Renward Brandstetter
Renward Brandstetter ( born June 29, 1860 in Beromunster, † April 17, 1942 in Lugano) was a Swiss linguist who made fundamental contributions to the areas of Swiss German philology and dialectology and Austronesian languages provided.
Life
Renward Brandstetter was built in 1860 as the son of the doctor and scientist Josef Leopold Brandstetter ( 1831-1924 ) was born. After completion of the primary schools in Malters and Lucerne, he began studying linguistics at the University of Basel and the University of Leipzig, which he graduated with a thesis on the subject in 1883, the sibilance of Bero -Münster. Subsequently he worked until 1927 as a professor at the Cantonal School in Lucerne.
Work
At the start of his scientific work, he dealt with the late medieval history of theater and the Lucerne dialect and language history, particularly the Lucerne firm language. For the Swiss language area he already formulated in his dissertation today named after him Brandstettersche Act ( see below). In addition, he has written in recent years under the pseudonym Rämmert from Mösli some Lucerne dialect stories. In 1891 his research came to the Austronesian languages, and thereby in particular the relationship between word and root. Overall Brandstetter delivered 1886-1940 fifty studies on linguistics and literature austronesesischer languages.
Performance
In the Swiss-German dialectology, the description of the late medieval and early modern Lucerne chancellery and the replacement of the regional office by the common language German written language Brandstetter has done Basic and created up to this day. His research on the Lucerne Theatre History must be regarded as pioneering. Brandstetter's methodical approach both in the dialectological as philological work was almost modern in many ways.
In the field of general linguistics Brandstetter was varied success. His view of the " architectural language relationship ", ie the structural similarities of unrelated languages , was innovative for its time. His Malayo -Polynesian studies formed the basis for Otto Dempwolffs 1934 published " Comparative phonology of Indonesian vocabulary ". Conversely, alienated his (later) attempt to prove related to the Indo-European Indonesian. Brandstetter importance for the Austronesian linguistics has been recognized internationally since 1900, but he lacked as a private scholar environment of a university in order to bring his research appropriate to bear can. Towards the end of his life he had to realize that not he, but Otto Dempwolff is recognized as a founder of comparative phonology of the Austronesian vocabulary.
Brandstetter's works that demonstrate many of the humanistic conviction. They also contain clear statements against colonialism, not least in his use of the term " Indonesia " instead of the then customary " Dutch East Indies ".
Brandstetter 's Law
The effective among other things, in Swiss German Brandstettersche law states that in compound words the vowel quantity of determining word (if it is historically long) and shortened the postvokalische consonant of the destination word is lenited. Examples are Grooß MUETER > Grosmueter ( grandmother ), Braat-/Broot sausage > Brad-/Brodwurst ( bratwurst ), Schue macher > Schumacher ( Shoemaker ), City raat / - root> Stadraat / root. The validity of this rule varies, however, according to lexeme and lexeme from dialect to dialect.