The aim of this thesis is to comprehensively describe and evaluate the linguistic work of the German grammarian and teacher Max Wilhelm Götzinger (1799–1856). Götzinger‘s work has been little considered in linguistics and historiography of linguistics apart from some articles mainly on his grammatical theory. The first editions of Anfangsgründe (1825) and Die Deutsche Sprachlehre für Schulen (1827), which up to now have been considered to be lost, could be retrieved and used for this study. Aspects of Götzinger‘s didactics and grammar can still today be re-garded as modern. In many respects his didactic ideas were opposed to the methods of teaching inspired by rationalist grammar and prevailing in the schools of his time. His own method is inductive and the aim of teach-ing was mainly to make pupils familiar with the structure of the German language. Götzinger‘s grammatical system was inspired by his experience as a teacher. The logical judgement and the subject-predicate concepts were replaced by a verb centred concept of syntax and Götzinger‘s system of word classes began with the verb instead of the noun. He did not regard correct thinking, which was the main purpose of rationalist grammar, but communication as the basic aim of the teaching of grammar. His notion of the verb as the centre of the clause has basic features in common with modern dependency theories introduced by Lucien Tesnière. Götzinger performed pioneering work in the field of dialectology and he is understood be the first to include a comprehensive description of the dialects of the German speaking countries Even if there also are good reasons to criticise many aspects of his work, e.g. indistinct terminology, inconsistency in sticking to his theory, and subjectivity in the description of the dialects, Götzinger‘s achieve-ment as to the state of the art of his time and also with regard to modern linguistics must be considered remarkable.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-20547 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Olsson, Dan |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för språkstudier, Umeå : Institutionen för språkstudier, Umeå universitet |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | German |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Doctoral thesis, monograph, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Studier i språk och litteratur från Umeå universitet, ; 4 |
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