L'APPORT DE LA THEORIE ICONIQUE DU SIGNE A LA NAISSANCE DE LA LINGUISTIQUE COMPAREE.
THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE THEORY OF THE ICONIC SIGN THE BIRTH OF A COMPARATIVE LINGUISTICS.

Summary/Abstract: The first page of Franz Bopp’s Vergleichende Grammatik (1833- 1849) distances the iconic theory which had dominated European linguistics during Revolution and Napoleon’s time. Nevertheless, this explicit, political discontinuation cannot delete the implicit, epistemological continuity the Bopp’s technical terminology reveals in the same page. Particularly, the adjectival pair “physic and mechanic (laws)” comes from Charles de Brosses’ Traité de la formation méchanique des langues et des principes physiques de l’étymologie (1765). In this title, the pair precisely indicates the two most important innovations the iconic theory of XVIII century introduces in the sciences of language. “Mechanic” means that it provides a logical foundation for the natural origin of language, against traditional, theological theories based on the Aristotelian arbitrariness. This logical demonstration definitely opens the epistemological space of prehistory in linguistics, allowing Bopp to place in it the Indo-European family (1816). “Physic” means that the iconic theory requires the articulatory phonetics to be applied systematically to the etymological studies, against traditional, writing perspectives. This methodological innovation establishes the centrality of homorganic changes, allowing Jacob Grimm to formulate his Sound Shift law (1822).

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