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1、TheHistoryofLinguisticsHistoricalLinguisticsThemodernfieldoflinguisticsdatesfromthebeginningofthe19thcentury.WhileancientIndiaandGreecehadaremarkablegrammaticaltradition,throughoutmostofhistorylinguisticshadbeentheprovinceofphilosophy,rhetoric,andliteraryanalysistotrytofi
2、gureouthowhumanlanguageworks.Butin1786,anamazingdiscoverywasmade:ThereareregularsoundcorrespondencesamongmanyofthelanguagesspokeninEurope,India,andPersia.Forexample,theEnglish'f'soundoftencorrespondstoa'p'soundin,amongothers,LatinandSanskrit,animportantancientlanguageofIn
3、dia:ENGLISHLATINSANSKRITfatherpaterpitarfullplenuspurnasforperpariScholarsrealizedthatthesecorrespondences--foundinthousandsofwords--couldnotbeduetochanceortomutualinfluence.Theonlyreliableconclusionwasthattheselanguagesarerelatedtooneanotherbecausetheycomefromacommonance
4、stor.Muchof19thcenturylinguisticswasdevotedtoworkingoutthenatureofthisparentlanguage,spokenabout6,000yearsago,aswellasthechangesbywhich'Proto-Indo-European',aswenowcallit,developedintoEnglish,Russian,Hindi,anditsothermoderndescendants.Thisprogramofhistoricallinguisticscon
5、tinuestoday.Linguistshavesucceededingroupingthe5,000orsolanguagesoftheworldintoanumberoflanguagefamiliessharingacommonancestor.TheStudyofLanguageStructureAtthebeginningofthe20thcentury,attentionshiftedtothefactthatnotonlylanguagechange,butlanguagestructureaswell,issystema
6、ticandgovernedbyregularrulesandprinciples.Theattentionoftheworld'slinguiststurnedmoreandmoretothestudyofgrammar--inthetechnicalsenseofthetermtheorganizationofthesoundsystemofalanguageandtheinternalstructureofitswordsandsentences.Bythe1920s,theprogramof'structurallinguisti
7、cs',inspiredinlargepartbytheideasoftheSwisslinguistFerdinanddeSaussure,wasdevelopingsophisticatedmethodsofgrammaticalanalysis.Thisperiodalsosawanintensifiedscholarlystudyoflanguagesthathadneverbeenwrittendown.Ithadbythenbecomecommonplace,forexample,foranAmericanlinguistto
8、spendseveralyearsworkingouttheintricaciesofthegrammarsofChippewa,Ojibwa,Apache,Mohawk,orsomeothe
