Eight Decades of General Linguistics: The History of CIPL and Its Role in the History of Linguistics

Eight Decades of General Linguistics presents the key lectures delivered at the eighteen conferences organized by the Permanent International Committee of Linguists and also a history of the Committee itself. The contributions of outstanding scholars such as Otto Jesperson, Louis Hjelmslev, André Martinet, Uriel Weinreich, Noam Chomsky and many other linguists cannot be over-estimated. The majority of the papers address a radically new topic, each of which became one of the central issues in subsequent linguistic research. In addition to their empirical findings and/or the theoretical innovations presented in their papers, each contribution is still interesting and pivotal to the development of contemporary linguistics.