on the eve of odern timeson the eve of modern times.doc

On The Eve of Modern Times Time period: the late 17th century and 18th century, two influences on the development of linguistics. From within the Europe: reconciliation of Christian cosmology by contemporary scientists. From the outer world, specifically India: making a sharp and immediate impact and bringing about irreversible changes in the whole subject ,more especially in historical linguistics. Interest in the origin of language: The Prussian Academy offered a prize in 1769 for an essay answering the questions concerning the origin of human language. (Herder solved the problem) The general scientific mentality reawakened and realigned the old question of the origin of language. a more anthropological inquiry into the conditions and the stages in which human language evolved into the ultimately system of oral communication in the world of recent history and the present time. The story of King Psammetichus of Egypt. In the context of the history of linguistics, three person had made significant contributions. Condillac, work: Essai sur l’ origine des connoissances humaines Rousseau, work: Essai sur l’ origine des connoissances humaines The comparison between Condillac and Rousseau Differences: Condillac wrote within the intellectualist, rationalist-empiricist tradition. Rousseau looked forward to the romantic movement that was to follow. Similarities: Their conceptions of the origin of language, they both believed language originated in deictic and imitative gestures and natural cries,but as the power of human thought increased, phonemic element in human language became dominant. They both considered that abstract vocabularies and grammatical complexity developed from an earlier individual concrete vocabularies with very few grammatical distinctions or constraints. They both regarded reliance on tonal contrasts in the manner of Chinese as a survival of a primitive feature.They both considered poetry to have spru