Leonard Bloomfield
Encyclopedia
Leonard Bloomfield was an American
linguist who led the development of structural linguistics
in the United States
during the 1930s and the 1940s. His influential textbook Language, published in 1933, presented a comprehensive description of American structural linguistics. He made significant contributions to Indo-European historical linguistics, the description of Austronesian languages
, and description of languages of the Algonquian
family.
Bloomfield's approach to linguistics was characterized by its emphasis on the scientific
basis of linguistics, adherence to behaviorism
especially in his later work, and emphasis on formal procedures for the analysis of linguistic data. The influence of Bloomfieldian structural linguistics declined in the late 1950s and 1960s as the theory of Generative Grammar
developed by Noam Chomsky
came to predominate.
, Illinois
on April 1, 1887. His father Sigmund Bloomfield immigrated to the United States
as a child in 1868; the original family name Blumenfeld was changed to Bloomfield after their arrival in the United States. In 1896 his family moved to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin
, where he attended elementary school, but returned to Chicago for secondary school. His uncle Maurice Bloomfield
was a prominent linguist at Johns Hopkins University
, and his aunt Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler
was a well-known concert pianist.
Bloomfield attended Harvard College
from 1903 to 1906, graduating with the A.B.
degree. He subsequently began graduate work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
, taking courses in German
and Germanic philology
, in addition to courses in other Indo-European languages. A meeting with Indo-Europeanist Eduard Prokosch
, a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin, convinced Bloomfield to pursue a career in linguistics. In 1908 Bloomfield moved to the University of Chicago
where he took courses in German and Indo-European philology with Frances A. Wood and Carl Darling Buck
. His doctoral dissertation in Germanic
historical linguistics was supervised by Wood, and he graduated in 1909. He undertook further studies at the University of Leipzig
and the University of Göttingen in 1913 and 1914 with leading Indo-Europeanists August Leskien
, Karl Brugmann
, as well as Hermann Oldenberg
, a specialist in Vedic Sanskrit
. Bloomfield also studied at Göttingen with Sanskrit specialist Jacob Wackernagel
, and considered both Wackernagel and the Sanskrit grammatical tradition of rigorous grammatical analysis associated with Pāṇini as important influences on both his historical and descriptive work. Further training in Europe was a condition for promotion at the University of Illinois from Instructor to the rank of Assistant Professor.
at the University of Cincinnati
, 1909–1910; Instructor in German at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
, 1910–1913; Assistant Professor of Comparative Philology and German, also University of Illinois, 1913–1921; Professor of German and Linguistics at the Ohio State University
, 1921–1927; Professor of Germanic Philology at the University of Chicago
, 1927–1940; Sterling Professor
of Linguistics at Yale University
, 1940-1949. During the summer of 1925 Bloomfield worked as Assistant Ethnologist with the Geological Survey of Canada in the Canadian Department of Mines, undertaking linguistic field work on Plains Cree
; this position was arranged by Edward Sapir
, who was then Chief of the Division of Anthropology, Victoria Museum, Geological Survey of Canada, Canadian Department of Mines.
Bloomfield was one of the founding members of the Linguistic Society of America
. In 1924, along with George M. Bolling (Ohio State University) and Edgar Sturtevant
(Yale University) he formed a committee to organize the creation of the Society, and drafted the call for the Society's foundation. He contributed the lead article to the inaugural issue of the Society's journal Language
, and was President of the Society in 1935. He taught in the Society's summer Linguistic Institute in 1938-1941, with the 1938-1940 Institutes being held in Ann Arbor, Michigan
, and the 1941 Institute in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
.
tradition, which still dominated Indo-European historical studies. Bloomfield throughout his career, but particularly during his early career, emphasized the Neogrammarian principle of regular sound change
as a foundational concept in historical linguistics.
Bloomfield's work in Indo-European beyond his dissertation was limited to an article on palatal consonants in Sanskrit and one article on the Sanskrit grammatical tradition associated with Pāṇini, in addition to a number of book reviews. Bloomfield made extensive use of Indo-European materials to explain historical and comparative principles in both of his textbooks, An introduction to language (1914), and his seminal Language (1933). In his textbooks he selected Indo-European examples that supported the key Neogrammarian hypothesis of the regularity of sound change, and emphasized a sequence of steps essential to success in comparative work: (a) appropriate data in the form of texts which must be studied intensively and analysed; (b) application of the comparative method
; (c) reconstruction of proto-forms. He further emphasized the importance of dialect studies
where appropriate, and noted the significance of sociological factors such as prestige, and the impact of meaning. In addition to regular linguistic change, Bloomfield also allowed for borrowing and analogy
.
It is argued that Bloomfield's Indo-European work had two broad implications: "He stated clearly the theoretical bases for Indo-European linguistics..."; and "...he established the study of Indo-European languages firmly within general linguistics...."
during the sixth century B.C. Pāṇini's grammar is characterized by its extreme thoroughness and explicitness in accounting for Sanskrit linguistic forms. Bloomfield noted that "Pāṇini gives the formation of every inflected, compounded, or derived word, with an exact statement of the sound-variations (including accent) and of the meaning." In a letter to Algonquianist Truman Michelson, Bloomfield noted "My models are Pāṇini and the kind of work done in Indo-European by my teacher, Professor Wackernagel of Basle."
Pāṇini's systematic approach to analysis includes components for: (a) forming grammatical rules, (b) an inventory of sounds, (c) a list of verbal roots organized into sublists, and (d) a list of classes of morphs
. Bloomfield's approach to key linguistic ideas in his textbook Language reflect the influence of Pāṇini in his treatment of basic concepts such as linguistic form, free form, and others. Similarly, Pāṇini is the source for Bloomfield's use of the terms exocentric and endocentric used to describe compound
words. Concepts from Pāṇini are found in Eastern Ojibwa, published posthumously in 1958, in particular his use of the concept of a morphological zero
, a morpheme
that has no overt realization. Pāṇini's influence is also present in Bloomfield's approach to determining parts of speech
(Bloomfield uses the term 'form-classes') in both Eastern Ojibwa and in the later Menomini language, published posthumously in 1962.
, an Austronesian
language spoken in the Philippines
. He carried out linguistic field work with Alfredo Viola Santiago, who was an engineering student at the university from 1914-1917. The results were published as Tagalog texts with grammatical analysis, which includes a series of texts dictated by Santiago in addition to an extensive grammatical description and analysis of every word in the texts. Bloomfield’s work on Tagalog, from the beginning of field research to publication, took no more than two years. His study of Tagalog has been described as “…the best treatment of any Austronesian language…The result is a description of Tagalog which has never been surpassed for completeness, accuracy, and wealth of exemplification.”
Bloomfield's only other publication on an Austronesian language was an article on the syntax
of Ilocano
, based upon research undertaken with a native speaker of Ilocano who was a student at Yale University. This article has been described as a "…tour de force, for it covers in less than seven pages the entire taxonomic syntax of Ilocano."
and comparative
components. He published extensively on four Algonquian languages: Fox
, Cree
, Menominee
, and Ojibwe
, publishing grammars, lexicons, and text collections. Bloomfield used the materials collected in his descriptive work to undertake comparative studies leading to the reconstruction of Proto-Algonquian
, with an early study reconstructing the sound system
of Proto-Algonqian, and a subsequent more extensive paper refining his phonological analysis and adding extensive historical information on general features of Algonquian grammar.
Bloomfield undertook field research on Cree, Menominee, and Ojibwe, and analysed the material in previously published Fox text collections. His first Algonquian research, beginning around 1919, involved study of text collections in the Fox language that had been published by William Jones
and Truman Michelson
. Working through the texts in these collections, Bloomfield excerpted grammatical information to create a grammatical sketch of Fox. A lexicon of Fox based on his excerpted material was published posthumously.
Bloomfield undertook field research on Menominee in the summers of 1920 and 1921, with further brief field research in September 1939 and intermittent visits from Menominee speakers in Chicago in the late 1930s, in addition to correspondence with speakers during the same period. Material collected by Morris Swadesh
in 1937 and 1938, often in response to specific queries from Bloomfield, supplemented his information. Significant publications include a collection of texts, a grammar and a lexicon (both published posthumously), in addition to a theoretically significant article on Menomini phonological alternations.
Bloomfield undertook field research in 1925 among Plains Cree speakers in Saskatchewan
at the Sweet Grass
reserve, and also at the Star Blanket reserve, resulting in two volumes of texts and a posthumous lexicon. He also undertook brief field work on Swampy Cree
at The Pas, Manitoba
. Bloomfield's work on Swampy Cree provided data to support the predictive power of the hypothesis of exceptionless phonological change.
Bloomfield's initial research on Ojibwe was through study of texts collected by William Jones, in addition to nineteenth century grammars and dictionaries. During the 1938 Linguistic Society of America Linguistic Institute held at the University of Michigan
in Ann Arbor, Michigan
, he taught a field methods class with Andrew Medler, a speaker of the Ottawa
dialect who was born in Saginaw, Michigan
but spent most of his life on Walpole Island
, Ontario
. The resulting grammatical description, transcribed sentences, texts, and lexicon were published posthumously in a single volume. In 1941 Bloomfield worked with Ottawa dialect speaker Angeline Williams at the 1941 Linguistic Institute held at the University of North Carolina
in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
, resulting in a posthumously published volume of texts.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
linguist who led the development of structural linguistics
Structural Linguistics
Structural linguistics is an approach to linguistics originating from the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. De Saussure's Course in General Linguistics, published posthumously in 1916, stressed examining language as a static system of interconnected units...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
during the 1930s and the 1940s. His influential textbook Language, published in 1933, presented a comprehensive description of American structural linguistics. He made significant contributions to Indo-European historical linguistics, the description of Austronesian languages
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
, and description of languages of the Algonquian
Algonquian languages
The Algonquian languages also Algonkian) are a subfamily of Native American languages which includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is a...
family.
Bloomfield's approach to linguistics was characterized by its emphasis on the scientific
Scientific method
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...
basis of linguistics, adherence to behaviorism
Behaviorism
Behaviorism , also called the learning perspective , is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms do—including acting, thinking, and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors, and that psychological disorders are best treated by altering behavior...
especially in his later work, and emphasis on formal procedures for the analysis of linguistic data. The influence of Bloomfieldian structural linguistics declined in the late 1950s and 1960s as the theory of Generative Grammar
Generative grammar
In theoretical linguistics, generative grammar refers to a particular approach to the study of syntax. A generative grammar of a language attempts to give a set of rules that will correctly predict which combinations of words will form grammatical sentences...
developed by Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
came to predominate.
Early life and education
Bloomfield was born in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
on April 1, 1887. His father Sigmund Bloomfield immigrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
as a child in 1868; the original family name Blumenfeld was changed to Bloomfield after their arrival in the United States. In 1896 his family moved to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin
Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin
Elkhart Lake is a village in Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, United States, located within the northwestern part of the county within the Town of Rhine. The population was 1,021 at the 2000 census. It is included in the Sheboygan, Wisconsin Metropolitan Statistical Area...
, where he attended elementary school, but returned to Chicago for secondary school. His uncle Maurice Bloomfield
Maurice Bloomfield
Maurice Bloomfield, Ph. D., LL.D. was an American philologist and Sanskrit scholar.-Biography:Bloomfield was born in Bielitz , in what was at that time Austrian Silesia...
was a prominent linguist at Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
, and his aunt Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler
Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler
Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler was an Austrian-born U.S. pianist.- Biography :Zeisler was born Fannie Blumenfeld on July 16, 1863, in Bielitz, Austrian Silesia. She emigrated to the United States with her family at the age of 4 in 1867. The family settled in Chicago, Illinois where they later changed...
was a well-known concert pianist.
Bloomfield attended Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
from 1903 to 1906, graduating with the A.B.
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
degree. He subsequently began graduate work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
, taking courses in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and Germanic philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
, in addition to courses in other Indo-European languages. A meeting with Indo-Europeanist Eduard Prokosch
Eduard Prokosch
Eduard Prokosch, was a historical linguist who specialized in Indo-European and, specifically, Proto-Germanic studies. He was the father of Frederic Prokosch....
, a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin, convinced Bloomfield to pursue a career in linguistics. In 1908 Bloomfield moved to the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
where he took courses in German and Indo-European philology with Frances A. Wood and Carl Darling Buck
Carl Darling Buck
Carl Darling Buck , born in Bucksport, Maine, was an American philologist.-Biography:He graduated from Yale in 1886, was a graduate student there for three years, and studied at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and in Leipzig .In 1892 he became professor of Sanskrit and...
. His doctoral dissertation in Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
historical linguistics was supervised by Wood, and he graduated in 1909. He undertook further studies at the University of Leipzig
University of Leipzig
The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...
and the University of Göttingen in 1913 and 1914 with leading Indo-Europeanists August Leskien
August Leskien
August Leskien was a German linguist active in the field of comparative linguistics, particularly relating to the Baltic and Slavic languages.-Biography:...
, Karl Brugmann
Karl Brugmann
Karl Brugmann was a German linguist. He is a towering figure in Indo-European linguistics.-Biography:He was educated at Halle and Leipzig. He was instructor in the gymnasium at Wiesbaden and at Leipzig, and in 1872-77 was assistant at the Russian Institute of Classical Philology at the latter place...
, as well as Hermann Oldenberg
Hermann Oldenberg
Hermann Oldenberg was a German scholar of Indology, and Professor at Kiel and Göttingen .His 1881 study on Buddhism, entitled Buddha: Sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde, based on Pāli texts, popularized Buddhism and have remained continuously in print since their first publication. With T. W...
, a specialist in Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit is an old Indo-Aryan language. It is an archaic form of Sanskrit, an early descendant of Proto-Indo-Iranian. It is closely related to Avestan, the oldest preserved Iranian language...
. Bloomfield also studied at Göttingen with Sanskrit specialist Jacob Wackernagel
Jacob Wackernagel
Jacob Wackernagel was an Indo-Europeanist and scholar of Sanskrit. He was born in Basel, son of the philologist Wilhelm Wackernagel.He studied classical and Germanic philology and history in...
, and considered both Wackernagel and the Sanskrit grammatical tradition of rigorous grammatical analysis associated with Pāṇini as important influences on both his historical and descriptive work. Further training in Europe was a condition for promotion at the University of Illinois from Instructor to the rank of Assistant Professor.
Career
Bloomfield was Instructor in GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
at the University of Cincinnati
University of Cincinnati
The University of Cincinnati is a comprehensive public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a part of the University System of Ohio....
, 1909–1910; Instructor in German at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
, 1910–1913; Assistant Professor of Comparative Philology and German, also University of Illinois, 1913–1921; Professor of German and Linguistics at the Ohio State University
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
, 1921–1927; Professor of Germanic Philology at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, 1927–1940; Sterling Professor
Sterling Professor
A Sterling Professorship is the highest academic rank at Yale University, awarded to a tenured faculty member considered one of the best in his or her field...
of Linguistics at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, 1940-1949. During the summer of 1925 Bloomfield worked as Assistant Ethnologist with the Geological Survey of Canada in the Canadian Department of Mines, undertaking linguistic field work on Plains Cree
Plains Cree language
Plains Cree is a dialect of the Algonquian language, Cree, which is the most common Canadian indigenous language. Plains Cree is sometimes considered a dialect of the Cree-Montagnais language, or sometimes a dialect of the Cree language, distinct from the Montagnais language...
; this position was arranged by Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the early development of the discipline of linguistics....
, who was then Chief of the Division of Anthropology, Victoria Museum, Geological Survey of Canada, Canadian Department of Mines.
Bloomfield was one of the founding members of the Linguistic Society of America
Linguistic Society of America
The Linguistic Society of America is a professional society for linguists. It was founded in 1924 to advance linguistics, the scientific study of human language. The LSA has over 5,000 individual members and welcomes linguists of all kinds. It works to advance the discipline and to communicate...
. In 1924, along with George M. Bolling (Ohio State University) and Edgar Sturtevant
Edgar H. Sturtevant
-Biography:Sturtevant was born in Jacksonville, Illinois, the older brother of Alfred Sturtevant. He studied at the University of Chicago receiving there in 1901 a Ph.D. with a dissertation on Latin case forms. He became an assistant professor of classical philology at Columbia University in New...
(Yale University) he formed a committee to organize the creation of the Society, and drafted the call for the Society's foundation. He contributed the lead article to the inaugural issue of the Society's journal Language
Language (journal)
Language is a peer-reviewed quarterly academic journal published by the Linguistic Society of America since 1925. It covers all aspects of linguistics, focusing on the area of theoretical linguistics...
, and was President of the Society in 1935. He taught in the Society's summer Linguistic Institute in 1938-1941, with the 1938-1940 Institutes being held in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2010 census places the population at 113,934, making it the sixth largest city in Michigan. The Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 344,791 as of 2010...
, and the 1941 Institute in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill is a town in Orange County, North Carolina, United States and the home of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC Health Care...
.
Indo-European linguistics
Bloomfield's earliest work was in historical Germanic studies, beginning with his dissertation, and continuing with a number of papers on Indo-European and Germanic phonology and morphology. His post-doctoral studies in Germany further strengthened his expertise in the NeogrammarianNeogrammarian
The Neogrammarians were a German school of linguists, originally at the University of Leipzig, in the late 19th century who proposed the Neogrammarian hypothesis of the regularity of sound change...
tradition, which still dominated Indo-European historical studies. Bloomfield throughout his career, but particularly during his early career, emphasized the Neogrammarian principle of regular sound change
Sound change
Sound change includes any processes of language change that affect pronunciation or sound system structures...
as a foundational concept in historical linguistics.
Bloomfield's work in Indo-European beyond his dissertation was limited to an article on palatal consonants in Sanskrit and one article on the Sanskrit grammatical tradition associated with Pāṇini, in addition to a number of book reviews. Bloomfield made extensive use of Indo-European materials to explain historical and comparative principles in both of his textbooks, An introduction to language (1914), and his seminal Language (1933). In his textbooks he selected Indo-European examples that supported the key Neogrammarian hypothesis of the regularity of sound change, and emphasized a sequence of steps essential to success in comparative work: (a) appropriate data in the form of texts which must be studied intensively and analysed; (b) application of the comparative method
Comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor, as opposed to the method of internal reconstruction, which analyzes the internal...
; (c) reconstruction of proto-forms. He further emphasized the importance of dialect studies
Dialectology
Dialectology is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their associated features...
where appropriate, and noted the significance of sociological factors such as prestige, and the impact of meaning. In addition to regular linguistic change, Bloomfield also allowed for borrowing and analogy
Comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor, as opposed to the method of internal reconstruction, which analyzes the internal...
.
It is argued that Bloomfield's Indo-European work had two broad implications: "He stated clearly the theoretical bases for Indo-European linguistics..."; and "...he established the study of Indo-European languages firmly within general linguistics...."
Sanskrit studies
As part of his training with leading Indo-Europeanists in Germany in 1913-1914 Bloomfield studied the Sanskrit grammatical tradition originating with Pāṇini, who lived in northwestern IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
during the sixth century B.C. Pāṇini's grammar is characterized by its extreme thoroughness and explicitness in accounting for Sanskrit linguistic forms. Bloomfield noted that "Pāṇini gives the formation of every inflected, compounded, or derived word, with an exact statement of the sound-variations (including accent) and of the meaning." In a letter to Algonquianist Truman Michelson, Bloomfield noted "My models are Pāṇini and the kind of work done in Indo-European by my teacher, Professor Wackernagel of Basle."
Pāṇini's systematic approach to analysis includes components for: (a) forming grammatical rules, (b) an inventory of sounds, (c) a list of verbal roots organized into sublists, and (d) a list of classes of morphs
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
. Bloomfield's approach to key linguistic ideas in his textbook Language reflect the influence of Pāṇini in his treatment of basic concepts such as linguistic form, free form, and others. Similarly, Pāṇini is the source for Bloomfield's use of the terms exocentric and endocentric used to describe compound
Compound (linguistics)
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...
words. Concepts from Pāṇini are found in Eastern Ojibwa, published posthumously in 1958, in particular his use of the concept of a morphological zero
Null morpheme
In morpheme-based morphology, a null morpheme is a morpheme that is realized by a phonologically null affix . In simpler terms, a null morpheme is an "invisible" affix. It is also called a zero morpheme; the process of adding a null morpheme is called null affixation, null derivation or zero...
, a morpheme
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
that has no overt realization. Pāṇini's influence is also present in Bloomfield's approach to determining parts of speech
Lexical category
In grammar, a part of speech is a linguistic category of words , which is generally defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the lexical item in question. Common linguistic categories include noun and verb, among others...
(Bloomfield uses the term 'form-classes') in both Eastern Ojibwa and in the later Menomini language, published posthumously in 1962.
Austronesian linguistics
While at the University of Illinois Bloomfield undertook research on TagalogTagalog language
Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...
, an Austronesian
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
language spoken in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
. He carried out linguistic field work with Alfredo Viola Santiago, who was an engineering student at the university from 1914-1917. The results were published as Tagalog texts with grammatical analysis, which includes a series of texts dictated by Santiago in addition to an extensive grammatical description and analysis of every word in the texts. Bloomfield’s work on Tagalog, from the beginning of field research to publication, took no more than two years. His study of Tagalog has been described as “…the best treatment of any Austronesian language…The result is a description of Tagalog which has never been surpassed for completeness, accuracy, and wealth of exemplification.”
Bloomfield's only other publication on an Austronesian language was an article on the syntax
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
of Ilocano
Ilokano language
Ilokano or Ilocano is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the Philippines....
, based upon research undertaken with a native speaker of Ilocano who was a student at Yale University. This article has been described as a "…tour de force, for it covers in less than seven pages the entire taxonomic syntax of Ilocano."
Algonquian linguistics
Bloomfield’s work on Algonquian languages had both descriptiveDescriptive linguistics
In the study of language, description, or descriptive linguistics, is the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is spoken by a group of people in a speech community...
and comparative
Comparative linguistics
Comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness....
components. He published extensively on four Algonquian languages: Fox
Fox language
Fox is an Algonquian language, spoken by around 1000 Fox, Sauk, and Kickapoo in various locations in the Midwestern United States and in northern Mexico...
, Cree
Cree language
Cree is an Algonquian language spoken by approximately 117,000 people across Canada, from the Northwest Territories and Alberta to Labrador, making it the aboriginal language with the highest number of speakers in Canada. It is also spoken in the U.S. state of Montana...
, Menominee
Menominee language
The Menominee language is an Algonquian language originally spoken by the Menominee people of northern Wisconsin and Michigan. It is still spoken on the Menominee Nation lands in Northern Wisconsin in the United States....
, and Ojibwe
Ojibwe language
Ojibwe , also called Anishinaabemowin, is an indigenous language of the Algonquian language family. Ojibwe is characterized by a series of dialects that have local names and frequently local writing systems...
, publishing grammars, lexicons, and text collections. Bloomfield used the materials collected in his descriptive work to undertake comparative studies leading to the reconstruction of Proto-Algonquian
Proto-Algonquian language
Proto-Algonquian is the name given to the proto-language from which the various languages of the Algonquian family are descended. It is generally estimated to have been spoken around 2,500 to 3,000 years ago, but on the question of where it was spoken there is less agreement...
, with an early study reconstructing the sound system
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
of Proto-Algonqian, and a subsequent more extensive paper refining his phonological analysis and adding extensive historical information on general features of Algonquian grammar.
Bloomfield undertook field research on Cree, Menominee, and Ojibwe, and analysed the material in previously published Fox text collections. His first Algonquian research, beginning around 1919, involved study of text collections in the Fox language that had been published by William Jones
William Jones (anthropologist)
William Jones was a Native American anthropologist of the Fox nation. Born in Oklahoma on March 28, 1871, after studying at Hampton Institute he graduated from Phillips Academy and went on to receive his B.A. from Harvard...
and Truman Michelson
Truman Michelson
Truman Michelson was a linguist and anthropologist who worked from 1910 until his death for the Bureau of American Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution...
. Working through the texts in these collections, Bloomfield excerpted grammatical information to create a grammatical sketch of Fox. A lexicon of Fox based on his excerpted material was published posthumously.
Bloomfield undertook field research on Menominee in the summers of 1920 and 1921, with further brief field research in September 1939 and intermittent visits from Menominee speakers in Chicago in the late 1930s, in addition to correspondence with speakers during the same period. Material collected by Morris Swadesh
Morris Swadesh
Morris Swadesh was an influential and controversial American linguist. In his work, he applied basic concepts in historical linguistics to the Indigenous languages of the Americas...
in 1937 and 1938, often in response to specific queries from Bloomfield, supplemented his information. Significant publications include a collection of texts, a grammar and a lexicon (both published posthumously), in addition to a theoretically significant article on Menomini phonological alternations.
Bloomfield undertook field research in 1925 among Plains Cree speakers in Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
at the Sweet Grass
Division No. 16, Saskatchewan
Division No. 16, Saskatchewan, Canada, is one of the eighteen census divisions within the province, as defined by Statistics Canada. It is located in the north-central part of the province. The most populous community in this division is North Battleford....
reserve, and also at the Star Blanket reserve, resulting in two volumes of texts and a posthumous lexicon. He also undertook brief field work on Swampy Cree
Swampy Cree language
Swampy Cree is a dialect of the Cree language complex. Swampy Cree is spoken in a series of communities in northern Manitoba, central northeast of Saskatchewan along the Saskatchewan River and along the Hudson Bay coast and adjacent inland areas to the south and west, and Ontario along the coast...
at The Pas, Manitoba
Opaskwayak Cree Nation
The Opaskwayak Cree Nation is a First Nation in Manitoba, Canada. Opaskwayak means "where the two rivers meet". The First Nation has territory near The Pas, Manitoba, along the Saskatchewan River. The First Nation hosts the Opaskwayak Indian Days annually each August. The OCN Blizzard, a...
. Bloomfield's work on Swampy Cree provided data to support the predictive power of the hypothesis of exceptionless phonological change.
Bloomfield's initial research on Ojibwe was through study of texts collected by William Jones, in addition to nineteenth century grammars and dictionaries. During the 1938 Linguistic Society of America Linguistic Institute held at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2010 census places the population at 113,934, making it the sixth largest city in Michigan. The Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 344,791 as of 2010...
, he taught a field methods class with Andrew Medler, a speaker of the Ottawa
Ottawa language
Ottawa is a dialect of the Ojibwe language, spoken by the Ottawa people in southern Ontario in Canada, and northern Michigan in the United States. Descendants of migrant Ottawa speakers live in Kansas and Oklahoma...
dialect who was born in Saginaw, Michigan
Saginaw, Michigan
Saginaw is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the seat of Saginaw County. The city of Saginaw was once a thriving lumber town and manufacturing center. Saginaw and Saginaw County lie in the Flint/Tri-Cities region of Michigan...
but spent most of his life on Walpole Island
Walpole Island
Walpole Island is an island and Indian reserve in southwestern Ontario, Canada, on the border between Ontario and Michigan in the United States. It is located in the mouth of the St. Clair River on Lake St. Clair, approximately thirty miles northeast of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario.In...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
. The resulting grammatical description, transcribed sentences, texts, and lexicon were published posthumously in a single volume. In 1941 Bloomfield worked with Ottawa dialect speaker Angeline Williams at the 1941 Linguistic Institute held at the University of North Carolina
University of North Carolina
Chartered in 1789, the University of North Carolina was one of the first public universities in the United States and the only one to graduate students in the eighteenth century...
in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill is a town in Orange County, North Carolina, United States and the home of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC Health Care...
, resulting in a posthumously published volume of texts.
Selected publications
- Bloomfield, Leonard. 1909/1910. "A semasiological differentiation in Germanic secondary ablaut." Modern Philology 7:245-288; 345-382.
- Bloomfield, Leonard. 1914. Introduction to the Study of Language. New York: Henry Holt. Reprinted 1983, John Benjamins. Retrieved April 19, 2009. ISBN 90-272-1892-7.
- Bloomfield, Leonard. 1917. Tagalog texts with grammatical analysis. University of Illinois studies in language and literature, 3.2-4. Urbana, Illinois.
- Bloomfield, Leonard. 1925-1927. "Notes on the Fox language." International Journal of American Linguistics 3:219-232; 4: 181-219 (reprinted in: Martin Joos, ed., Readings in Linguistics I, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press 1957, 26-31).
- Bloomfield, Leonard. 1928. Menomini texts. Publications of the American Ethnological Society 12. New York: G.E. Stechert, Agents. [reprinted 1974. New York: AMS Press] ISBN 0-404-58162-5
- Bloomfield, Leondard. 1929. Review of Bruno Liebich, 1928, Konkordanz Pāṇini-Candra, Breslau: M. & H. Marcus. Language 5:267-76. Reprinted in Hockett, Charles. 1970, 219-226.
- Bloomfield, Leonard. 1930. Sacred stories of the Sweet Grass Cree. National Museum of Canada Bulletin, 60 (Anthropological Series 11). Ottawa. [reprinted 1993, Saskatoon, SK: Fifth House]. ISBN 1-895618-27-4
- Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language. New York: Henry Holt. ISBN 0-226-06067-5, ISBN 90-272-1892-7
- Bloomfield, Leonard. 1934. Plains Cree texts. American Ethnological Society Publications 16. New York. [reprinted 1974, New York: AMS Press]
- Bloomfield, Leonard. 1935. "Linguistic aspects of science." Philosophy of Science 2/4:499-517.
- Bloomfield, Leonard. 1939. "Menomini morphophonemics." Etudes phonologiques dédiées à la mémoire de M. le prince N.S. Trubetzkoy, 105-115. Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 8. Prague.
- Bloomfield, Leonard. 1939a. Linguistic aspects of science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-57579-9
- Bloomfield, Leonard. 1942a. Outline guide for the practical study of foreign languages. Baltimore: Linguistic Society of America.
- Bloomfield, Leonard. 1946. "Algonquian." Harry Hoijer et al., eds., Linguistic structures of native America, 85-129. Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology 6. New York: Wenner-Gren Foundation.
- Bloomfield, Leonard. 1958. Eastern Ojibwa. Ed. Charles F. Hockett. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
- Bloomfield, Leonard. 1962. The Menomini language. Ed. Charles F. Hockett. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Bloomfield, Leonard. 1975. Menomini lexicon. Ed. Charles F. Hockett. Milwaukee Public Museum Publications in Anthropology and History. Milwaukee: Milwaukee Public Museum.
- Bloomfield, Leonard. 1984. Cree-English lexicon. Ed. Charles F. Hockett. New Haven: Human Relations Area Files. ISBN 99954-923-9-3
- Bloomfield, Leonard. 1984b. Fox-English lexicon. Ed. Charles F. Hockett. New Haven: Human Relations Area Files. ISBN 99954-923-7-7
External links
- A biography
- A bibliographic list about Bloomfield's reputation as a linguist in Linguist List website.
- Leonard Bloomfield "Linguistics and Mathematics" (Marcus Tomalin)
- Finding Aid to the Papers of Leonard Bloomfield, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution