Stephen Ullmann (; 31 July 1914 – 10 January 1976) was a Hungarian

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

who spent most of his life in England and wrote about style and

semantics Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...

in Romance and common languages.

Biography

Born in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

, Ullmann achieved degrees from

Eötvös Loránd University Eötvös Loránd University (, ELTE, also known as ''University of Budapest'') is a Hungarian public research university based in Budapest. Founded in 1635, ELTE is one of the largest and most prestigious public higher education institutions in ...

(otherwise known as the University of Budapest) and the

University of Glasgow The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...

Academic career

After working for the BBC Monitoring Service during the Second World War, Ullmann gained an appointment as lecturer in

Philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

and

Linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

at the University of Glasgow in 1946. He was promoted to a senior lectureship in 1950, after having graduated DLitt on 5 November 1949 with the thesis titled "The Principles of Semantics" which had a profound influence on the Linguistics field. Ullmann later taught at the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

where he was

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

French Language French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-R ...

and Romance

from 1953 to 1968, and at

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

. In 1974 he spent five months as a visitor at the Australian National University's department of Romance languages, where he lectured on "Words and their meanings". Ullmann's ideas on semantics are said to be backed up by a wealth of published materials from across Europe. In addition, his works were translated into a variety of languages, such as French, Russian, Japanese and Spanish

Death

On 10 January 1976 Ullmann suffered a heart attack while walking home in his home town of Kidlington and died on the same day. He was described by ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' as 'one of the most eminent Romance philologists this country has ever known'.

Publications

*''The Principles of Semantics'' (1951) *''Words and Their Use'' (1951) *''Précis de Sémantique Française'' (1952) *''Semantics: An Introduction to the Science of Meaning'' (1962) *''Language and Style'' (1964) *''Meaning and Style'' (1973)

References

External links

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Biography
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Linguists from the United Kingdom Budapest University alumni Hungarian expatriates in England Writers from Budapest 1914 births 1976 deaths Academics of the University of Leeds 20th-century Hungarian linguists Academics of the University of Glasgow Alumni of the University of Glasgow Hungarian expatriates in Scotland {{Hungary-academic-bio-stub