Georg Stiernhielm. Linguistic works, volume 1 : Phonology, morphology, semiotics, sound symbolism and transformational grammar and semantics: unpublished manuscripts edited with introduction

Abstract

This is the first of two volumes that provide a textual edition of the linguistic works of the Swedish Renaissance polymath Georg Stiernhielm (1598–1672). On the basis of his unpublished manuscripts, the majority of Stiernhielm’s writings on phonology, morphology, semiotics, sound symbolism and the variability of language are here published for the first time. The texts edited show how, in his linguistic theory, he starts from the smallest phonological and morphological building blocks, continues with their semiotic and phonosemantic functions and concludes with the variability and transformability of parts of speech (or word classes), of clause elements, and of the discourse or text itself as the supreme unit. The edition is preceded by an introduction to Stiernhielm’s impressive linguistic edifice. The biographical chapter accounts for the course of his life and elucidates how his linguistic thought is linked with his educational journey in Europe (1614–1624), his connections with the Swedish antiquarian Johannes Bureus (for a period of over twenty years, circa 1624–1652) and his acquaintance with prominent Dutch linguists and historians of his own time. The next chapter surveys his scholarly and scientific authorship in unpublished and published writings, taking his archive and his catalogues of planned writings as points of departure. The two subsequent chapters first explain various topics and contexts of Stiernhielm’s linguistic thought and then explore the foundations of his phonology, morphology, phonosemantic and grammatical-rhetorical theory of linguistic variability. The last introductory chapter accounts for the manuscripts and the editorial principles employed.