Dialogue on Time in Language and Literature

Abstract

K.P. In one of your recent synoptic surveys discussing the tasks of the science of language among other contemporary sciences, in Scientific American 1972, you made a brief outline of the history of linguistics and touched upon the doctrine of the Young Grammarians. Their methodology actually amounted to nothing more than a history of language. Overcoming the Young Grammarian doctrine, which had been prevalent for some time, was one of de Saussure's achievements. However, in his Cours de linguistique gdnerale he again reduced the task of studying the language and system to one aspect only, that of static synchrony. Both approaches the historicism of the Young Grammarians and the static program of de Saussure were evidently onesided. How could one overcome this limitation?