Antoine Meillet

Antoine Meillet
Born	Paul Jules Antoine Meillet (1866-11-11)11 November 1866 Moulins,France
Died	21 September 1936(1936-09-21)(aged 69) Châteaumeillant,France
Nationality	French
Alma mater	University of Paris
Institutions	Collège de France,Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales,
Main interests	Comparative Linguistics,Armenian linguistics,Philology
Notable ideas	Epithets in Homer,Meillet's law

Paul Jules Antoine Meillet(French:[ɑ̃twanmɛjɛ];11 November 1866 – 21 September 1936) was one of the most important French linguists of the early 20th century. He began his studies at theSorbonne University,where he was influenced byMichel Bréal,Ferdinand de Saussure,and the members of theL'Année sociologique.In 1890, he was part of a research trip to theCaucasus,where he studied theArmenian language.After his return, de Saussure had gone back toGenevaso he continued the series of lectures oncomparative linguisticsthat theSwisslinguist had given.

Meillet completed his doctorate,Research on the Use of the Genitive-Accusative in Old Slavonic,in 1897. In 1902, he took a chair in Armenian at theInstitut national des langues et civilisations orientalesand took under his wingHrachia Adjarian,who would become the founder of modernArmenian dialectology.In 1905, he was elected to theCollège de France,where he taught on the history and structure ofIndo-European languages.One of his most-quoted statements is that "anyone wishing to hear howIndo-Europeansspoke should come and listen to aLithuanian peasant".He worked closely with linguistsPaul PelliotandRobert Gauthiot.

Today Meillet is remembered as the mentor of an entire generation of linguists andphilologists,who would become central to French linguistics in the twentieth century, such asÉmile Benveniste,Georges Dumézil,andAndré Martinet.

In 1921, with the help of linguistsPaul BoyerandAndré Mazon,he founded theRevue des études slaves.

Historical linguistics

Today, Meillet is known for his contribution tohistorical linguistics.He is notable for having coined and formalized the concept ofgrammaticalisation(influential but still controversial today) to denote what he viewed as the process of innovation by which autonomous words ended up as "grammatical agents".Subsequent to the further development and popularization of the concept byJerzy Kuryłowiczand further development in the late 20th century, it would become a significant element offunctionalist linguistics.

Homeric studies

At the Sorbonne, from 1924, Meillet supervisedMilman Parry.In 1923, a year before Parry began his studies with Meillet, the latter wrote the following (which, in the first of his two French theses, Parry quotes):

Homeric epic is entirely composed of formulae handed down from poet to poet. An examination of any passage will quickly reveal that it is made up of lines and fragments of lines which are reproduced word for word in one or several other passages. Even those lines of which the parts happen not to recur in any other passage have the same formulaic character, and it is doubtless pure chance that they are not attested elsewhere.

Meillet offered the opinion thatoral-formulaic compositionmight be a distinctive feature of orally transmitted epics (which theIliadwas said to be). He suggested to Parry that he observe the mechanics of a livingoral traditionto confirm whether that suggestion was valid; he also introduced Parry to theSlovenianscholarMatija Murko,who had written extensively about the heroic epic tradition inSerbo-Croatianand particularly inBosniawith the help of phonograph recordings.From Parry's resulting research in Bosnia, the records of which are now housed atHarvard University,he and his studentAlbert LordrevolutionizedHomeric scholarship.

Language controversies

Meillet has been accused of meddling politics with his observation of languages. He had negative views on German and especially on Hungarian. Hungarian, he claimed, was too difficult a language full of loanwords and not capable of being a culture bearer (in a way that he claimed other Finno-Ugric languages were unable to become such). His views on Hungarian provoked a critical response from the Hungarian writerDezső Kosztolányi.

International languages

Meillet supported the use of aninternational auxiliary language.In his bookLa Ricerca della Lingua Perfetta nella Cultura Europea('The Pursuit of the Perfect Language in the Culture of Europe'),Umberto Ecocites Meillet as saying: "Any kind of theoretical discussion is useless,Esperantois functioning ".In addition, Meillet was a consultant with theInternational Auxiliary Language Association,which presentedInterlinguain 1951.

Works

• 1902-05:Études sur l'étymologie et le vocabulaire du vieux slave.Paris, Bouillon.
• 1903:Esquisse d'une grammaire comparée de l'arménien classique.
• 1903:Introduction à l'étude comparative des langues indo-européennes.
• 1908:Les dialectes indo-européens.
• 1913:Aperçu d'une histoire de la langue grecque.
• 1913:Altarmenisches Elementarbuch.
• 1917:Caractères généraux des langues germaniques.(rev. edn. 1949)
• 1921:Linguistique historique et linguistique générale.
• 1923:Les origines indo-européennes des mètres grecs.
• 1924:Les langues du monde(co-editor withMarcel Cohen). (Collection linguistique, 16.) Paris: Champion. (2nd edn. 1952)
• 1924:Le slave commun
• 1928:Esquisse d'une histoire de la langue latine.
• 1925:La méthode comparative en linguistique historique.('The comparative method in historical linguistics' translated by Gordon B. Ford Jr., 1966)
• 1932:Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine.

See also

• Meillet's law
• Pierre Chantraine

References

Bibliography

• Vendryès, Joseph(1937)."Antoine Meillet".Annuaires de l'École pratique des hautes études.70(1): 5–37.doi:10.3406/ephe.1937.3589.

External links

• FrenchWikisourcehas original text related to this article:Antoine Meillet