Morphologische Untersuchungen auf dem Gebiete der indogermanischen Sprachen

A product of the Neogrammarian school, this six-volume work (published 1878–1910) remains an important contribution to Indo-European linguistics.

Hermann Osthoff (Author), Karl Brugmann (Author)

9781108062992, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 February 2014

170 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1 cm, 0.22 kg

Hermann Osthoff (1847–1909) and Karl Brugmann (1849–1919) were central figures in the circle of German scholars who rejected a doctrinal approach to the study of linguistics. They came to be known as the Neogrammarian school. At the core of their work was the theory that European languages, together with a subset of languages found in central and southern Asia, have a common origin in a single prehistoric language. They called this ancestor Indo-Germanic (known today as Indo-European) and claimed that its descendants are all related to one another by varying degrees of closeness. This six-volume elaboration of this thesis was published between 1878 and 1910. In Volume 3 (1880), Brugmann explains the rules for conjugation and focuses particularly on how the aorist tense in Greek, Italian and Celtic is formed. He also gives an account of the vowels a, e and o.

1. Beiträge zur Conjugationslehre
2. Zur Beurtheilung der Vocale 'a, e, o'
3. Lat. quaeso, quaero
4. Die Lautgruppe dentale explosiva + t im Indogermanischen
5. Die siebente Präsenclasse des Arischen.

Subject Areas: Historical & comparative linguistics [CFF]