Filipp Fortunatov and the neogrammarian school

The aim of the work is to study the peculiarities of the interaction of an outstanding Russian linguist Filipp Fyodorovich Fortunatov with the Neogrammarian School as a scholarly paradigm that influenced his formation as a linguist. The analysis of linguistic paradigms is an important direction of modern linguohistoriography. It is known that after graduating from the university, the twenty-three-year-old linguist was sent abroad and visited such German cities as Tübingen, Berlin, Königsberg and Leipzig. In the latter, he attended lectures by an outstanding representative of comparative historical linguistics Georg Curtius and one of the founders of the Neogrammarian School August Leskien. There is no doubt that these scholars played an important role in shaping the views of the young linguist. According to a general opinion, Fortunatov is called a representative of the Neogrammarian School in Russia. The novelty of this study lies in the fact that the author tries to show how legitimate this statement is in relation to Fortunatov’s works and identify the features of the Neogrammarian School reflected in his works. The Moscow Linguistic School founded by Fortunatov is usually called “formal”, which in itself demonstrates its obvious opposition to the Leipzig Neogram marian School. Developing the theory of his German teachers, the Russian linguist went further, coming very close to structuralism. Over 43 years of his scholarly life, Fortunatov published 36 works - mainly in Russia and in Russian, which made his views practically inaccessible to world linguistics. He passed on his new original ideas to his students in live communication. The author of the article emphasises the special role of Fortunatov as the founder of the recognized school of structuralism, whose students jumped the barriers of the previous scholarly paradigm by having adopted the most advanced ideas of their teacher.