2024/06/07 by Hurch, Bernhard
paper · doi:10.25364/04.50:2024.95.2
The work of medical scientists, especially physiologists, played a decisive role in the development of linguistic phonetics as an independent discipline in the middle of the 19th century. Many of the concepts and definitions developed at that time have remained valid to this day and laid, moreover, the foundations for the study of principles of phonology. For a long time, linguists felt strong reservations about this supposedly unrelated branch of research. Taking as a starting point the work of Ernst Brücke (from 1849), the article is dedicated to this 'natural' basis for the description of sounds and sound systems and evaluates how Hugo Schuchardt in particular participated in this development. Together with the Graz physiologist A. Rollett, Schuchardt carried out phonetic experiments and later also palatographic studies on his own. By shedding light on this episode of his research, the picture of Schuchardt is enriched by a new facet of empirical studies. His perspectives on phonetics, although never leading to a specifically (experimental) phonetic publication, become clearer through the very detailed description and argumentation he provides in this text. Some of the correspondence also illustrates Schuchardt's projects that were ultimately not realized or at least not that he actively participated not only in the phonetic discussion, but also taking a sound-system point of view concerning principles of the emerging field of phonology.