Hahn E. Adelaide. Naming Constructions in Some Indo-European Languages

The American Philological Association, 1969. — 250 p. — (Philological monographs of the American Philological Association 27).One whose research lies in the field of syntax can hardly hope to attain results characterized by the same degree of objectivity and certainty as those achieved by his colleagues who work in the field of phonology or of morphology. In syntax as in phonology and morphology, studies of origins must rest on a firm basis of historical and comparative investigation. This ideally demands an intensive and extensive acquaintance with many different languages which the worker in syntax—or at all events this worker in syntax—can hardly hope to acquire. A study of sounds and forms is to a certain extent static; one investigates individual words. But a study of the relationship of one word to another in the sentence is dynamic; one must go to the living moving language, whether embodied in speech or—our sole recourse in the many languages no longer in contemporary use—in writing. It is the author's firm conviction that no quotation should ever be made for syntactic purposes unless the passage quoted has been examined in context, as an archaeologist would fain examine his artifacts in situ; one should know the situation and the circumstances in connection with which the passage is used, and the characteristic style and idiom of the person who uses it. In short, the linguist must be also a philologist.
I must in this connection apologize for a defect in my equipment which has perforce given this study a lack of proportion and of personal authority. In the fields of Hittite, Old Persian, Greek, Latin, Gothic, and (to a lesser degree) Old English, I have been able to carry on personal and reasonably extended investigations, such as ought to be made by any one working in linguistic research, whether historic or descriptive. But to some extent in Sanskrit and Gaelic, and completely in Avestan, Britannic, and Tocharian, I have been obliged to depend on the examples and/or explanations most graciously and generously provided for me by specialists in these fields—though I have of course endeavored to make independent interpretations of all quotations given to me. Armenian, Balto-Slavic, and Albanian I have made no attempt to treat at all. This is a lack which, as I have said, must confront the worker in the comparative field, particularly the worker in syntax. For it I can only express my regret.