grammatical relations, which he starts to organize in his encyclopedic project of categories. This circumstance has previously been noted by Michelena, Gómez and others. The model he starts developing for descriptive and first attempts of explanatory purposes is the same he takes on into the analyses of the many languages to follow during his lifetime. Especially the two versions of the "Hülfsmittel" offer a good example of his critical evaluation of the traditional grammarians. The paper intends to sketch these innovative aspects throughout Humboldt's early writings on Basque.