Hjelmslev, Louis

Hjelmslev, Louis 

Born Oct. 3, 1899, in Copenhagen; died there May 30, 1965. Danish linguist.

Hjelmslev, a graduate from the University of Copenhagen in 1923, taught there after 1937, heading the department of comparative linguistics. He was the founder and leader of a Copenhagen linguistic circle (1931) and the Copenhagen (Danish) school of structuralism, glossematics. His work Principles of General Grammar (1928) describes language categories on the basis of the logic of language as a semeiological system. In The Category of Cases (1935–37), Hjelmslev explains the theoretical basis for a general description of case systems. His Toward a Theory of Language (1943) is an ex-position of the principles of glossematics.

WORKS

“Prolegomeny k teorii iazyka.” InNovoe v lingvistike, issue 1. Moscow, 1960.
“Mozhno li schitat’, chto znacheniia slov obrazuiut strukturu.” In Novoe v lingvistike, issue 2. Moscow, 1962.
“lazyk i rech’.” In V. A. Zvegintsev, Istoriia iazykoznaniia XIX i XX vv. v ocherkakh i izvlecheniiakh, part 2. Moscow, 1965.
“Metod strukturnogo analiza v lingvistike.” Ibid.
“Poniatie upravleniia.” Ibid.
Sproget Copenhagen, 1963. In French translation: Le Langage. Paris, 1966.