Leonard Bloomfield

Leonard Bloomfield (1887 - 1949), American philologist and linguist, born in hicago, !llinois, and
educated at "ar#ard, $isconsin, and hicago% "e &as regarded as the most important structural linguist of
his generation%
Born in hicago, Bloomfield &as educated at "ar#ard and subse'uentl( taught first )ermanic
philolog( and later linguistics at the uni#ersities of $isconsin, !llinois, hicago, and *ale%
"e taught at se#eral uni#ersities (19+9 - ,7) before becoming -rofessor of )ermanic -hilolog( at
hicago (19,7 - 4+) and -rofessor of Linguistics at *ale (194+ - 9)% !nitiall(, he &as interested in !ndo-
.uropean, and particularl( )ermanic, speech sounds and &ord-formation% Later, he undertoo/ pioneering
studies in the 0ala(o--ol(nesian languages, including 1agalog in the -hilippines, and made a detailed
stud( of the 2orth American !ndian languages, in particular the Algon'uian famil(% "is publications
include3 An !ntroduction to the 4tud( of Language (1914), Language (1955), and 6utline )uide for the
-ractical 4tud( of 7oreign Languages (194,)% A Leonard Bloomfield Antholog(, edited b( harles 7%
"oc/ett, appeared in 197+% !nfluenced b( .uropean structuralism, Bloomfield is generall( regarded as the
founder of American structural linguistics% "e &ished to introduce greater scientific rigour into the stud( of
language, and belie#ed that the onl( useful generali8ations about it are based on induction% "e argued for a
mechanistic and e9perimental rather than an introspecti#e and mentalist approach to its stud(, considering
ideas, feelings, and #olitions to be :merel( popular terms for #arious bodil( mo#ements: (Language, 1955,
p% 14,)%
Bloomfield:s main aim &as to sho& that linguistics &as an autonomous and, abo#e all, a scientific
discipline% 1his meant that onl( measurable and obser#able data could be admitted into linguistics, an
assumption that led Bloomfield to fa#our a beha#iourist account of meaning% 1his, ho&e#er, &as the
&ea/est part of Bloomfield:s &or/; it &as his account of s(nta9 and phonolog(, e9pressed in his e9tremel(
influential te9tboo/ Language (1955), that &as to ha#e the greater impact% "e argued that much linguistic
anal(sis could be pursued &ith onl( a minimal dependence upon semantic consideration% !t &as onl(
necessar( to /no& &hether t&o forms &ere the same or different forms% !n this &a( the distincti#e units of
a language could be identified and thereafter anal(sed in terms of their phonemes (phonological units) and
morphemes (s(ntactical units)%
Bloomfield:s mechanistic approach is particularl( e#ident in a treatment of meaning &hich deri#es
from beha#ioural ps(cholog(% "e interpreted a situation in &hich <ac/ gets <ill an apple (at her re'uest) in
terms of stimulus and response3 a practical stimulus 4 (<ill sees the apple), a linguistic response r (<ill
spea/s), a linguistic stimulus s (<ac/ hears <ill:s re'uest), and a practical response = (<ac/ pic/s the apple
and gi#es it to <ill)% "e argued that the meaning of <ill:s utterance, or an( other linguistic form, can be
defined as :the situation in &hich a spea/er utters it and the response &hich it calls forth in the hearer: (p%
159)% "e noted that no one has a :scientificall( accurate /no&ledge of e#er(thing in the spea/er:s &orld:
and that therefore :the stud( of meaning is %%% the &ea/ point in language stud(:% "e largel( e9cluded it from
his o&n studies and for se#eral decades his successors more or less ignored semantics%
Bloomfield:s definitions of the basic units of language &ere influential% "e defined the phoneme as :a
minimum same of #ocal feature: (that is, as a ph(sical piece of speech rather than as an abstract construct
of the linguist) and belie#ed (mista/enl(, as it pro#ed) that &ithin a fe& decades it &ould be possible to
establish the phonemes of a language in the laborator(% "e defined the morpheme as the basic unit of
grammatical arrangement, a :minimal form &hich bears no partial phonetic-semantic resemblance to an(
other form: (p% 1>1)% 1he &ord &as a :mininum free form:, the smallest unit that can occur in isolation, and
might consist of one morpheme (bo(, but) or more than one (bo(ish, carelessness)% "o&e#er, in order to
handle special morphological cases, Bloomfield cruciall( re#ised his definition of the morpheme b(
introducing the concept of morpheme alternants% 1hese in#ol#ed phonetic modification (feel becoming felt,
not feeled), 8ero features (sheep both singular and plural), minus features (minus final ?t? &here the 7rench
petite becomes petit), and suppletion (-s changed to -en in o9en)% 1his change from a definition based on
ph(sical arrangement to one that incorporates process led his successors in due course to modif( the
definitions of both phoneme and morpheme, ma/ing them more abstract and remo#ing the semantic
element from the definition of the morpheme% 4ee inde9% @Americas, Biograph(, )rammar, LanguageA%
7%=%-%, 1%0cA%