La concezione semiologica della lingua secondo Marzolo tra naturalismo e comparativismo nell'Analisi della parola (1859 [1847] - 1866)

Paolo Marzolo (1811-1868) was a medical physiologist and linguist. Marzolo's peculiar training and dual professions confer a particular imprint on his thought and scientific production, which is concentrated in a monumental publication (Monumenti storici rivelati dall'analisi della parola, 1859-1866), mostly forgotten in the histories of linguistics. Marzolo worked when the linguistic comparativism was at its zenith; starting from anatomy and human physiology, he came to claim that language was not a product of convention but rather a natural one, and fixed its original phases in automatism (sounds that are naturally pronounced first: labial and lingual), patema (interjective elements) and imitation (onomatopoeia). His thought and his work deserve to be rediscovered, above all for some aspects which are functional to a better description and understanding of Italian linguistic reflection in the nineteenth century; these include the international dimension of linguistic studies, the comparative approach (although marked by a naturalist perspective) to the study of languages, the semiological perspective, and lastly the attention, extraordinary in these years, for language pathologies.