The Neo-Humboldtian lexical field theory. Origin, reception and perspectives

Leo Weisgerber’s and Jost Trier’s Wortfeldtheorie is still considered the most consistent outcome of post-Saussurean structural semantics as well as the first step towards an “ontological structuralism”. One of their aims was to reconcile the impasse born out of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s distinction between Energeia and Ergon, which exploded in the 20th century dispute between structural semantics and cognitive and pragmatic approaches. If Neo-Humboldtians hastened the “structuralist turn”, Trier’s theory contains insights still relevant in the theories of language focusing on the interactions between language, thought, and reality.