Jens Otto Harry Jespersen
16 July 1860(1860-07-16)
Randers
Died
30 April 1943(1943-04-30) (aged 82)
Residence
Copenhagen
Nationality
Danish
Occupation
Academic
Jens Otto Harry Jespersen or Otto Jespersen (Danish pronunciation: [ʌto ˈjɛsbɐsn̩]; 16 July 1860 – 30 April 1943) was a Danishlinguist who specialized in the grammar of the English language. He was born in Randers in northern Jutland and attended Copenhagen University, earning degrees in English, French, and Latin. He also studied linguistics at Oxford.
He advanced the theories of Rank and Nexus in Danish in two papers: Sprogets logik (1913) and De to hovedarter af grammatiske forbindelser (1921). Jespersen in this theory of ranks removes the parts of speech from the syntax, and differentiates between primaries, secondaries, and tertiaries; e.g. in "well honed phrase," "phrase" is a primary, this being defined by a secondary, "honed", which again is defined by a tertiary "well". The term Nexus is applied to sentences, structures similar to sentences and sentences in formation, in which two concepts are expressed in one unit; e.g., it rained, he ran indoors. This term is qualified by a further concept called a junction which represents one idea, expressed by means of two or more elements, whereas a nexus combines two ideas. Junction and nexus proved valuable in bringing the concept of context to the forefront of the attention of the world of linguistics.
He was most widely recognized for some of his books. Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (1909-1949), concentrated on morphology and syntax, and Growth and Structure of the English Language (1905) is a comprehensive view of English by someone with another native language, and still in print, over 60 years after his death and nearly 100 years after publication. Late in his life he published Analytic Syntax (1937), in which he presents his views on syntactic structure using an idiosyncratic shorthand notation. In The Philosophy of Grammar (1924) he challenged the accepted views of common concepts in Grammar and proposed corrections to the basic definitions of grammatical case, pronoun, object, voice etc., and developed further his notions of Rank and Nexus. In the 21st century this book is still used as one of the basic texts in modern Structural linguistics. Mankind, Nation and Individual: from a linguistic point of view (1925) is one of the pioneering works on Sociolinguistics.
More than once Otto Jespersen was invited to the U.S. as a guest lecturer, and he took occasion to study the country's educational system. His autobiography (see below) was published in English translation as recently as 1995.
Jespersen was a proponent of phonosemanticism and wrote: “Is there really much more logic in the opposite extreme which denies any kind of sound symbolism (apart from the small class of evident echoisms and ‘onomatopoeia’) and sees in our words only a collection of accidental and irrational associations of sound and meaning? ...There is no denying that there are words which we feel instinctively to be adequate to express the ideas they stand for.”
He appears as a character in Joseph Skibell's 2010 novel A Curable Romantic.
1909-1949: A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (in seven volumes; the title should be understood as 'A grammar of Modern English') originally published by Carl Winter, Heidelberg, later vols. by Ejnar Munksgard, Copenhagen and George Allen & Unwin, London (ISBN 0-06-493318-0) (Vols. 5-7, issued without series title, have imprint: Copenhagen, E. Munksgaard, 1940-49; Imprint varies: Pt.5-6: London: Allen & Unwin; pt.7: Copenhagen: Munksgaard, London: Allen & Unwin.)
1938: En sprogmands levned, Copenhagen, Jespersen's autobiography
1993. A literary miscellany: proceedings of the Otto Jespersen Symposium April 29-30, edited by Jørgen Erik Nielsen and Arne Zettersten 1994
1995: A Linguist's Life: an English translation of Otto Jespersen's autobiography, edited by Arne Juul, Hans Frede Nielsen and Jørgen Erik Nielsen, Odense (ISBN 87-7838-132-0)
^ Falk, Julia S. "Words without grammar: Linguists and the international language movement in the United States, Language and Communication, 15(3): pp. 241-259. Pergamon, 1995.
External links
"Otto Jespersen", by Niels Haislund, in: Englische Studien 75 (1943), pp. 273–282 (reprinted in: Thomas A. Sebeok, Portraits of Linguists, vol. 2, Bloomington & London: Indiana U.P. 1966 [ISBN 1-84371-006-4], pp. 148–57).
Otto Jespersen — Linguiste occidental XIXe siècle XXe siècle Otto Jespersen vers 1915 Naissance : 16 … Wikipédia en Français
Otto Jespersen — (Randers, 16 de abril de 1860 Copenhague, 30 de abril de 1943); lingüista y filósofo danés. Estudió fonética y gramática en París, Berlín, Leipzig y Londres, lo que supuso una amplia y sólida formación. Con Paul Passy fue fundador de la… … Wikipedia Español
Otto Jespersen — Jens Otto Harry Jespersen (* 16. Juli 1860 in Randers; † 30. April 1943 in Roskilde) war ein dänischer Linguist, der auf die englische Sprache spezialisiert war. Er studierte an der Universität Kopenhagen mit Abschlüssen in Englisch, Französisch… … Deutsch Wikipedia
Otto Jespersen (comedian) — Otto Jespersen (born 21 July 1954) is a controversial Norwegian comedian, actor and television personality. Biography At the age of 19 Jespersen became a Marxist Leninist, and was for a short period of time a member of the Communist organization… … Wikipedia
Otto Jespersen — noun Danish linguist (1860 1943) • Syn: ↑Jespersen, ↑Jens Otto Harry Jespersen • Instance Hypernyms: ↑linguist, ↑linguistic scientist … Useful english dictionary
Otto Jespersen — n. Jens Otto Harry Jespersen (1860 1943), Danish linguist … English contemporary dictionary
Jespersen's Cycle — (JC) is a series of processes in historical linguistics, which describe the historical development of the expression of negation in a variety of languages, from a simple pre verbal marker of negation, through a discontinous marker (elements both… … Wikipedia
Jespersen — is a Danish and Norwegian Patronymic surname that may refer to: People Karen Jespersen, Danish politician Mogens Jespersen, Danish former football (soccer) player Otto Jespersen (1860 1943), Danish linguist Otto Jespersen (comedian), Norwegian… … Wikipedia
Jespersen — ist der Name folgender Personen: Chris Jespersen (* 1983), norwegischer Skilangläufer Karen Jespersen (* 1947), dänische Politikerin Otto Jespersen (1860–1943), dänischer Sprachwissenschaftler Diese Seite ist eine … Deutsch Wikipedia
Jespersen — noun Danish linguist (1860 1943) • Syn: ↑Otto Jespersen, ↑Jens Otto Harry Jespersen • Instance Hypernyms: ↑linguist, ↑linguistic scientist … Useful english dictionary
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