Growth and Structure of the English Language

Jesperson, Otto

Reprint of the 10th (1982) edition. A very clean, crisp, paperback, no marks or inscriptions. 244 pages. Otto Jesperson was, until 1925, Professor of English at the University of Copenhagen; he died in 1943. From the Publisher:- 'First published in 1905...Otto Jesperson's Growth and Structure of the English Language remains probably the finest and certainly the best of all short histories of the language.' The foreword was written by Randolph Quirk who, at the time of writing in 1982, was Vice-Chancellor of the University of London, and formerly Quain Professor of English Language and Literature at University College, London. He said: '......He (Jesperson,) is indeed the most distinguished scholar of the English language who has ever lived, in my view: no small claim when we reflect on the distinguished scholarship that has for centuries been devoted to our language.. A further and related reason is this. While being a deeply serious theoretical linguist to whom such daunting labels as phonetician and grammarian pre-eminently apply, Jesperson was above all a philologist in the older senses of this word, a lover of language and of the arts that are realised in language.'

Our Ref: S5418

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