Greenberg

[David B. Kronenfeld]

         Yes, Jakobson was there, but with some footnotes.  Boas was an
important undergraduate impetus.   As I remember Jakobson's description, he
arrived in New York (and met with Boas) after Greenberg would already have
left for Northwestern.    Sapir already was publishing in Europe and
participating in European developments before WWII (see his Collected
Writings)--and Jakobson always made clear (in writings and in a course of
his that I audited as an undergrad) the importance of Sapir to his
work.   Greenberg, in his inagural "Distinguished Lecture" for the American
Anthropological Assn. in Nov. 1970, delineated the importance of Saussure
for his thinking.
         Greenberg went to Northwestern (and Herskovitz) for his Ph. D., I
was told, basically in order to be able to construct his own program
without being told what to do.  As Dil noted (p. xi) in his introduction to
his  Stanford UP collection of Greenberg's papers, Greenberg  spent a year
before his Ph. D. (1940) and some time after at Yale with Bloomfield,
Sapir, Bloch and others.
         Trubetzkoy's influence seems important, and seems separable from
Jakobson's.  Unlike Jakobson who never let data get in the way of a good
idea, Greenberg was always exceedingly careful and rigorous about his
data.  Also important seems Sapir.  I should go back to look at my old
class notes from the mid 1960s, but I remember learning about both Prague
and Sapir in Greenberg's classes.  Many of my friends and I have seen
Greenberg as the modern successor to both Trubetzkoy and Sapir.
         I hope these observations are of some interest and use.
                                         David

At 03:35 PM 5/12/01 -0500, you wrote:
>As for the possible influences received by Joseph Greenberg, who has one
>way or another influenced almost every one of us, shouldn't we chercher
>l'homme somewhere near Jakobson (among many others, of course), who, in
>his turn, brought to America an awesome European legacy?
>Max E. Figueroa-Esteva
>

David B. Kronenfeld             Phone   Office  909/787-4340
Department of Anthropology              Message 909/787-5524
University of California                        Fax     909/787-5409
Riverside, CA 92521                     email   kfeld at citrus.ucr.edu

http://www.ucr.edu/CHSS/depts/anthro/home.htm
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