His academic career began at Gottingen where, under Hermann Lotze, he took his degree by submitting an 1875 thesis on the origin of language entitled Kritik der Theorien uber den Sprachursprung.[2][3] An expanded version of which was also published that same year.[4][5]
Marty was concerned with a synchronic analysis of language itself and has been described as a precursor to linguistic structuralists.[1] Marty distinguished between 'autosemantica' and 'synsemantica', the former can be used by themselves and the latter cannot. Examples of autosemantica include things like nouns and proper names while examples of the latter are things like conjunctions.[6][1] He used the term 'impersonals' to refer to expressions he considered to be without a subject like "it is raining".[5][7]
^ abRollinger, Robin; Janousek, Hynek (2023), "Anton Marty", in Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2023 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2024-02-18
^Thass-Thienemann, Theodore (1973). "Repetition". The Interpretation of Language Volume 1: Understanding the Symbolic Meaning of Language. Jason Aronson. p. 141. ISBN0-87668-087-2 – via Internet Archive. In descriptive linguistics two elements can be distinguished in every utterance. On the one hand, there are independent words, nouns, proper names, called autosemantica. On the other hand, one can find verbal elements, synsemantica, which cannot be used independently. [...] This distinction was first introduced by the inaugurator of descriptive linguistics, Anton Marty.
^Rollinger, Robin D (2014). "Brentano and Marty on Logical Names and Linguistic Fictions: A Parting of Ways in the Philosophy of Language.". In Cesalli, Laurent; Friedrich, Janette (eds.). Anton Marty & Karl Bühler: Between Mind and Language. Schwabe Verlag. p. 176. ISBN9783796532146.
^Heims, Neil (2004). "Biography of Franz Kafka". In Harold Bloom (ed.). Franz Kafka (1st ed.). Philadelphia: Chelsea House. p. 28. ISBN079107871X – via Internet Archive. Besides attending lectures twenty hours a week on German, Roman, and ecclesiastical law, Kafka attended lectures on German literature, art history, and philosophy. The philosophy lectures he attended were delivered by Anton Marty who had been a pupil of Franz Brentano, a philosopher concerned with the unity of consciousness and its objects, and upon whose work, Husserl built Phenomenology. Through Marty, Kafka gained admittance to the "exclusive Brentano circle which met once a fortnight at the Café Louvre." (Hayman 36)