Hermann Otto Theodor Paul (August 7, 1846, Salbke – December 29, 1921, Munich) was a German philologist, linguist and lexicographer.

[1] He studied at Berlin and Leipzig, and in 1874 became professor of German language and literature in the University of Freiburg.

His main work, Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1st ed.

Wilhelm Wundt opposed this theory of sentences, arguing that they begin as a simultaneous thought that is converted into linear, sequential parts (1900).

Other works:[2] After 1874 Paul and Wilhelm Braune edited the Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (“Contributions to the history of the German language and its literature”).