"Sometimes is a synonym which extends itself, and contrasts by just much the domain of its colleague. At other times it is an historical event which comes to modify and renew the vocabulary."
Michel Jules Alfred Bréal, French philologist, was born at Landau in Rhenish Palatinate. He is often identified as a founder of modern semantics. He was also the creator of the modern marathon race, having proposed its first running at the 1896 Olympic Games and offered what would become known as Breal's Silver Cup to the winner.
"There is another kind of studies which distinguished from the sometimes opposed to comparative grammar. It is known under the name of general or philosophical grammar , whose principles and observations were articulated by Port Royal and which deals with the relation of the form of language to the operations of the mind."
"Historical grammar is now in a position to confirm or to refute."
"We define law, using the word in the philosophic sense, as the constant relation discoverable in a series of phenomena."
"In that second part we propose to investigate how it happens that words, once created and endowed with a certain meaning, extend that meaning or contract it, transfer it from one group of notions on to another, raise its value or lower it, in a word — bring about changes. It is this second part that constitutes semantics, i.e. science of meaning."
"In modern society, the meaning of words changes much more quickly than it did in antiquity or even in the recent past. This arises from the intermingling of social classes, the struggle of interests and opinions, the struggle of political parties and the variety of aspirations and tastes."
"We must realize the extent to which it is necessary that our knowledge of language be based on history. Only history can impart to words that degree of precision which we need in order to understand them well."