Abstract

Hermann Paul has been long forgotten by linguistic historiography, and his contribution to the development of general linguistics has been underestimated. An analysis of the title he gave to his main book, "Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte", and the reconstruction of his role in the Historismus-debate, may restore the sense of his scientific program, and of his idea of linguistic research as an essentially observational, empirical practice, liable to the generalization proper to all empirical sciences.