The background to the linguistic conceptions of Bopp

Abstract

Linguistics has to complete itself by a continual self-criticism concerning its principles, c.q. pre-conceptions. There is a growing tendency nowadays in the direction of these “vertical” investigations, though in history of linguistics this is an exception. Bopp, the inaugurator of Comparative Linguistics, delivers a specimen of — seemingly — most unbiased scholarship, without any pre-conception at all. A fresh inquiry has been made here into the origin of Bopp's fundamental views, firstly by analysing Bopp's theories to find the characteristic features, secondly by attempting to locate these traits in a spiritual bend or a philosophic movement of his time. Have had to pass in review: the Schlegels and Grimm (Romanticism), von Humboldt (Kantianism), the Dutch Graecists and the French writers of grammaires générales (Enlightenment) — upon whom some new light may have been shed. Finally, to all appearance, Bopp's principles fit in with the mathematical Rationalism, the greatest and last exponent of which is the linguist-philosopher Leibniz.