1961/03/01 by W. P. Lehmann · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · #Lexicography and Language Studies #Linguistics and language evolution #Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity #Germanic languages #Linguistics #North Germanic languages #History #Philosophy #German
paper · doi:10.2307/411250
openalex publication_date 1961/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
It may seem obvious that when we set out to write a grammar of a language, the definition of that language is one of our first tasks. Further, that since we are dealing with language, the criteria used in our definition should be linguistic. These criteria should delimit the language geographically, that is, from other languages, and chronologically, that is, from earlier and later stages of the same language. Yet in spite of these minimum requirements for an adequate definition, our handbooks are not precise in their definitions or explicit in regard to criteria used for the definitions they give.