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SAUSSURE, FERDINAND de.

Cours de linguistique générale. Publié par Charles Bally et Albert Sechehaye. Avec la collaboration de Albert Riedlinger. - [FOUNDING STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS]

Herman H. J. Lynge & Søn A/S
lyn38101
Lausanne & Paris, 1916. Lex 8vo. Uncut in the orig. printed wrappers. Minor wear w. minor loss to capitals and corner of front wrapper, otherwise an exceptionally nice copy. A few pages w. underlining. Text-illustrations. 336, (1, -errata) pp.

The first edition of Saussure's seminal main work, which marks a turning point in the history of linguistics and had a monumental impact on related fields such as philosophy, logic, sociology, literary theory, etc. Because of this work, Saussure is considered the father of 20th century linguistics, and the influence of his ideas on the development of linguistic theory in the first half of the 20th century can hardly be overstated.After having published his "Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européenes" in 1878, Saussure did not publish another full-length work in his life-time, and his "Course in General Linguistics" is a summary of the three lecture-courses he gave on linguistics at the University of Geneva in 1906-07, 1908-09 and 1910-11. The work was published posthumously by two of his former students and based on lecture notes. In this monumental work, based on his lectures, Saussure sets out to examine the relationship between language (langue) and speaking (parole), both as the relation of a social phenomenon to an individual phenomenon, and as the relation of a system to the concrete use of this system. He determines that there is a structured system of common signs between the users of a language, and that language can be analyzed as a formal system of elements. These elements are signs, signs that again can be divided into expression (signifiant) and content (signifié). This theory of language has deeply influenced all later theories of language.With this work, Ferdinand Saussure (1857-1913) thus came to occupy a seminal place in the history of language theory. In this work he is strongly focused on creating a science of language, free of its former embedment in archaeology, psychology, and also -or perhaps especially- the history of language. And he succeeds. Before his work, linguistics had had been dominated by a historical, though also partly structural, understanding of language, but now, Saussure introduced and determined the purpose and meaning of linguistics, the universal science of language. With Sausurre, linguistics now became, not only the study of the history of languages and of the influences that determine the development of it, but also, and primarily, the study of language and the study of the manifestations of human speech, of what makes human speech possible.Thus, there is no doubt as to the monumental impact of this groundbreaking work, and almost all language theoreticians ever since have been deeply influenced by it. In Europe, the Prague School with e.g. Roman Jakobson and the Copenhagen School with e.g. Louis Hjelmslev, and in America, Leonard Bloomfield and his followers (later Noam Chomsky), were all influenced by Saussure's theories and based their formings of structural linguistics on his basic notions.Saussure's work reached much farther, though, and the principles of structuralism came to deeply influence thinkers such as Jacques Lacan, Claude Lévi-Strauss etc., etc.
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BERGIUS, PETER JONAS
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(Stockholm, 1777). 8vo. As extracted from "Kungl. Svenska vetenskapsakademiens handlingar", uncut unopened. Fine and clean. Pp. 304-309.
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ALBERTI, MICHAEL.
Herman H. J. Lynge & Søn A/S
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Halle im Magdeburgischen, Hendel, 1721. 8vo. In contemporary full calf with four raise bands and richly gilt spine. Traces from old paper-label to upper part of spine. Leather on spine cracked, spine-ends slightly chipped. Internally nice and clean. (14), 620, (28) pp. First collected edition of Alberti’s essays. Alberti (1682–1757), professor of medicine and philosophy at Halle and later rector of the university, was a leading disciple of Georg Ernst Stahl who considered the soul as having control on the body. Therapies involved dealing with the internal senses and feelings.
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MARX, CARLOS [KARL] (+) GABRIELLE DEVILLE (+) [Translator:] ALBANO DE MORAES.
Herman H. J. Lynge & Søn A/S
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Lisboa, De Francisco Luiz Goncalves, 1912. 8vo. In the original red printed cloth-binding with black and white lettering. Spine with loss of the white lettering. Paper-label pasted on to lower inner margin of front board. Very light wear to extremities, Internally very fine and clean. 240 pp. The exceedingly scarce first Portuguese edition of the most important abridged version of Marx's Capital ever to have appeared, published fifty-six years before the first full Portuguese (but published in Brazil) translation and whole sixy-two years before the first full translation published in Portugal. Curiously, two translations of the present work were made 1912 but the present translation seems to have priority (see Bastien, "Readings and Translations of Karl Marx in Portugal"). After the 1933 rise of Salazar's dictatorial Estado Novo regime, suppression of the relatively newly founded Communist party grew. Members were arrested, tortured, and executed and many were sent to the Tarrafal concentration camp in the Cape Verde Islands. Communist literature suffered an equally repressive fate, hence the rarity of the present work. Marxism and especially Marxist writing caught on comparatively late in Portugal: "As for the Socialist Party - supposed to be the main expression of Marxism -, it revealed itself unable to stimulate effective theoretical and doctrinal efforts. Its existence was an example of ambiguity and inconsequence. Its political programme went on mixing Marxian elements, associationist tradition and positivist thinking. Its strategy balanced continuously between an alliance with republican politicians and the maintenance of political autonomy. Its tatics balanced between electoral abstencionism and an involvement in election processes, that never led it to a relevant position in parliament. Even its international relations showed a lasting ambiguity: it had been created according to the instructions of the Marxist majority at the Hague Congress, when most of its members tended to support political abstencionism. When the formation of the Second lnternacional was taking place in Paris in 1889 Portuguese socialists tried to join the Marxist congress, after being present at the possibilist congress. In 1920 they decided to join the Third lnternacional (what was not accomplished), at the same time that an internal reformist turn was taking place." (Bastien, "Readings and Translations of Karl Marx in Portugal"). "The epitome, here translated, was published in Paris, in 1883, by Gabriel Deville, possibly the most brilliant writer among the French Marxians. It is the most successful attempt yet made to popularize Marx's scientific economics. It is by no means free from difficulties, for the subject is essentially a complex and difficult subject, but there are no difficulties that reasonable attention and patience will not enable the average reader to overcome. There is no attempt at originality. The very words in most cases are Marx's own words, and Capital is followed so closely that the first twenty-five chapters correspond in subject and treatment with the first twenty-five chapters of Capital. Chapter XXVI corresponds in the main with Chapter XXVI of Capital, but also contains portions of chapter XXX. The last three chapters-XXVII, XXVIII, and XXIX-correspond to the last three chapters-XXXI, XXXII, and XXXIII-of Capital." (ROBERT RIVES LA MONTE, Intruductory Note to the 1899 English translation). Capital de Marx also had a Portuguese edition at this time, or better, two different editions, both in 1912, but only in translation of the survey of Book I published in France by Gabriel Deville in 1883 (Marx, 1912a and Marx, 1912b). This version omitted material dealt with in at least four chapters of the original text and was not particularly appreciated by Engels. It was a simplified text, aimed at supporting the training of socialist militants and that made it possible for them to have access, indirect, to the work of Marx. The other summaries and anthologies of Capital, which, with a purpose similar to that of Deville, circulated in Europe during this period or ignored in Portugal, as was the case with Carlo Cafiero, or were only occasionally mentioned, as was the case with Paul Lafargue and Karl Kautsky, in its French versions. OCLC list two copies, both in the US.
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DARWIN, CHARLES.
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(Kharkiv), Derzhavne medychne vyd-vo (State Medical Publishing House), 1936. 8vo. In publisher's original grey cloth binding with black lettering to spine with Darwin's portrait embossed on front board. Wear to extremities, corner bumped and light spoling to back board. Inner hinges split and first 3 leaves partly detached. Last 20 ff. slighly creased due to dampstain, otherwise internally a nice and clean copy. 674 pp. + frontispiece, portrait of Darwin and 1 plate with genealogical tree. The exceedingly rare first Ukranian translation of Darwin's landmark 'Origin of Species'. OCLC only list two copies (Library of Congress and The Huntington Library, USA) Freeman F797.
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