Biography
The linguist Eugenio Coseriu was born in 1921 in Mihăileni, a small Romanian town that today lies in the Republic of Moldova. After his studies in Romania and Italy, he became Professor of General and Indo-European Linguistics at the University of Montevideo (Uruguay). In the Fifties, he developed the core foundations of his theory of language, which at first consisted of the development and completion of structural linguistics. His most important treatises of this period critically deal with Ferdinand de Saussure and modify or rather complete the latter’s theory of speech, referring among others to Wilhelm von Humboldt, Hegel and Aristotle.
Some of Coseriu’s publications of the Fifties unfold issues that go beyond structural consideration of language. For example in Determinación y entorno (1955-56), a linguistic theory of text is outlined for the first time. In 1961, Coseriu came to Germany, at first to Bonn and Frankfurt/Main, then as of 1963 to the University of Tübingen as professor for Romance Linguistics. In the Seventies, Coseriu’s Tübingen School became the most influential in Romance studies, with great impact even beyond Romance studies, especially in the realm of general linguistics and philosophy of language, but also in other disciplines, such as Germanic or Slavic linguistics.
Eugenio Coseriu died on September 7th 2002 in Tübingen.
| July 27th, 1921 | born in Mihăileni, Romania (present-day Republic of Moldova) |
| 1926-1931 | Elementary school in Mihăileni |
| 1931-1939 | Lyceum (Liceul “Ion Creangă”) in Bălţi, Romania (present-day Republic of Moldova) |
| 1939-1940 | Studies (modern philology and law) at the University “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” of Iaşi, Romania |
| 1940-1944 | Romance and Slavic studies at the University of Rome, Italy |
| January – February 1943 | Study visit to Zagreb, Croatia Januar |
| 1944 | Laurea in lettere at the University of Rome (with the thesis Su gli influssi della poesia epica francese medievale sulla poesia epica popolare degli Slavi meridionali) |
| 1944 | Studies of philosophy at the University of Padua, Italy |
| 1945 | Studies of philosophy at the University of Milan, Italy |
| 1945-1949 | Newspaper editor among others at the daily Corriere Lombardo |
| 1949 | Laurea in filosofia (with the thesis L’evoluzione delle idee estetiche in Romania) |
| 1947-1950 | Lecturer of Romanian language at the University of Milan; collaborator of Hoepli Enciclopedia |
| 1951-1963 | Professor of General and Indo-European Linguistics at the Universidad de la República (Montevideo, Uruguay); head of the linguistic research institute (Departamento de Lingüística); simultaneously Professor of Linguistics (general, Romance and Spanish) at the Instituto de Profesores Artigas, Montevideo |
| December 1960 – February 1961 | Visiting Professor of General Linguistics at the University of Coimbra, Portugal |
| November 1961 – February 1962 | Visiting Professor of Romance Philology at the University of Bonn, Germany |
| May 1962 – February 1963 | Visiting Professor of Romance Philology at the University of Frankfurt/Main, Germany |
| Since 1966 | Professor of Romance Philology and General Linguistics at the University of Tübingen |
| A partir de 1966 | Catedrático de Filología Románica y lingüística general en la Universidad de Tubinga |
| 1972 – 1973 & 1977 – 1978 | Professeur associé at the University of Strasbourg, France |
| September 7th, 2002 | Died in Tübingen |