The Early Modern Period

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries occupy a special place in the renewed interest in the history of linguistic thought. Indeed, in the last few decades a large number of studies and explorations, and of editions and translations of texts, ¹ have concentrated on these two centuries. In this way much new knowledge has been accumulated, which now enables us to write a history of thought and of linguistic research of this period significantly different from that offered in previous histories of linguistics. ²