Old Linguistics and New Linguistics

Abstract

In the history of linguistics, several revolutionary developments in method have occurred, e. g. comparative grammar versus philology, synchronical linguistics versus historical linguistics, phonology versus phonetics, generative transformational grammar versus structural linguistics, etc. It is a peculiar feature of linguistics, however, that the new does not completely invalidate the old, and in the course of time the old and the new turn out to be comlementary.[The presidential inaugural lecture given at the 70 th general meeting of the Society held on 14 June 1975.]