Berthold Delbrück – författare

The famous scholar of Indo-European syntax Berthold Delbrück (1842-1922) published this study of Sanskrit syntax in 1888. It focuses on the stage of the language that was termed 'Vedic' by the Indian grammarian Panini (c. 400 BCE). Delbrück's intention was to describe that material as clearly and thoroughly as possible in order to facilitate future comparative or in-depth studies. The book begins with chapters devoted to basic sentence structure and word order, before moving on to number, gender, case, declension of nouns, and then adjectives, adverbs, pronouns and verbs with their tenses, moods and conjugations. Prepositions and particles follow, and the book ends with discussion of subordinate clauses and other complex structures. The grammatical points are illustrated by numerous text examples, with references and translations into German, and there are thorough indexes of words and of textual passages cited.

Karl Brugmann originally intended to include a volume on syntax in his comparative grammar of Indo-European, but as that ambitious project expanded, he and his publisher enlisted Berthold Delbrück (1842-1922) to take on the treatment of syntax. Delbrück's three volumes on inflection and phrase and sentence structure appeared between 1893 and 1900 and remain the fullest treatment of Indo-European syntax to this day. In this, his first volume, Delbrück gives an overview of the prevailing academic positions in the field of Indo-European comparative syntax of his day. He applies the Neogrammarian methodology used by Brugmann, and meticulously presents data relating to nouns, the case system, adjectives, pronouns, numerals, adverbs and prepositions, giving particular attention to the ablative and the dative in a number of Indo-European languages.

Karl Brugmann originally intended to include a volume on syntax in his comparative grammar of Indo-European, but as that ambitious project expanded, he and his publisher enlisted Berthold Delbrück (1842-1922) to take on the treatment of syntax. Delbrück's three volumes on inflection and phrase and sentence structure appeared between 1893 and 1900 and remain the fullest treatment of Indo-European syntax to this day. His second volume, published in 1897, is devoted to the verb. Delbrück, while referring to work by other linguists, largely relies on his own research. He pays particular attention to Greek and Sanskrit, but also discusses other sub-families including Germanic, Italic and Slavic. The volume provides thorough coverage of tense, mood, infinitives and participles.

Karl Brugmann originally intended to include a volume on syntax in his comparative grammar of Indo-European, but as that ambitious project expanded, he and his publisher enlisted Berthold Delbrück (1842-1922) to take on the treatment of syntax. Delbrück's three volumes on inflection and phrase and sentence structure appeared between 1893 and 1900 and remain the fullest treatment of Indo-European syntax to this day. In this final volume, Delbrück again explains that he has not treated the full range of Indo-European languages, nor tried to explain how the attested forms and usages arose. Even so, Delbrück marshalls an impressive range of material as he discusses a comprehensive range of structures from apposition and simple questions to complex sentences involving co-ordination and subordination. The volume ends with thorough indexes of words (100 pages), subjects, literary references, and authors to all three volumes on syntax.

In 1876 the Leipzig publisher Breitkopf und Härtel launched a series on Indo-European languages entitled 'Bibliothek Indogermanischer Grammatiken'. The first three volumes covered phonology, Greek and Sanskrit. This short introduction to the comparative method, published in 1880, was the fourth. It was highly successful, with six editions appearing between 1880 and 1919. Its author, Berthold Delbrück (1842-1922), Professor of Sanskrit at Jena, was a former student of the pioneering Indo-Europeanist Franz Bopp. Delbrück expanded the horizons of the field to cover syntax as well as phonology and morphology; his magisterial studies of Sanskrit and Indo-European syntax (also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection) appeared between 1886 and 1900. This book, designed as a guide for readers of the Breitkopf series, includes a fascinating history of Indo-European philology from its founding fathers Jones and Bopp through Humboldt, Schleicher and Curtius to Delbrück's own time, and outlines the most recent developments.

In this 1901 work, Berthold Delbrück (1842-1922), who is famous for his contribution to the study of the syntax in Indo-European languages, focuses on Wilhelm Wundt's understanding of speech. Wundt (1832-1920), often referred to as the 'father of experimental psychology', held that language was one of the most important aspects of mental processing. In order to account for Wundt's theories on the nature of the soul, and his belief that emotion and perception are acts of experience rather than objects, Delbrück compares Wundt's theories with those of psychologist and educationalist J. F. Herbart (1776-1841). Delbrück also pays attention to the explanation of such topics as the hand gestures used by actors (and the people of Naples), the sentence structure of the German language, and onomatopoeia, though he emphasises that he has not addressed those elements in Wundt's works which are founded in psychology rather than in grammar.