Albert Sechehaye facts for kids
Albert Sechehaye (born July 4, 1870, died July 2, 1946) was a smart Swiss linguist. A linguist is someone who studies language and how it works. He is famous for helping to put together the important lectures of another famous linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure. These lectures became a book called Course in General Linguistics.
His Life and Studies
Albert Sechehaye studied language at the University of Geneva. His teacher there was Ferdinand de Saussure, who was a very important person in the study of language.
From 1893 to 1902, Albert continued his studies in Germany at the University of Göttingen. There, he wrote a special paper (called a thesis) about a part of the French language.
After his studies, he taught in Geneva for many years. He became a full professor in 1939. His wife, Marguerite Sechehaye, was a psychotherapist. She was a pioneer in helping people with certain mental health conditions.
His Work in Language
Albert Sechehaye was interested in how the mind affects language. This area of study is called psycholinguistics. He made important contributions to how we think about language rules.
Some experts believe he was one of the first to suggest that language has a "formal grammar." This means he thought there might be a set of rules that explain how we create sentences. These rules could be the same for all languages.
In 1908, he used the term "syntactic transformation" in a modern way. This idea helps explain how we can change sentences while keeping their meaning. For example, changing "The dog chased the cat" to "The cat was chased by the dog."
See also
In Spanish: Albert Sechehaye para niños
