The article presents the linguistic conception of a prominent 18th century Swedish scientist Sven Hof, who provided genius scientific insights, which were far ahead of his time: the definition of language as a multi-level system and of its main — communicative and cognitive — functions, the notion of language type, the idea of symbolic nature of language and of arbitrariness of language signs, which have a signifier and a signified, the distinguishing of minimal units of oral speech, which perform a distinctive function.
Chekalina Elena. LINGUISTIC IDEAS OF 18th CENTURY SWEDISH SCIENTIST SVEN HOF