| notable_ideas = Descriptive semasiology[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marty/ "Anton Marty"] at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Inner linguistic form
Autosemantica vs. synsemantica
Presentational suggestives
Impersonals

}}

Martin Anton Maurus Marty ({{IPA|de-AT|ˈmarti|lang}}; 18 October 1847{{spaced ndash}}1 October 1914) was a Swiss-born Austrian philosopher and Catholic priest. He specialized in philosophy of language, philosophy of psychology, and ontology.

Biography

Marty was a student and follower of Franz Brentano, his teacher at the University of Würzburg in 1868–70. He was ordained in 1870, but resigned from the priesthood in 1872.

His academic career began at Gottingen where, under Hermann Lotze, he took his degree by submitting an 1875 thesis on the origin of language entitled Kritik der Theorien uber den Sprachursprung.{{Citation |last=Albertazzi |first=Liliana |title=Anton Marty (1847–1914) |date=1996 |work=The School of Franz Brentano |series=Nijhoff International Philosophy Series |volume=52 |pages=83–108 |editor-last=Albertazzi |editor-first=Liliana |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-94-015-8676-4_3 |access-date=2024-02-18 |place=Dordrecht |publisher=Springer Netherlands |doi=10.1007/978-94-015-8676-4_3 |isbn=978-90-481-4628-4 |editor2-last=Libardi |editor2-first=Massimo |editor3-last=Poli |editor3-first=Roberto |url-access=subscription}}{{Cite web |title='Kritik der Theorien über den Sprachursprung : Inauguraldissertation' - Details {{!}} MDZ |url=https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/details/bsb11317878 |access-date=2024-02-18 |website=www.digitale-sammlungen.de}} An expanded version of which was also published that same year.{{Cite book |last=Marty |first=Anton |url=http://archive.org/details/ueberdenursprun00martgoog |title=Ueber den ursprung der sprache |date=1875 |publisher=A. Stuber |location=Würzburg |language=de |via=Internet Archive}}{{Citation |last1=Rollinger |first1=Robin |title=Anton Marty |date=2023 |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2023/entries/marty/ |access-date=2024-02-18 |edition=Summer 2023 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |last2=Janousek |first2=Hynek |editor2-last=Nodelman |editor2-first=Uri}}

He taught at the Franz-Josephs-Universität Czernowitz from 1875 to 1880. He then taught at the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague. Both universities fell within the Austrian territories of the Austro-Hungarian empire at that time, as they would for the remainder of Marty's lifetime. The latter university would soon after his appointment split into two separate, though linked, Czech and German institutions. Marty would remain at the German Charles-Ferdinand University, where he would also serve as dean and then rector, until his retirement in 1913.

He died in 1914 at the age of 66.

Thought

Marty was concerned with a synchronic analysis of language itself and has been described as a precursor to linguistic structuralists. Marty distinguished between 'autosemantica' and 'synsemantica', the former can be used by themselves and the latter cannot. Examples of autosemantica include things like nouns and proper names while examples of the latter are things like conjunctions.{{cite book |last1=Thass-Thienemann |first1=Theodore |url=https://archive.org/details/understandingsym0001thas |title=The Interpretation of Language Volume 1: Understanding the Symbolic Meaning of Language |date=1973 |publisher=Jason Aronson |isbn=0-87668-087-2 |page=141 |chapter=Repetition |quote=In descriptive linguistics two elements can be distinguished in every utterance. On the one hand, there are independent words, nouns, proper names, called autosemantica. On the other hand, one can find verbal elements, synsemantica, which cannot be used independently. [...] This distinction was first introduced by the inaugurator of descriptive linguistics, Anton Marty. |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive}} He used the term 'impersonals' to refer to expressions he considered to be without a subject like "It is raining."{{cite book |last1=Rollinger |first1=Robin D |title=Anton Marty & Karl Bühler: Between Mind and Language |date=2014 |publisher=Schwabe Verlag |isbn=9783796532146 |editor-last=Cesalli |editor-first=Laurent |editor-link=Laurent Cesalli |page=176 |chapter=Brentano and Marty on Logical Names and Linguistic Fictions: A Parting of Ways in the Philosophy of Language. |author-link=Laurent Cesalli |editor-last2=Friedrich |editor-first2=Janette}}

Legacy

The Prague School linguists were influenced by his works.Roman Jakobson (1933), "La scuola linguistica di Praga", La cultura 12, 633–641, esp. p. 637., reprinted in Selected Writings (1962)

Franz Kafka also attended his philosophy lectures while at the University of Prague.{{cite book |author=Heims |first=Neil |url=https://archive.org/details/franzkafka0000unse_k0s2 |title=Franz Kafka |date=2004 |publisher=Chelsea House |isbn=079107871X |editor=Harold Bloom |editor-link=Harold Bloom |edition=1st |location=Philadelphia |page=28 |chapter=Biography of Franz Kafka |quote=Besides attending lectures twenty hours a week on German, Roman, and ecclesiastical law, Kafka attended lectures on German literature, art history, and philosophy. The philosophy lectures he attended were delivered by Anton Marty who had been a pupil of Franz Brentano, a philosopher concerned with the unity of consciousness and its objects, and upon whose work, Husserl built Phenomenology. Through Marty, Kafka gained admittance to the “exclusive Brentano circle which met once a fortnight at the Café Louvre.” (Hayman 36) |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive}}

Works

Ueber den Ursprung der Sprache (On the Origin of Language) 1875
Die Frage nach der geschichtlichen Entwicklung des Farbensinnes, 1879
Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, 1908
Zur Sprachphilosophie. Die „logische“, „lokalistische“ und andere Kasustheorien, 1910

Nachlass works

Edited by Josef Eisenmeierand, Alfred Kastil, & Oskar Kraus:

(1916) Raum und Zeit, Halle: Niemeyer.

Gesammelte Schriften

(1916), Vol. I/1, Mit einem Lebensabriss und einem Bildnis, Halle: Niemeyer.
(1916), Vol. I/2, Schriften zur genetischen Sprachphilosophie, Halle: Niemeyer.
(1918) Vol. II/1, Schriften zur deskriptiven Psychologie und Sprachphilosophie, Halle: Niemeyer.
(1920) Vol. II/2, [https://ophen.org/pub-110453 Schriften zur deskriptiven Psychologie und Sprachphilosophie], Halle: Niemeyer.

Notes

References

{{Citation|author=Seuren, Pieter A. M.|author-link=Pieter Seuren|year=1998|title=Western linguistics: An historical introduction|publisher=Wiley-blackwell|isbn=0-631-20891-7}}
Barry Smith, Austrian Philosophy: The Legacy of Franz Brentano, Open Court Publishing, 1994, [https://web.archive.org/web/20030323081841/http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/book/austrian_philosophy/CH4.pdf Ch. 4: "Anton Marty: On Being and Truth"].
Johannes Marek and Barry Smith, “[https://web.archive.org/web/20150419013515/http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/articles/Einleitung.pdf Einleitung zu A. Martys ‘Elemente der deskriptiven Psychologie]" Conceptus, 21 (1987), 33–48, editors’ introduction to extracts from Marty’s lectures (ibid., 49–66).