Holger Pedersen (linguist)

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Holger Pedersen (pronounced [ˈhʌlɡ̊ɐ ˈpʰeð̪ˀɐsn̩]; April 7, 1867 – October 25, 1953) 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 and died in Copenhagen.

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 principal reference work in Celtic historical linguistics.

His Hittitisch und die anderen indoeuropäischen Sprachen, 'Hittite and the Other Indo-European Languages', represented a significant step forward in Hittite studies, and is often relied on in Friedrich's Hethitisches Elementarbuch (2d ed. 1960), the standard handbook of Hittite.

Also influential was his Tocharisch vom Gesichtspunkt der indoeuropäischen Sprachvergleichung, 'Tocharian from the Viewpoint of Indo-European Language Comparison'. For example, André Martinet (2005:179n) states that his discussion of sound changes in Tocharian is "fondé sur la présentation du tokharien par Holger Pedersen," 'based on the presentation of Tocharian by Holger Pedersen'.

Pedersen formulated the ruki law, an important sound change in Indo-Iranian, Baltic, and Slavic.

Two of Pedersen's theories have been receiving considerable attention in recent times after decades of neglect, often known today under the names of the Nostratic theory and the glottalic theory.

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[edit] Origin of the Nostratic theory

Pedersen seems to have first used the term "Nostratic" in an article on Turkish phonology published in 1903.

English "Nostratic" is the normal equivalent of German Nostratisch, the form used by Pedersen in 1903, and Danish nostratisk. His 1931 American translator rendered nostratisk by "Nostratian," but this form did not catch on.

Pedersen's definition of Nostratic is as follows (1931:338):

As a comprehensive designation for the families of languages which are related to Indo-European, we may employ the expression Nostratian languages (from Latin nostrās "our countryman").

In his view, Indo-European was most clearly related to Finno-Ugric and Samoyed, with "similar, though fainter, resemblances" to Turkish, Mongolian, and Manchu; to Yukaghir; and to Eskimo (1931:338). He also considered Indo-European might be related to Semitic and that, if so, it must be related to Hamitic and possibly to Basque (ib.).

In modern terms, we would say he was positing genetic relationship between Indo-European and the Uralic, Altaic, Yukaghir, Eskimo, and Afro-Asiatic language families. (The existence of the Altaic family is controversial, and few would now assign Basque to Afro-Asiatic.)

However, in Pedersen's view the languages listed did not exhaust the possibilities for Nostratic (ib.):

The boundaries for the Nostratian world of languages cannot yet be determined, but the area is enormous, and includes such widely divergent races that one becomes almost dizzy at the thought. (...) The question remains simply whether sufficient material can be collected to give this inclusion flesh and blood and a good clear outline.

[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 originally been 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.

1924. Sprogvidenskaben i det Nittende Aarhundrede. Metoder og Resulteter. København: Gyldendalske Boghandel.

1931. Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century: Methods and Results, translated from the Danish by John Webster Spargo. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. English translation of the previous.

1938. Hittitisch und die anderen indoeuropäischen Sprachen. Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser 25.2. København.

1941. Tocharisch vom Gesichtspunkt der indoeuropäischen Sprachvergleichung. København: Ejnar Munksgaard. (Second edition 1949.)

1951. Die gemeinindoeuropäischen und die vorindoeuropäischen Verschlusslaute. Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser 32.5. København.

[edit] References

Johannes Friedrich, Hethitisches Elementarbuch, second edition, 2 volumes. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1960.

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).

André Martinet, Economie des changements phonétiques. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2005 (revised edition; original edition 1955).

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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