Adolf Erhart

ACTA LINGUISTICA LITHUANICA XLIX (2003), 173-176 IN MEMORIAM ADOLF ERHART 31. V 1926 -11. VIII. 2003 In the summer, we received the sad news of the death of Adolf Erhart. The linguistic community has lost one of its leading members in Erhart. The Baltists also mourn Adolf Erhart, because an important part of his scientific work was devoted to Baltic studies. Adolf Erhart studied German studies, classical philology and Indo-European studies at the Faculty of Philosophy of Masaryk University in Brno from 1945. In 1949 he finished his studies with a thesis on the comparative in the Indo-European languages. In 1959, his dissertation on the origin and development of conjugation in Indo-European languages was accepted. In 1963 he obtained his habilitation with a thesis on new views on Indo-European consonantism for the department of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics. Due to unfavorable external circumstances, Adolf Erhart could not be appointed professor until 1988, although the corresponding procedure had already been opened in 1968. Since 1993, Erhart has been a professor emeritus. Erhart’s main research interest was the origin and development of Indo-European flexion. A first summary of his individual studies was published under the title Studien zur indoeuropäischen Morphologie (Studies on Indo-European Morphology) (1970), followed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by two monographs, Das indoeuropäische Verbalsystem (The Indo-European Verbal System) (1989) and Die indogermanische Nominalflexion und ihre Genese (1993). Erhart's research into Indo-Germanic studies was accompanied by his contributions to various Indo-European individual philologies. Erhart was the author of a descriptive and historical grammar of Sanskrit and a comparative grammar 174 | IN MEMORIAM of the Indo-Iranian languages. Erhart's numerous Slavistic contributions, which have appeared in various journals, are significant. Perhaps Erhart’s most popular field of research within the Indo-European studies was Baltic studies. Already in 1956 Erhart wrote a short Lithuanian grammar and also translated some Lithuanian stories. In 1984, his comparative grammar of the Baltic languages was published (Erhart unfortunately did not live to see the new edition, which is currently in preparation- ). In addition, Erhart wrote a number of essays on individual issues of Baltic linguistics, especially from an Indo-Germanistic and comparative perspective, which were always inspiring. For example, let us recall his solution of the problem of the Baltic-Slavic language unity (1958), characterized by Erhart’s typical sense of the (so often neglected) simplicity of linguistic descriptions, or his subtle distinction between the archaic and the conservative character of languages (1995). Algirdas Sabaliauskas summarized Erhart's contribution to Baltic studies in Lietuvių kalbos enciklopedija (edited by K. Morkūnas, Vilnius 1999, pp. 181-182). Erhart was therefore, like every true Indo-Germanist, also a Baltist. However, he was a Baltist not only by his training, but also and above all by his real interest in everything Baltic. I will never forget the conversation with Erhart after returning from my first trip to Lithuania in the summer of 1999. Those who knew Erhart know how he was reserved in personal contact and only gradually opened up to others. Even I was not so close to Erhart at that time. After my trip to Lithuania, however, everything was different: Erhart himself came to my office and asked me what I had visited in Lithuania, what I had seen, what was new in Lithuania. And we had an unusually long, half-hour conversation... Bohumil Vykypél BALTISCHE BIBLIOGRAPHIE VON ADOLF ERHART!' 1956 Lithuania. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1956. (Rez.: M. Vey, Bulletin de la Societe de Linguistique de Paris 53, 1957-58, 2, 190) Lithuanian tales. Edited by P. Trost. Prague: Svét sov&tü, 1956 (co-editor). Lithuanian dictionaries. Proceedings of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Brno A 4, 1956, 142-143. 1957 The Balto-Slavic name of „North“. Proceedings of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Brno A 5, 1957, 5-7. ! For the complete bibliography of Adolf Erhart as well as the literature about Erhart cf. Grammaticus. The 15th-century English scholar William Godwin described the 17th-century English as "a wealthy and rich language- ". Edited by O. Šefčik and B. Vykypél. Brno 2001, 14-23 and the supplements in Sbornik praci filozofické fakulty brnénské university A 52, 2004.