HISTORICAL ROOTS OF LINGUISTIC THEORIES -- Editorial page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Table of contents -- Foreword -- Linguistic Historiography between Linguistics and Philosophy of Language -- REFERENCES -- SOMMARIO -- RESUME -- On the Origins of Historical Linguistics. Materials and proposals for the Italian case -- 1. Biblical Patterns -- 2. Canini: Methodical transfer and Phonetics -- 3. Persio: Cultural Transfer and Dialects -- 4. Natural empire and barbarism -- 5. Ferrari's 'Scherzo' -- 6. The inner opening -- 7. Appendix -- 7.1 Materials for the Historiography of Germanic etymologies in Italian -- 7.2 Accidental comparativism: 'schernire', 'scherzare' -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- A. Primary sources -- B. Secondary sources -- SOMMARIO -- RESUME -- The Legacy of Classical Rhetorics -- 1. Acknowledging the debt -- 2. The worthwile pieces -- 3. A theory of signification is enfolded in the design of the Traité -- 4. Value and synonymy -- 5. Baubles and trifles -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- SOMMARIO -- RESUME -- Mechanical Models and the Language Sciences in the 18th Century -- 1. The talking machine -- 2. The "mécanique des langues" -- 3. The machine of grammar and the generation of utterances -- 4. History and mechanism, or, the history of the machine -- 5. The machine and language in the classical period -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- SOMMARIO -- RESUME -- The Beginnings of Psycholinguistics. Natural and artificial signs in the treatment oflanguage disorders -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- SOMMARIO -- RESUME -- The Theory of Interjectionsin Vico and Rousseau -- REFERENCES -- SOMMARIO -- RESUME -- The French Sources of Leopardi's linguistics -- 1. Leopardi' s use of his sources -- 2. Diderot and D'Alembert -- 3. Oher authors of the Encyclopédie -- 4. Voltaire -- 5. Montesquieu -- 6. Rousseau -- 7. Leopardi and the origin of the alphabet.

8. Conclusions -- REFERENCES -- SOMMARIO -- RESUME -- Intellectual History, History of Ideas, History of Linguistic Ideas. -- REFERENCES -- SOMMARIO -- RESUME -- The 'Imperfect' Language. Notes on Alessandro Manzoni's linguistic ideas -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- SOMMARIO -- RESUME -- Old Debates and Current Problems. Völkerpsychologie and the question of theindividual and the social in language -- 1. Introduction. The history of linguistics between the hankering afterforerunners and erudition as an end in itself -- 2. The debate on Völkerpsychologie and its current relevance -- 3. Chomsky and the abstraction of the "homogeneous speechcommunity" -- 4. Is Paul a forerunner of Chomsky? -- 5. Conclusion -- REFERENCES -- SOMMARIO -- RESUME -- The Question of the Significatum. A problem raised and solved -- 1. Statement of the Problem -- 2. A short history of the problem in ancient semantics (Cf. Nef 1993) -- 2.1 The Stoics -- 2.2 Abelard -- 2.3 Complexe significabile: Gregory of Rimini -- 3. Reformulating and removing the problem in modern semantics -- 3.1 Bolzano, Meinong -- 3.2 The Frege-Russell conflict -- 3.3 The vanishing of the Problem: the later Wittgenstein and Quine -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- A. Primary sources -- B. Secondary sources -- SOMMARIO -- RESUME -- The Embarassment of Communication from Mandeville to Grice -- 1. A cross-road of research: the notion of dialogue -- 2. Description and foundation of dialogue: Grice -- 3. The double face of communication: Mandeville -- 4. Dialogue as "a will to understand" -- 5. Language, dialogue and humanistic rationality -- 6. For a genetic theory of dialogue -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- SOMMARIO -- RESUME -- The Semiological Sources of Semantics -- REFERENCES -- SOMMARIO -- RESUME -- The Language User in Saussure (and after) -- 1. Linguistics with and without user.

2. Possible roles of the language user in linguistic theory -- 3. The two paradigms in Saussure -- 4. The user-centered paradigm in Saussure -- 4.1 Explanations of language change -- 4.2 The "rapports associatifs" -- 4.3 "L'arbitraire absolu" and "l'arbitraire relatif" -- 4.4 Analogy -- 5. By way of a conclusion -- NOTE -- REFERENCES -- SOMMARIO -- RESUME -- The Analysis of French between the two World Wars (1914-1940) -- 4. Conclusion -- REFERENCES -- SOMMARIO -- RESUME -- Forms of Imperfect Augustinianism -- 1. Chomsky and the outrage of labels -- 2. The temptation of the symbolic mode -- 3. The condemnation to semiology -- REFERENCES -- SOMMARIO -- RESUME -- The Convention of Geneva. History of linguistic ideas and history of communicative practices -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- SOMMARIO -- RESUME -- Index of Authors -- Index of Subjects and Terms.