FranÇois thurot and the first history of grammar

FranÇois thurot and the first history of grammar Article

Andresen, JT. (1978). FranÇois thurot and the first history of grammar . Historiographia Linguistica, 5(1-2), 45-57. 10.1075/hl.5.1-2.04and

François Thurot's Discours préliminaire (1796), a first attempt at a historiography of grammar, sums up the language theories of the philosophes, while prefiguring the 19th century in both his concept of language and his attitude towards the science of language. He accepts, for instance, the theory that the perfection of a language reflects the progress of the mind but rejects the metaphysical speculation on the origin of language that characteristically accompanied such a theory. And although Thurot, like his contemporaries, still preoccupies himself with the method of logico-linguistic analysis which would lead to a langue bien faite, his study opens up to a new variety of linguistic phenomena in the vernacular. Thus, his view of language embraces both the mechanical reductionism aimed at scientific language with its pretention to universality as well as the creative dynamism of discursive language with its recognition of cultural relativity. Furthermore, Thurot assimilates the interest in the genetic relationship among languages, that was already in the air, to the historicism of the philosophes, whose historical tableaux unfolded within their theories of language. © 1978 John Benjamins Publishing Company.