My former colleague and friend Giulio Lepschy, who has died aged 91, was a pioneering linguist in the study of structuralism and the history of linguistics, as well as an innovator in studies of the Italian language.
La Linguistica Strutturale, a book illustrating a complex linguistic theory in a precise, comprehensive language, was published in 1966, when he was only 31 years old; The Italian Language Today, written in 1977 with his wife, Anna Laura Momigliano, is one of the most effective descriptions of the history, sociolinguistics and structure of Italian. The five-volume History of Linguistics (1994-98), which he devised and edited, is a milestone in the field of linguistic theory and studies.
