GENERAL LINGUISTIC ISSUES IN B. DE ALDRETE’S TREATISE ON THE ORIGINS OF SPANISH (1616): FROM THE HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC THOUGHT
DOI: 10.23951/1609-624X-2020-5-133-141
Introduction. The present paper introduces Russian historians of linguistics to a little-known treatise on the history of Spanish – “Del origen y principio de la lengua castellana o romance que oi se usa en España” (1606) by Bernardo de Aldrete. Aim and objectives. The aim of the present study is to analyse B. De Aldrete’s treatise and specify how certain notions of general linguistics, crucial for its present state of development, were being developed. Material and methods. The study is based on a print edition of Aldrete’s treatise (about 400-pages long). The methods employed are: critical analysis of the text as an example of Renaissance linguistic thought and sociocultural analysis of the historical context the treatise was written in. This XVII-century scientific text and its system of terms are interpreted with the help of modern terminology, as normally done by linguistic historiography scholars. Results and discussion. The analysis of Aldrete’s treatise as a specimen of Spanish linguistic thought is performed against the background of the earlier linguistic tradition and the sociocultural situation in the Golden-Age Spain. XVI–XVII-century Pyrenees linguistics – Spanish in particular – was developing in a very specific sociocultural milieu, which preconditioned its inter-paradigmatic nature and an extremely wide scope of objects and themes discussed. The paper mainly focuses on how Aldrete dealt with general linguistic issues in his treatise on the history of Spanish. The analysis shows that such issues include: ways of naming language; functions of language; diversity of forms of speech; correlations between language system and speech; historicity of language; language contacts; diatopic (territorial), diastratic (social) and diaphasic (functional) variation of language; distinguishing between dialects and languages; the domineering role of standard language. Conclusion. The author of the XVII-century historical-linguistic treatise under analysis does not limit himself to studying purely historical aspects of language. The work by Aldrete embraces a wide range of issues of general linguistics, which shows that as early as in the pre-Port-Royal period linguists were already discussing the concepts and principles that are crucial for modern linguistic science.
Keywords: linguistic historiography, history of Romance linguistics, general linguistics, functions of language, language variation
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Issue: 5, 2020
Series of issue: Issue 5
Rubric: TOPICAL ISSUES OF MODERN LINGUISTICS
Pages: 133 — 141
Downloads: 745