Biographical Memoirs Volume 89 (2007) / Chapter Skim
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HENRY M. HOENIGSWALD
HENRY M. HOENIGSWALD
Pages 180-205
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From page 181... ...
Henry contributed fundamental studies in these areas, including an early article on sound change and its relation to linguistic structure, a basic study of the procedures followed in phonological reconstruction, an equally fundamental study of internal reconstruction, and a definitive monograph on language change and linguistic reconstruction.
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From page 182... ...
I suppose I was a fairly typical product of German secondary education. We had a Greek teacher who must have had a course in Indo-European and who taught us some of the things he knew.
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in 1936 from the University of Florence, with a dissertation on the history of Greek word formation (Geschichte der griechischen Wortbildung) , a work that to my knowledge has never been published.
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In the United States Henry at first continued a life of scholarly peregrination. Between 1939 and 1948 he held positions as research assistant, lecturer, and instructor at Yale University -- where he was research assistant to Edgar Sturtevant -- the Hartford Seminary, Hunter College, and the University of Pennsylvania, then associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin (1947-1948)
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He was also elected president of the Linguistic Society of America in 1958 and the American Oriental Society in 1966. In addition, Henry received the Henry Allen Moe Prize of the American Philosophical Society in 1991.
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. In view of Henry's constant preoccupation throughout his professional life with methodology and procedures for reconstruction -- he went so far as to speak on occasion of algorighms4 -- Language Change and Linguistic Reconstruction may justifiably be considered his major work.
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From page 187... ...
68-71) on the reconstruction of grammatical and semantic features, that he proceeds to treat sound change and the comparative method with respect to phonology and its reconstruction.
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From page 188... ...
This formal approach could appear deceptively simple, as when Henry dealt with what he called the principal step in comparative grammar in a remarkably short compass (1950) .8 Henry's consistent probing into the methods and principles underlying concrete work in historical linguistics was also colored by a healthy skepticism.
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From page 189... ...
Among the "few strands" he had to offer in what he called "this rich tissue," one brings neatly to the fore Henry's attitude and insight: the interpretation of the famous statement made in 1786 by Sir William Jones, with which he dealt on more than one occasion (e.g., 1963, pp.
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) of semantic change9 seems to me to be one of the greatest methodological gems, for all its hardnosed factualness.
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I have personal memories of joint seminars we gave in which we both could freely exchange opposing views in search of better solutions to problems of common interest, though I was more than 20 years his junior. During those years, although our linguistics department was itself quite small, the University of Pennsylvania could boast of an outstandingly broad and distinguished array of programs in various allied areas, including the classics, Indic, Iranian, Baltic, Slavic, Germanic, Semitics, and Sumerology.
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From page 192... ...
Henry was also extremely generous toward young scholars worthy of support, a generosity that was rewarded with feelings of intellectual admiration and personal warmth toward him on the part of an array of many scholars who went on to excel. In this spirit it is fitting, I think, that I end this essay citing the whole of a Sanskrit couplet whose last part was used to end the foreword to Henry's Festschrift: · vidvadvattvañ ca nrpatvañ ca naiva tulyam kada cana | ¯ · 11 ´ svades e pujyate raja vidvan sarvatra pujyate || ¯ ¯¯ ¯ ¯ I AM GRATEFUL TOHenry's sister Trudy Glucksberg, his daughters Ann and Frances Hoenigswald, as well as Roswitha Grassl and Prof.
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1932-1933 Studied in the Department of Humanities, University of Munich 1933-1934 Studied at the University of Zurich, Switzerland 1934-1935 Studied at the University of Padua, Italy 1935-1936 Studied at the University of Florence, Italy 1939 Emigrated to the United States 1944 Married to Gabrielle L Schöpflich 1945 Naturalized citizen of the United States 1954-1958 Editor, Journal of the American Oriental Society 1968-2003 Advisory board, Language and Style 1968-1992 Member, editorial board, International Encyclopedia of Linguistics 1968-1974 Member, corporate visiting committee for the Depart ment of Foreign Literatures and Languages, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1977-2003 Associate editor, Indian Journal of Linguistics 1978-2003 Consulting editor, Journal of the History of Ideas, Journal of Indo-European Studies 1978-1984 Chairman, overseers committee to visit the Depart ment of Linguistics, Harvard University 1984-2003 Advisory board, Diachronica 1985 Retirement dinner, University of Pennsylvania, at which he was presented with a prepublication copy of Festschrift for Henry M
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honoris causa, Swarthmore College 1986 Elected corresponding fellow, British Academy 1988 Elected to the National Academy of Sciences; awarded L.H.D. honoris causa, University of Pennsylvania 1991 Awarded the Henry Allen Moe Prize by the American Philosophical Society PROFESSIONAL RECORD 1936 D.Litt., University of Florence 1937 Perfezionamento, University of Florence 1936-1938 Staff member, Istituto di Studi Estruschi, Florence 1939-1942 Lecturer, research assistant, Yale University 1942-1943 Lecturer, Hartford Seminary Foundation; Hunter College 1943-1944 Lecturer in charge, Army specialized training, University of Pennsylvania 1944-1945 Lecturer, Yale University 1945-1946 Instructor, Hartford Seminary Foundation 1946 Lecturer, Hunter College; visiting associate professor, University of Michigan (Summer Institute of Linguistics)
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1959-1985 Professor, University of Pennsylvania 1959 Visiting associate professor, University of Michigan (Summer Institute of Linguistics) 1959-1960 Visiting associate professor, Princeton University 1961-1962 Visiting professor, Yale University 1963-1970 Chairman, Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania 1968 Fulbright lecturer, University of Kiel, Germany; visiting professor, University of Michigan (Summer Institute of Linguistics)
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Kieckers, Historische griechische Grammatik, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1925-1926.
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From page 197... ...
10. For a perceptive appreciation of the contrast between Harris's distributionalist view and what Goldsmith refers to as the mediationalist view that has dominated theoretical work in American linguistics since the late 1950s see (Goldsmith [2005, pp.
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On the notion of an inter mediate stage in traditional historical linguistics, the three-wit ness problem, and notes on glottochronological trees. In Studies in Formal Historical Linguistics, vol.
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1927. Zum Mechanismus des Bedeutungswandels.
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10:1-5. 1953 I fondamenti della storia linguistica e le posizioni neogrammatiche.
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Graduality, sporadicity, and the minor sound change processes. Phonetica 11:202-215.
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1974 Internal reconstruction and context. In Historical Linguistics: Pro ceedings of the First International Conference on Historical Lin guistics, vol.
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:95-100. 1985 Distinzioni reali e distinzioni chimeriche nella classificazione dei cambiamenti fonologici.
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From page 204... ...
:10-18. 1992 Comparative method, internal reconstruction, typology.
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