ABSTRACT
Inanumberofstandardtextbookswrittenbetweenthe186osandthe 1960stheearlynineteenthcenturyistakenasthepointofdeparturefor thehistoryof'scientific'linguistics.Theimplicitorexplicitclaimisthat onlyatthatdatelinguisticsentered'Iavoierationelle'(Leroy1971,q). Yetitisclearthatseriousconcernwithlanguageatadescriptiveor philosophicallevelexistedatamuchearlierstage.Ifso,whythisarbitrarystartingpoint?Thisisaquestioninthehistoryofhistoriography, butisequallyrelevanttothehistoryoflinguistics.Ananswermayhelp todefinethespecificcharactersofnineteenth-centurylinguisticthought andtoprovideanaccountofthelinksbetweenthatthoughtandmodern linguisticwork.
