engleski

Getting help from a daughter: Linguistic methodology and early modern philology

Philology and linguistics have been so closely related in their development that the nature of their mutual relationship is by no means clear. Although modern linguistics originated from philological work – the fact that gave rise to the ‘mother–daughter’ metaphor figuring in my title – it has been established as a separate discipline, with an elaborate methodology, coherent internal division, and more or less clearly defined scope of interest. Philology, on the other hand, has found itself struggling with its own identity and place among the humanities. In the present paper, the example of the linguistic analysis of Early Modern Latin will be used to show how philology can profit from making use of linguistic methodology. We will consider an insufficiently explored way in which linguistics can be used to cast new light on old philological problems. This possibility is based on the fact that the relationship between language and its context of use is central to both philology and the branch of linguistics labelled pragmatics. We will see how in many cases the two fields disciplines talk about the same phenomena, but in differently structured ways and using various metalanguages. An example will be used to show how various contextual factors can boost a linguistic change and accordingly modify the range of uses that a word can have.

philology, pragmatics, linguistics, Early Modern Period, Latin, Neo-Latin

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