The Analysis of Language According to Carl Svedelius

• Published in: Nordic Journal of Linguistics
• Main Author: Kuure, Olli
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1990
• Subjects: Ket language
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1017/s0332586500002109; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0332586500002109

The work of a Swedish linguist, Carl Svedelius (1861–1951), though fairly brief and unaccomplished as it was, deserves a closer look from the point of view of today's linguistics. Svedelius himself characterized his own approach with the term “den verklighetsbetonade eller funktionalistiska språ;kanalysen”-i.e. he emphasized the referential or “real” and functional dimensions of language. Thus, the object of study should be “det sammanhängande språ;ket”, language as a whole. The basic unit in the comprehensive study of language is “une communication”, in modern terms, an utterance . Svedelius distinguishes two main categories of utterances: Utterances of process describe different events in life, whereas utterances of relation classify and describe different phenomena in reality.