ИСТИНА

E. Coseriu is known for his broad scientific interests and for having worked on quite a wide range of subjects; it is hard to deny that many modern trends in linguistics show traces of influence from Coseriu’s ideas. Such a multifaceted view on language, very impressive when encountered in works by a single scholar, however, is typical for the contemporary state of linguistic science. Coseriu’s conceptions can be regarded as reflecting the interparadigmatic character of modern linguistics. History of linguistics knows other similar periods; one of them started in the Renaissance, with the first descriptions of living languages, and was finished up by the grammar of Port-Royal. The interparadigmatic character of that epoch can be illustrated by taking an overall view of the XVI – XVII cc. treatises by Portuguese linguists. In that period in Portugal, as well as in Spain, Counter-Reformation was responsible for a peculiar cultural atmosphere that favoured retaining certain aspects of Medieval thought (such as ideas of grammar and logic) and combining them with the new, Renaissance conceptions. While describing an increasing number of languages Portuguese linguists had to perform a number of modifications to the classical pattern of grammatical description, previously quite uniform; they contributed to the development of new types of grammars – universal and language-specific, comparative, historical, theoretical, pedagogical – as well as to elaborating various subjects and methods in linguistic studies. The works by Portuguese linguists preconceive some of the ideas and principles that characterize the linguistic thought of the XX–XXI cc. (naturally, the terminological framework has evolved). Thus, one can draw parallels between the way Portuguese Renaissance linguists and Coseriu treat sociolinguistic problems; the correlation between linguistic system, norm and speech; universal rational grammar issues; some aspects of language history, semantics and pragmatics. Such a broad range of subjects under discussion in linguistic works of certain periods makes us come up with the hypothesis that such periods are of interparadigmatic nature; they can be regarded as a result of intersection of the two hyperparadigms – universalist and language-specific ‒ alternatively coming to the fore of research interest but never disappearing completely. At turning points, that is, within interparadigmatic periods, the coexistence of different approaches allows for the extreme diversity of subjects and methods in research, some of which are taken up only later, within more specific paradigms. The broadness of approach to language studies characteristic of Portuguese Renaissance linguistics, thus, can be paragoned to Coseriu’s achievements in developing a multifaceted view on language, uncommon for many XX-century linguists belonging to one of the hyperparadigms. Coseriu’s works open a wide perspective for language studies in different fields, which makes him one of the key figures in modern linguistics. http://www.uni-potsdam.de/lingcos