Paul 1880 vs. 1886 vs. 1920...; Bloomfield 1933/1965

[Richard Janda]

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     Actually, the passage in Paul about the only scientific linguistics
being historical is not in Paul 1880 (the 1st edition), since it arose
in response to reviews like Misteli's of 1882 (in the _Zeitschrift fuer
Voelkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft_ 13:376-409).  The
statement in question is thus also not (I think) in Strong's rather
daunting English translation, even though an edition appeared in
1889, while Paul's remarks are in every edition starting with the 2nd
of 1886.  Bynon 1977 has a translation in a footnote, however.
     As for myself, I am more moved by Paul's short Preface to the
5th and last edition (1920) of the _Prinzipien..._ in his lifetime, in
which he mentions that he "seit Jahren ausserstande... [ist], Ge- ]
drucktes oder Geschriebenes zu lesen" and so "beduerfte... bei der
Revision fremder Hilfe" (for which he thanks Fraeulein Dr. Deditius
& Herr(n) Dr. Bluemel).  Who now is so dedicated to the consulting
and editing of original manuscripts as to risk his or her eyesight?!?
     Moreover, though Paul's lapidary words are excellent for exem-
plifying the period when linguistics was historical linguistics, they
certainly show how far he was from contemporary physical scien-
tists and modern scientists of all sorts in his insistence that, essen-
tially, you don't have a scientific understanding of a system unless
you know the history of every piece of it.  No sane geologist would
today agree that understanding, say, the cliffs of Dover requires one
to know the origin of every one of its molecules (or atoms, or elec
trons [electra?], or quarks)....
     What would have happened without de Saussure--or Bloomfield?
Which takes us back to Larry Trask's original question:  It should be
mentioned that Holt, Rinehart, & Winston (with Harry Hoijer as ed-
itor, I believe), separately published the historical-linguistic chapters
of Bloomfield 1933 (_Language_) as _Language History_, though
this admittedly came out in 1965.
     I wonder whether the increase in books on historical linguistics
alone after 1962 (or, better, 1969) doesn't partly reflect the fact that,
until that time, most textbooks automatically included rather large
sections on historical linguistics, already, whereas the generative
works of the era tended to be so resolutely synchronic that a new
need (and market) opened up for diachrony.  What say ye?
          Rich Janda