DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.57263#0274
Carl Winter’s Universitätsbuchhandlung in Heidelberg.
Soeben erschien:
A MODERN ENGLISH GRAMMAR
ON HISTORICAL PRINCIPLES
BY
OTTO JESPERSEN, PH. D.
PART I: SOUNDS AND SPELLINGS.
GERMANISCHE BIBLIOTHEK
herausgegeben von Dr. Wilhelm Streitberg,
o. Professor an der Universität München.
I. Abteilung, 1. Reihe, Band 9. Geheftet 8 Mk., gebunden 9 Mk.
Aus dem Vorwort:
It has been my endeavour in this work to represent English Grammar
not as a set of stiff dogmatic precepts, according to which some things are
correct and others absolutely wrong, but as something living and developing
under continual ssuctuations and undulations, something that is founded on the
past and prepares the wäy for the future, something that is not always consistent
or perfect, but progressing and perfectible—in one word, human. The essence
of language is activity, the purpose of which is to communicate thoughts and
feelings, and as man is no machine, he is during this activity drawn now in
this and now in that direction, while it is not always easy or possible to calcu-
late exactly the relative strength of all the various attractions at work in each
single case. The full purport of these remarks will, perhaps, be seen in follow-
ing instalments of this work with greater distinctness than in the present
volume, which deals only with phonology and orthography. But even here one
may observe how each linguistic phenomenon inevitably presents blurred outlines,
perfectly sharp delineations being found ‘rather in our imperfect attempts to inter-
pret nature than in nature itself. In a language everything is linked together
with everything else, and it is impossible to treat sounds separately -without
regard to the significations those sounds are intended to express; thus it happens
that even syntactical phenomena are here and there touched in this volume.
I have tried, whenever 1 could, to go to the sources themselves, and have
taken as few facts and as few theories as possible at second hand. Of course
I do not pretend to have been independent of my predecessors, to whom I owe
very much indeed. But in consequence of my method of work I may have
overlooked much valuable information—and I must confess that at no time have
I been a diligent reader of doctors’ dissertations—still I hope that nothing of
great importance has escaped me. On the other hand, in spite of all that has
been written on historical English phonology, I have now and then enjoyed the
feeling of treading on virgin soil, thus especially in chapters V and IX. I have
also utilized some old authorities, de Castro, Elphinston, Batchelor, and Hill,
whose works, important as they are, have been overlooked by most recent inve-
stigators. I may also claim to have done something towards a more just appre-
ciation of the extremely valuable phonetic analysis and transcriptions contained
in Hart’s works.
' I have confined myself to the treatment of Standard English sounds, just
as in the following volumes I shall say very little about dialect forms and dialect
syntax. The standard language is the most important form of the English
language; I believe its development has been in the main independent of dialectal
changes, and I think also that the time is not yet ripe for a full treatment of
dialect phonology, as so very much of the material gathered in volumes thin
and thick is far from being reliable enough for broad generalizations.
C. F. Wintersche Buchdruckerei.
Soeben erschien:
A MODERN ENGLISH GRAMMAR
ON HISTORICAL PRINCIPLES
BY
OTTO JESPERSEN, PH. D.
PART I: SOUNDS AND SPELLINGS.
GERMANISCHE BIBLIOTHEK
herausgegeben von Dr. Wilhelm Streitberg,
o. Professor an der Universität München.
I. Abteilung, 1. Reihe, Band 9. Geheftet 8 Mk., gebunden 9 Mk.
Aus dem Vorwort:
It has been my endeavour in this work to represent English Grammar
not as a set of stiff dogmatic precepts, according to which some things are
correct and others absolutely wrong, but as something living and developing
under continual ssuctuations and undulations, something that is founded on the
past and prepares the wäy for the future, something that is not always consistent
or perfect, but progressing and perfectible—in one word, human. The essence
of language is activity, the purpose of which is to communicate thoughts and
feelings, and as man is no machine, he is during this activity drawn now in
this and now in that direction, while it is not always easy or possible to calcu-
late exactly the relative strength of all the various attractions at work in each
single case. The full purport of these remarks will, perhaps, be seen in follow-
ing instalments of this work with greater distinctness than in the present
volume, which deals only with phonology and orthography. But even here one
may observe how each linguistic phenomenon inevitably presents blurred outlines,
perfectly sharp delineations being found ‘rather in our imperfect attempts to inter-
pret nature than in nature itself. In a language everything is linked together
with everything else, and it is impossible to treat sounds separately -without
regard to the significations those sounds are intended to express; thus it happens
that even syntactical phenomena are here and there touched in this volume.
I have tried, whenever 1 could, to go to the sources themselves, and have
taken as few facts and as few theories as possible at second hand. Of course
I do not pretend to have been independent of my predecessors, to whom I owe
very much indeed. But in consequence of my method of work I may have
overlooked much valuable information—and I must confess that at no time have
I been a diligent reader of doctors’ dissertations—still I hope that nothing of
great importance has escaped me. On the other hand, in spite of all that has
been written on historical English phonology, I have now and then enjoyed the
feeling of treading on virgin soil, thus especially in chapters V and IX. I have
also utilized some old authorities, de Castro, Elphinston, Batchelor, and Hill,
whose works, important as they are, have been overlooked by most recent inve-
stigators. I may also claim to have done something towards a more just appre-
ciation of the extremely valuable phonetic analysis and transcriptions contained
in Hart’s works.
' I have confined myself to the treatment of Standard English sounds, just
as in the following volumes I shall say very little about dialect forms and dialect
syntax. The standard language is the most important form of the English
language; I believe its development has been in the main independent of dialectal
changes, and I think also that the time is not yet ripe for a full treatment of
dialect phonology, as so very much of the material gathered in volumes thin
and thick is far from being reliable enough for broad generalizations.
C. F. Wintersche Buchdruckerei.