Leonard Bloomfield

Leonard Bloomfield (April 1, 1887 – April 18, 1949) was an American linguist, whose influence dominated the development of structural linguistics in America between the 1930s and the 1950s. He is especially known for his book Language (1933), describing the state of the art of linguistics at its time.

Bloomfield was the main founder of the Linguistic Society of America.

Bloomfield's thought was mainly characterized by its behavioristic principles for the study of meaning, its insistence on formal procedures for the analysis of language data, as well as a general concern to provide linguistics with rigorous scientific methodology. Its pre-eminence decreased in the late 1950s and 1960s, after the emergence of Generative Grammar.

Bloomfield also began the genetic examination of the Algonquian language family with his reconstruction of Proto-Algonquian; his seminal paper on the family remains a cornerstone of Algonquian historical linguistics today.

Publications

• 1911: "The Indo-European Palatals in Sanskrit". in: The American Journal of Philology 32/1, pp. 36-57.
• 1914: Introduction to the Study of Language. New York: Henery Holt and Co. ISBN 90-272-1892-7.
• 1914: "Sentence and Word". in: Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 45, pp. 65-75.
• 1916: "Subject and Predicate". in: Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 47, pp. 13-22.
• 1917: (with Alfredo Viola Santiago) Tagalog texts with grammatical analysis. University of Illinois studies in language and literature, 3.2-4. Urbana, Illinois.
• 1924: "Notes on the Fox language". in: International Journal of American Linguistics 3, pp. 219-232.
• 1926: "A set of postulates for the science of language". in: Language 2, pp. 153-164 (reprinted in: Martin Joos (ed.), Readings in Linguistics I, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press 1957, pp. 26-31).
• 1927: "Literate and illiterate speech". in: American Speech 2, pp. 432-441.
• 1927: "On Some Rules of Pāṇini". in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 47, pp. 61-70.
• 1928: Menomini Texts. American Ethnological Society Publications 12. New York. ISBN 0-404-58162-5.
• 1930: Sacred stories of the Sweet Grass Cree. National Museum of Canada Bulletin, 60 (Anthropological Series 11). Ottawa. ISBN 0-404-11821-6.
• 1933: Language. New York: Henry Holt and Co. ISBN 0-226-06067-5, ISBN 90-272-1892-7.
• 1935: "Linguistic aspects of science". in: Philosophy of Science 2/4, pp. 499-517.
• 1939: "Menomini morphophonemics". in: Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 8, pp. 105-115.
• 1939: Linguistic aspects of science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• 1942: Outline guide for the practical study of foreign languages. Baltimore.
• 1962: The Menomini language. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• 1970: Charles F. Hockett (ed.), A Leonard Bloomfield Anthology. Indiana University Press.ISBN 0-226-06071-3.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Hall, Robert A. Jr. Leonard Bloomfield: Essays on his life and work. Amsterdam: Benjamins 1987. ISBN 90-272-4530-4.
• Hockett, Charles F.. "Leonard Bloomfield : after fifty years". in: Historiographia linguistica (international journal for the history of the language sciences) 26/3 (1999), pp. 295-311. [1]
• Fought, John G. "Leonard Bloomfield’s linguistic legacy : later uses of some technical features". in: Historiographie linguistica 26/3 (1999), pp. 313-332. [2]
• Manaster Ramer, Alexis. "Ever since Bloomfield". in: Proceedings of the international congress of linguists 15/1 (1992-3), pp. 308-310. [3]

External links

• A biography
• A bibliographic list about Bloomfield's reputation as a linguist in Linguist List website.

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