Za vědu o vývoji
Towards a science of development

Jan Mukařovský and Antoine Meillet

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the possible influence of Antoine Meillet’s thinking on the Prague Linguistic Circle, especially on Jan Mukařovský. Based on a comparison of Jan Mukařovský’s studies from the 1930s and selected works by Antoine Meillet, we find three intersecting topics: the rhetoric of the new science, the sociological conception of linguistics and in particular the concept of general linguistics as a science of the laws of development. We show that Meillet’s and Mukařovský’s sociological conception of language and artwork leads in the final instance to a reference to a certain material basis for the norms under examination. In the case of both theorists, the role of this basis is complementary to the idea of the law-based development of developmental “series” and the possibility of pursuing a general discipline concerning them. We note that this emphasis on the compatibility of diachronic and synchronic perspectives is distinct from the doctrine in the Course in General Linguistics and speculate that it may have figured as a common theme in “Prague” and “Paris” structuralism.

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