James McElvenny, ed. 2023. The Limits of Structuralism. Forgotten Texts in the History of Modern Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 336 p. ISBN 9780192849045
Publisher’s website

Based around seven primary texts spanning 130 years, this volume explores the conceptual boundaries of structuralism, a scholarly movement and associated body of doctrines foundational to modern linguistics and many other humanities and social sciences. Each chapter in the volume presents a classic — and yet today underappreciated — text that addresses questions crucial to the evolution of structuralism. The texts are made accessible to present-day English-speaking readers through translation and extensive critical notes; each text is also accompanied by a detailed introduction that places it in its intellectual and historical context and outlines the insights that it contains. The volume reveals the complex genealogy of our ideas and enriches our understanding of their contemporary form and use.

Table of Contents

1:Scouting the limits of structuralism, James McElvenny
2:’Primitive structures’, polysynthesis, and Peter Stephen du Ponceau, Floris Solleveld
3:Franz Boas’ ‘purely analytical approach’ to language classification in the backdrop to American structuralism, Margaret Thomas
4:Georg von der Gabelentz’s typology: Humboldtian linguistics on the threshold of structuralism, James McElvenny
5:Grammaticalization and the sentimental evolution of Antoine Meillet, John E. Joseph
6:Roman Jakobson, language unions, and structuralism in Russia: Encounter or misunderstanding?, Patrick Sériot
7:Louis Hjelmslev on the correlational structure of language: The place within the system, Lorenzo Cigana
8:Émile Benveniste on the relation between linguistic and social structures: ‘Let us then consider that language interprets society’, Chloé Laplantine
References
Index