Korzybski, Alfred Habdank

Korzybski, Alfred Habdank kôrzĭbˈskē [key], 1879–1950, Polish-American linguist, b. Warsaw. In his system, which he called General Semantics, Korzybski aimed at a distinction between the word and the object it describes and between the individual objects all described by the same word, insisting also that the effect of time be taken into consideration. In 1949, Korzybski lectured at Yale on his system; he wrote two books describing it (1921 and 1933).

See K. Thurman, Semantics (1960).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

See more Encyclopedia articles on: Language and Linguistics: Biographies