Berthold Gustav Gottlieb Delbrück (; 26 July 1842 – 3 January 1922) was a German linguist who devoted himself to the study of the comparative
syntax
In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...
of the
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
.
Early life
Delbrück was born in
Putbus
Putbus () is a town on the southeastern coast of the island of Rügen, in the county of Vorpommern-Rügen in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, close to the Baltic Sea. The town has 4,741 inhabitants and is a significant tourist destinat ...
. He studied at the universities of
Halle and
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
, receiving his doctorate at Halle in 1863. In 1870 he succeeded
August Leskien
August Leskien (; 8 July 1840 – 20 September 1916) was a German linguist active in the field of comparative linguistics, particularly relating to the Baltic and Slavic languages.
Biography
Leskien was born in Kiel. He studied philology at the ...
as an associate professor at the
University of Jena
The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (german: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany.
The un ...
, where in 1873 he was named a full professor of
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
and
comparative linguistics
Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness.
Genetic relatedness ...
.
Career
![Jena Nordfriedhof Delbrück](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Jena_Nordfriedhof_Delbr%C3%BCck.jpg)
In 1871 he published a study of the
subjunctive
The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality ...
and
optative moods in Sanskrit and Greek, which was the first thoroughly methodical and complete treatment of a problem in comparative syntax. His great achievement, however, was preparing volumes iii, iv, and v on syntax entitled ''Vergleichende Syntax der indogermanischen Sprachen'' in ''
'' ("Outline of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-Germanic Languages"), published in Strassburg between 1893 and 1900 by Delbrück and
Karl Brugmann
Karl Brugmann (16 March 1849 – 29 June 1919) was a German linguist. He is noted for his work in Indo-European linguistics.
Biography
He was educated at the universities of Halle and Leipzig. He taught at the gymnasium at Wiesbaden and at Le ...
. He died in
Jena
Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a popu ...
, aged 79.
Works
Besides the works mentioned, he wrote:
* ''Grundfragen der Sprachforschung'' (1901).
* ''Einleitung in das Sprachstudium'' (3rd edition, 1893; English translation
''Introduction to the study of language''(1882).
* ''Syntaktische Forschungen'', vols. i.–v. (1871–88); with
Ernst Windisch
Ernst Wilhelm Oskar Windisch (4 September 1844, Dresden30 October 1918, Leipzig) was a German classical philologist and comparative linguist who specialised in Sanskrit, Celtic and Indo-European studies.
In his student days at the University of L ...
.
Berthold Delbrück
de.Wikisource (bibliography)
Notes
References
*
1842 births
1922 deaths
People from Vorpommern-Rügen
Linguists from Germany
Historical linguists
Linguists of Indo-European languages
University of Halle alumni
Humboldt University of Berlin alumni
Academic staff of the University of Jena
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