Writings in General Linguistics: On Sound Alternation (1881) and Outline of Linguistic Science (1883)(11 Amsterdam Classics in Linguistics, 1800–1925)

This volume brings together the most important general linguistic writings by Mikołay Kruszewski (1851-1887), whom Roman Jakobson described as “one of the greatest theoreticians of language among the world linguists of the late nineteenth century”. Apart from reissuing a revised version of the late Robert Austerlitz’ translation of the theoretical introduction of Kruszewski’s Master’s thesis on morphophonemic alternation in Old Slavic, first published in German in 1881, the bulk of the present volume consists of the first translation ever, by Gregory M. Eramian, of Kruszewski’s doctoral thesis, Outline of Linguistic Science, supervised by J. Baudouin de Courtenay and submitted in Russian at the University of Kazan in 1883, which until now has been available only in German translation, published in Techmer’s “Zeitschrift” (Leipzig, 1884-1890; reprinted Amsterdam, 1973). Together with a detailed introduction, a full list of Kruszewski’s writings, a bibliography of secondary sources, including a reconstruction of the major works consulted by Kruszewski, and detailed indexes of biographical names, subjects & terms, and languages cited for examples, the present volume provides Western scholars with a solid textual and contextual basis for a proper reassessment of the ideas of arguably the most outstanding 19th-century linguistic thinker.

Table of Contents:
1. Editor's Foreword; 2. Editor's Introduction; 3. Mikolaj Kruszewski's Contribution to General Linguistics; 4. Works by Mikolaj Kruszewski, 1876-1978; 5. Bibliography of Secondary Sources; 6. Mikolaj Kruszewski: Writings in General Linguistics; 7. I. On Sound Alternation (1881) (translated by Austerlitz, Robert); 8. Editor's Foreword; 9. [Author's Preface]; 10. [0. Introductory Observations]; 11. [1.] The First Category; 12. [2.] The Second Category; 13. [3.] The Third Category; 14. [4. Conclusions from the Preceding Discussion]; 15. [5. General Principles of Linguistic Research]; 16. Table 1: [Divergency vs Correlation]; 17. Table 2: [Phonetic vs Morphological Law]; 18. Appendix: On 'Palatalization' and 'Dentalization' of the Old Slavic Postlinguals; 19. II. An Outline of Linguistic Science (1883) (translated by Eramian, Gregory M.); 20. Translator's Foreword; 21. List of Abbreviations; 22. 0. Introduction; 23. 1. The Most Basic Analysis of Speech; its Various Elements and their Nature; 24. 2. The Sounds and their Laws; 25. 3. The History of Sounds and Sound Complexes; 26. 4. Concerning the Prevailing Views on Sound Laws; 27. 5. Words; 28. 6. The Delimitation of the Morphological Elements of the Word and their Nature; 29. 7. Factors of a Destructive Nature; 30. 8. History of the Morphological Elements of the Word; 31. 9. The Synthesis of Morphological Elements into a Word and of Words into Language; 32. 10. The History of Words; 33. Works Cited by Kruszewski; 34. Indexes; 35. Index of Biographical Names; 36. Index of Subjects and Terms; 37. Index of Languages Cited for Examples; 38. List of illustrations; 39. Portrait of Mikolaj Kruszewski; 40. The Habdank Coat of Arms; 41. Title-page of Kruszewski's Uber die Lautabwechslung (Kazan, 1881); 42. Kruzewski and American Phonology (after Klausenburger 1978:117); 43. Table 1: [Divergency vs Correlation]; 44. Table 2: [Phonetic vs Morphological Law]; 45. Table 3: [The Palatalization Process of OCS Postlinguals]; 46. Title-page of Kruszewski's O cerk nauki o jazyke (Kazan, 1883); 47. First page of the German translation of O cerk (Leipzig, 1884); 48. Last page of the German translation of O cerk (Leipzig, 1890)