3o-Lg_68
^ear Frank, hank you very much for your two letters from the end of September ♦ X am.sørry I have waited so long before answering. The reason was ( at any rate the main reason,) that I passed your introduction on to Kiel's to hear his comments, and then I did not manage to get into touch with him for a fortnight. Thank you. for your congratulations to my election to the Academy, and for all your kind words. As a matter of fact X do not think you are right. My own scientific contributions are modest, And what. 1 have contributed to glossematics is perhaps rather negative. - \z:>art from the first years Louis did not pro , fit from discussions. T think they rather hampered him in his b own thinking, ^ut it took many years before I realized this, be cause I find discussions inspiring myself.
i
--- I was glad to et your letters just in time before the dead line for the applications. The summary also arrived all right. - Loth ^iels and I fir'd your introduction very useful and we have no objections. As for the comments T have also discussed the problem with Hans Chr. Sorensen and Togeby. We all understand that it will be a very difficult and almost impossible task to write interpretative toomments. Cn the other hand the book would be much more useful if the reader could be referred, to applications and examples. °o what we would sugge$% is the following: The index which Wett- Frederiksen once started, and of which 1 think you have a copy, should tee controlled and ire- vised and brought up to date, it should contain all technical terms found in the Summary (not on.Tplnjhefin' tions , also in rules etc) and possibly also all terns found in Prolegomena and not in the ^umtaary, and the references should be made to all Hjelms— levs writings containing the same terms* This means that terms only found in other writin s ( and ra£bstly put of date ) should not be included, but DanishTor" French correspondences to the terms found in the °unmary should be included in so far as they are found in some of njelmslev's printed works (including the ones in print) with a asfsicsjiGH simple reference to the ^nglish translation. - If the term is applied in a different sense, a short note should be made ( e.g. for ‘usus' etc in Stratification) I hasten to acid that the retails of this are only Mixis 1 and suggestions by Niels and me,' the committee only talked about making an index including ail Iljelmslevijf1 s works. I think this would be extremely useful. And T include a few pages o^, Wett- Frederiksens index ,where my +, ♦ and ? indicate suggestions based on a quick glance down the pages.
This index could be made by a capable yo^g. candidate under your guidance. x suggest teat you give him general prin- ciples , he could then work out the index(with questions marks in cases of doubtr in the course of the spring, and you could talk about it when you come in the summer. X think we should be able to find a .ood man for it. Niels has no time , he must try to write something now. - We have applied for money for this purpose to the Car1steerg Foundation. Moreover we have applied to the Uask->ørsted-roundation for payment for the translation. Xt is of course ridiculous that you should get less for the
translation than the man gets for the index, but we must keep within the general frames arid rates, to get more forth© purpose of the translation than ‘\
and as you see we have tried •che normal
2rates of tie Hasle-* rs eel. foundation, answers a:- ouiid the first half of December. -- In “iels's copy you have two content lists, one rather brief, and; one more, etniled. I thi nk they and that one should, include at any rate the briefer list.
We whall have the
are very useful
There is one thing which- we mif sed in y'Our introduction, that is a philological accunt of the basts of the edition. I think it is necessary to mention the number of existing manu-
scripts, the reasoi: for choosing one of them, the mistakes and the places where you have made corrections ' apnaft from pure misprints). - I think this is necessary also because some of the corrections might be uncertain, e.g. a glossem is called a "'variat", in that your first manuscript you wrote ‘Variant", in the final draft Invariant but "derivate',would also be a possi- bility i variant of course is wrong). -1 think these cases must be mentioned.
I have compared jrhe copy of xoiar the Danish texts ,which ftiels has got from you, with the one I have from Spang-Thomsen, It is eminent that his is a written copy of yours, since all handwritten corrections are included. It is also evident that your copy contains handwritten additions by Wett Frederiksen and a few handwritten words ( mostly headings) by Diderichsen. Tt may thus have bee: Diderichsen•s copy. Where di£d you get it and did ^ibe: e have other copies? I brougt Uldall’s copy home, 1 think, and theremust have been one belonging to Hjelms- lev himself. think we have talked about this, but I do not remember it any more.
¥he nece sity of philological notes lias also become clear to me, because I miss them in the different editions of Prolegomena. I had to find out fof nr. self all the places whe re e.g. substance had been chanCged to purport, where something had been left out etc. 1 think it is disturbing that these points hrve not been indicated. The worst thing is the addi- tion of the lines about "discovery procedure” ,which according to Ege ha made some "merican linguists conclude that iAje.Iras lev invented this term. As for the letters in the margin, x' i e1s and 1 propose that ‘''definition' is abbreviated and “rule*' R ( Kg is directly disturbing, except for those who Know Danish or Katin of course^ and that they axe then placed in two different columns. N for note could be placed in the same column as rule, but the notes should be set with small print, to make thin s sisx more clear.
finally I we should be veyy glad to know whether you will have time to translate M^hmbx the papers for Essais before January, ( or February at the latest) or whether you want somebody else to translate some of them.
Bech has left linguistics now, and a committe has fe been set up to find out what car1 be done. I am not a member of it. - Do you know anybody who could come for a couple of years or whno is so old that it would not prevent acKxx younger Danish linguists to have a chance later? about D nish phonemics. 1 do not think this is a very good idea under the present circumstances. But if this is his main interest, it would probably not be good to advise him to do ■ omething in coraparativelinguistics. *'e have two working on Danish phonemics already (Rischel and Basbøl). By the way, I have just been elected to the new "Common Science foundation" which is going to replace Almin eli. t dansk ^idenskabsfond". I got money for my own research from ^idenskabsfonde , so now sp pose I shall have to change to the Carlsberg foundation. Best wishes, also for Celina,
Niels wants to write
ours
3c
erm "catalysis on catalysis" I see that it is a translation u a e
a- d
X was struck by you looked it up in Prolegomena. "katalyse på katalyse", tout it it really possible to "on" in this sense in' 'English? I asked ■wie.l s, and Sit was foreign to him. It is slightly emphatic and means "one after the other" .sendte brev -på brev uclsn at få svar" "gang på gang"
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