History of Language Sciences

[Tom Priestly]

I have been approached by one of the editors of the planned book "History
of the Language Sciences,"to be published by de Gruyter, New York. This
enormous undertaking will have over 300 chapters, and will presumably look
something like the two-tome de Gruyter volume on Sociolinguistics that
readers of this letter may have in their university library.
Planning for the volume was well under way in 1995 when I was asked to
write the 'chapter' on the history of Slavic dialectology - which I managed
to do by the (extended!) deadline of March 1, 1997.
Now it turns out that the person who agreed to write Chapter 170 has
finally backed out, and the editors are desperately trying to find a
replacement.
The chapter has the title:
SLAVIC COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR: DOBROVSKY'.
I have not discussed the contents with the editors but assume that it will
be pretty much self-contained, i.e., does not have to bring in D's
contemporaries except insofar as they are actually connected with his work.
I assume this because a later chapter, #182, is called "The origin and
development of Slavic philology," which (having presumably already been
written) must have properly discussed Vostokov, Kopitar, et al.. So, the
chapter should be solely about Dobrovsky'.

The person who takes this on will be asked to write the chapter - 12
printed pages (each of 30 lines, 40 characters per line) - by the end of
1998.

Please reply off-line with  ANY suggestions as to potential authors. We
(Slavists) do not want there to be a gap in this "History" where Dobrovsky'
ought to be! The more names I receive, the better - not only the person who
contracted to write this chapter (who may be ill or have other reasons for
not now doing so) but several others may have already declined.

Thanks in advance,
Tom Priestly
(and may I take this opportunity to thank those who responded to my
Seelangs request, in 1996, for information about South Slavic dialect maps!)

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*  Tom Priestly
*  President, Society for Slovene Studies
*  Modern Languages and Comparative Studies
*  University of Alberta
*  Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E6
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*  telephone:   403 - 492 - 0789
*  fax:                403 - 492 - 2715

*  email:           tom.priestly at ualberta.ca
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