Parallel lives: Alarcos and Bello

Abstract

This paper aims to carry out a sustained comparison between the metalinguistic vision of Andrés Bello and that of Emilio Alarcos. This implies proceeding to a comparison of their respective attitudes towards language, not to an analysis of sources, as if Alarcos, who lived a century and a half after Bello, had simply been a follower of his. The article shows that both were characterized by the rigorous use of the scientific method, but without falling into the formalistic mechanism that so damaged linguistics in the 20th century. As shown by examining various methodological assumptions of both authors, Bello and Alarcos were cognitivists, not logicists, and embody the semiotic position that underlies the true Saussure (2002), contrary to the arbitrariness of the sign. And as regards the second his positions clearly advance central neurolinguistics approaches in the current literature, such as executive functions. It is concluded that Bello and Alarcos represent a prototypical case of "parallel scientific lives" in the sense of Plutarch.