1. 0. The central parts of the argument 1. 1. The Schleicherian paradigm 1. 2. The Saussurcan paradigm 1. 3. The Chomskyan paradigm 2. Concluding remarks

... mehr als die schwierigste Rechnung, die mit Hiilfe alter Operationen ausgefiihrt wird, bedeutet die Ermittelung einer neuen Operationsart;... Hugo Schuchardt in 1905 (Ztschr. f. roman. Philologie 29: 622)

0. The work of Noam Chomsky, in particular his publications in 1962 and the subsequent years, has had an important impact on various aspects of the social sciences and in many fields of human curiosity. In linguistics, his teaching led to an unprecedented general emphasis on theoretical considerations and a revival of interest in the ideas propounded in the past centuries. In contrast to linguistics proper the history of linguistic thought has been presented and treated generally without theoretical prerequisites, with the result that its authors engage in writing chronicle not history, to use Collingwood's (1946: 202f.) important distinction. Others, among them no less a person than