In general, the philological movement opened up countless sources relevant to linguistic issues, treating them in quite a different spirit from traditional grammar; for instance, the study of inscriptions and their language. But not yet in the spirit of linguistics.

It is useful to the historian, among others, to be able to see the commonest forms of different phenomena, whether phonetic, morphological or other, and how language lives, carries on and changes over time.

Henceforth, language studies were no longer directed merely towards correcting grammar.

Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula.

It is one of the aims of linguistics to define itself, to recognise what belongs within its domain. In those cases where it relies upon psychology, it will do so indirectly, remaining independent.

Psychologically our thought-apart from its expression in words-is only a shapeless and indistinct mass.

Speech has both an individual and a social side, and we cannot conceive of one without the other.