Holger Pedersen (linguist)
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Holger Pedersen [hʌlg̊ɐ ˈpʰeð̪ˀɐsn̩] was a Danish linguist who made significant contributions to language science and wrote about 30 authoritative works concerning several languages.
He was born in Gelballe, Denmark on April 7, 1867 and died in Copenhagen on October 25, 1953.
Pedersen received his doctorate in 1897 from the University of Copenhagen and stayed on there as a professor.
Among students of the Celtic languages he is best known for his Vergleichende Grammatik der keltischen Sprachen, "Comparative Grammar of the Celtic Languages," which is still regarded as the major reference work in Celtic historical linguistics.
Two of his theories have been receiving considerable attention in recent times after decades of neglect, often known today under the names of the Nostratic/Eurasiatic theory and the glottalic theory.
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[edit] Origin of the glottalic theory
In a work published in 1951, Pedersen pointed out that the frequency of b in Indo-European is abnormally low. Comparison of languages, however, shows that it would be normal if it had once been the equivalent voiceless stop p, which is infrequent or absent in many languages.
He also posited that the Indo-European voiced aspirates, bh dh gh, could be better understood as voiceless aspirates, ph th kh.
Pedersen therefore proposed that the three stop series of Indo-European, p t k, bh dh gh, and b d g, had at an earlier time been b d g, ph th kh, and (p) t k, with the voiceless and voiced non-aspirates reversed.
This theory attracted relatively little attention until the American linguist Paul Hopper (1973) and the two Soviet scholars Thomas V. Gamkrelidze and Vyacheslav V. Ivanov proposed, in a series of articles culminating in a major work by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov published in 1984 (English translation 1995), that the Indo-European b d g series had in fact been originally a glottalized series, p' t' k'. Under this form, the theory has attracted wide interest. There seems to be a good chance that it will endure in one form or another.
[edit] Works of Holger Pedersen mentioned in this article
1903. "Türkische Lautgesetze," in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 57, 535-561.
1909-1913. Vergleichende Grammatik der keltischen Sprachen, 2 volumes. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.
1951. Die gemeinindoeuropäischen und die vorindoeuropäischen Verschlusslaute. Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser 32.5. Copenhagen.
[edit] References
Paul J. Hopper, “Glottalized and murmured occlusives in Indo-European.” Glossa 7,2 (1973):141-166.
Thomas V. Gamkrelidze and Vjačeslav V. Ivanov, Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans, 2 volumes. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1995 (original Russian edition 1984).
[edit] External links
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Pedersen, Holger |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Danish linguist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1867-04-07 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Gelballe, Denmark |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1953-10-25 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Copenhagen |
