History of Linguistics, Volume IV: Nineteenth-Century Linguistics

In Volume IV, Anna Morpurgo Davies shows how linguistics developed as an independent discipline separated from philosophical and literary studies during the nineteenth century. During this period, earlier theoretical discussions were abandoned in favour of a more empirical and historical approach, which led to the achievement of demonstrating that languages such as Sanskrit, Latin and English are related, and derive from a parent language which is not attested but can be reconstructed.