In this talk, the author applies the tenets of the Prague School concerning the emergence of literary language to the oeuvre of Ferenc Faludi (1704-1779). With a detailed discussion of his 'A book of notes', he tries to support the claim that Faludi was, above all, a stylistic innovator. In particular, he investigates the way two specific features of literary language that the Prague School emphasized occur in Faludi's work: a) the polifunctionalism of linguistic tools and hence their higher level of differentiation, and b) intellectuality, i.e., the elaboration of - mainly lexical and syntactic - tools that make language capable of representing higher levels of abstraction and accurately expressing the logical process of thinking, including its complexity. With respect to polifunctionalism, the author claims that Faludi was interested in the whole of language; however, his main aim was to polish Hungarian and to deliberately increase its stylistic power. He renewed the literary form of 'song', and experimented with a number of literary genres. But his most important contribution to literary style (and Hungarian in general) was the introduction of linguistic-stylistic tools for a range of various stylistic shades. All that was also served by his activities as a translator. He also contributed to the intellectuality of literary language, the increase of means of expression of higher-level thinking in several ways (word formation, compounding, preverb-verb combinations, reduplication, proverbs, specialized terms, attributive constructions, etc.). Briefly: he was a bold word selector and word creator: a stylistic innovator.
The paper deals with the relationship between the Prague School and the “empirical functionalists”, or “Greenbergians”, i.e. linguists such as Talmy Givón, William Croft, Bernard Comrie, Martin Haspelmath or Joan Bybee. Common concepts are pointed out, primarily those elaborated by Josef Vachek (synchronic dynamism, interaction of language levels, interplay of external and internal factors in the shaping of language). Further, aspects are mentioned in which these current trends can enrich each other: e.g., a broad empirical basis, the methodology of explicative comparison of languages, grammaticalization and iconicity offered by empirical functionalism; on the other hand, the methodology of detailed holistic description of individual languages, questions of language cultivation, topics leading beyond linguistics, etc, provided by the Prague School. Finally, work to make classical Praguean texts accessible is urgently needed.
A great many of the critical receptions and studies of Felix Vodička’s work as well as many of his students and followers concur in the lasting inspirational value of his heritage. In my paper I focus on tracing the impact of Vodička’s work both at home and abroad and on the recapitulation of the crucial literary theoretical and historical concepts informing Vodička’s work which literary critics and theoreticians still find thought-provoking. In the first part I deal with the most important studies, conferences and proceedings devoted to Vodička’s work; in the second part I elaborate on the three main principles of his structural theory (the development of literary structure, the history of the impact of literary works and structural thematics) which have been adopted by other scholars (H. R. Jauss, W. Iser, L. Doležel) in their works.
The Prague linguistic circle was one of the most important linguistic schools of the 20th century. Members of the circle elaborated many linguistic theories. One of the theories was typology of language formed by Vladimír Skalička. The theory of linguistic typology serves for classification, description and comparison of whole languages or parts of language system and it can be used from synchronic or diachronic aspect. This study deals with typological description of isolating features in classical Latin. The classical Latin is a language with flexional dominance but there are also some isolating features. In addition the study refers to spectrum of possibilities of typological application.
The linguistic typology is a method of classification, description and comparison of languages which is primarily used in synchronic study of languages. Since the first half of the 20th century Skalička had been gradually developing his typology therefore Skalička himself expected to develop and specify it even further. Until this day, his typology is still being developed and topical. For modern Spanish, Skalička's typology, which linguists in Spanish-speaking countries know only marginally, though, is a valid theory; for example, with regard to the development of Castilian Spanish and Latin American Spanish and the growing differences between them. Although typology is essentially of synchronic character, i.e., it studies language at a given point in time and does not deal with the historical explanation of this situation, this study draws attention to the fact that Skalička’s typology is applicable to diachronic linguistics which studies a language over a period of time. With regard to linguistic typology of Vladimír Skalička the study deals with typological description of selected substantive and adjective forms, explores their development from Latin to Spanish and evaluates their typological modification. In the development of each language there is an evolution from one type to another. Classical Latin is a language with flexional dominance in declension system whereas Vulgar Latin has isolating tendencies. Finally, in Spanish there is a combination of isolating and agglutinating features.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.