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Leonard Bloomfield Quotes

The most difficult step in the study of language is the first step.

The most difficult step in the study of language is the first step.

Leonard Bloomfield
Firsts, Steps, Study
Leonard Bloomfield (1994). “Language”, p.21, Motilal Banarsidass Publishe

If it were possible to transfer the methods of physical or of biological science directly to the study of man, the transfer would long ago have been made ... We have failed not for lack of hypotheses which equate man with the rest of the universe, but for lack of a hypothesis (short of animism) which provides for the peculiar divergence of man ... Let me now state my belief that the peculiar factor in man which forbids our explaining his actions upon the ordinary plane of biology is a highly specialized and unstable biological complex, and that this factor is none other than language.

Leonard Bloomfield
Men, Long Ago, Peculiar

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