1.3. Neogrammarian movement

The ideas of neogrammarians were the secons breakthrough in the development of comparative linguistics. Neogrammarians rejected the approach to historical studies used by comparativists of the first half of the XIXth century as for the superiority of inner structure of a language in the process of its change. They considered the necessity of the introduction of new methodological principles for language change study. They supposed that the process of language change is concerned with the psychological aspects of the speech process, so, the study of language change is impossible without considering them.

The innovative ideas of belonged to August Leskien and Wilhelm Scherer. One of their ideas was the concept of sound change without exception, which became the central postulate of the neogrammarians. The neogrammarian principles were elaborated by Karl Brugmann (1849-1919) and had a lot of other followers: Eduard Sievers, Karl Verner, Herman Paul, etc.

The neogrammarian principles are:

1) language is not a thing which leads a life of its own outside of and above human beings, its true existence is only in the individual, hence all changes in the life of a language proceed from the individual speaker;

2) the mental and physical activity of man must have been at all times the same when he acquired a language inherited from his forefathers, reproduced and modified the speech forms which had been absorbed into his consciousness.

Based on this twofold concept, the two most important neogrammarian rules are as follows:

1. Every sound change takes place according to laws that admit no exception. That is, if the sound change occurs, its direction is the same for all members of linguistic community.

2. New linguistic forms are created by analogy in any period of language development.

The declared by neogrammarian principles grounded on the study of the human speech mechanism as well as grammatical formalism of comparativists were two extremes which bore fruitful ideas, but could not be successful without each other, but needed their reasonable combination, as far as both sides of the process of language change should be analyzed in detail in order to obtained reliable results.

1.4. Methods of historical linguistics

As far as modern historical linguistics aims at the study of phonological, grammatical and semantic changes, at reconstructing earlier stages of language change and defining genetic relationship between languages, the corresponding methods of analysis are applied.

Among the methods of historical linguistics we can come across general scientific methods of synthesis, analysis, comparative analysis, etc. But there are as well those which are used specifically by historical linguistics. To them belong, for example, the methods of synchronic and diachronic analyses.

Synchrony is one of the approaches to view linguistic phenomena which analyzes them only at one point in time, usually the present, though a synchronic analysis of a historical language form is also possible. Synchrony (from Greek syn together and chronos time) is a conventional isolation of a certain stage in the development of a language as an object of linguistic investigation. Synchronic analysis can be made of both living and dead languages. In synchronic analysis one layer, or stage in language evolution is investigated.

Diachrony is the approach to the analysis of language which regards a phenomenon in terms of developments through time. Diachrony (from Greek dia through and chronos lime) deals with the study of language change over a period of time. Diachronic analysis is based on at least two synchronic layers.

For example, synchronically we can study the English language of the XIth century as a separate stage. This stage can be included into diachronic investigation together with other stages – XIIth, XIIIth, etc. centuries. The dichotomy of diachrony and synchrony within language system was postulated by a Swiss philologist Ferdinand de Saussure (1852 - 1913).

Other methods include the method of diachronic reconstruction, which can be applied to different linguistic material and be differentiated into:

a) comparative reconstruction, which is based on the comparison of genetically related elements from cognate languages and dialects of the same language;

b) internal reconstruction, based on the comparison of genetically and structurally related elements from the same language and the same dialect;

c) external reconstruction, which is based on information on the contacts of analyzed language with others.

The method of reconstruction can rely on graphic data as well, it is called the method of graphic reconstruction.

Some other specific of historical linguistics methods were elaborated. To them belong, for example, the method of lexicostatistics, worked out by M.Swadesh in the frames of his theory of glottochronology (Swadesh), which, as he supposed, could be applied in order to define the precise period of splitting of genetically related languages and the type of their relatedness. He used the notion of core vocabulary in his method. But, later, the method was strongly criticized.

New stages in the development of general linguistic science affected the advancement of historical linguistics as well by the introduction of new methodology. Thus, the new methods of synchronic linguistics appeared in the frames of structuralism of the the XXth century, that actually separated historical linguistics from general linguistics. Some other methods also were successfully integrated into a diachronic study, such as the methods of cognitive analysis, of diachronic prototypical semantics (e.g. Geeraerts 1996???) and others.