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Unit 3: Brief History of the Growth of Modern Linguistics: Bloomfield to Chomsky

Some groundwork on Greek phonology was done: phonetic observations were made on the Notes
pronunciation values of the letters of the Greek alphabet and on the accent signs, and some theory
of the syllable as the structural unit was developed. But no very penetrating observations in the
field of phonetics were made.

The period between 3rd century B.C. and 2nd century A.D. is the golden period
of Greek Grammar.

Within grammar morphology held a place of pride, and word-classes (parts of speech) were
established in great detail. The number went up to eight (noun, verb, pronoun, participle, adverb,
preposition, conjunction, article) in the Greek grammar of Dionysius Thrax which is regarded by
the scholars as the best grammar of Greek. The work of the grammatical description of Greek was
carried out some three centuries later, less systematically however, by Apollonius Dyscolus (second
century A. D.).
3.1.5 The Roman Period

In linguistic studies, the Romans were content largely to model themselves on Greek patterns.
They copied the Greeks slavishly in all aspects of the linguistic scholarship. Grammars of Latin
were fitted in a Greek framework. In dealing with the ‘parts of speech’ the Latin grammarians
made only such minor modifications as the differences between Greek and Latin forced to their
attention. They, however, encouraged the view that the parts of speech, case, number, tense, etc.
were universals and necessary categories of language.
The most famous Latin grammars are those by Donatus (c. 440 A.D.) and Priscian (c. 500 A.D.)
which were used as standard text books as late as the Middle Ages. The period of Latin grammatical
scholarship, like the Alexandrian period, was an age of classicism. The grammars of Donatus and
Priscian set out to describe not the language of their own day, but that of the ‘best writers’,
especially Cicero and Virgil, and thus perpetuated what is called the ‘classical’ fallacy in the
approach to linguistic description. The Roman grammars like their ancestors, the Greek Grammars,
cherished the misconception that only the language of the best writers was the best language, and
that the purity of the language must be maintained at all costs.
Priscian grammar is comprehensive and runs in eighteen volumes. Priscian models himself on
Thrax and Apollonius.
3.1.6 The Medieval Period

Since Latin occupied an important place in the educational system during the Medieval period
throughout Europe, Latin grammars went on influencing the total infrastructure of thought. Latin
was not only the medium of education but also the language of diplomacy, scholarship, church,
and culture. Consequently a large number of manuals were written on Latin grammar to help the
foreign learners in acquiring a fairly masterly knowledge of Latin. Most of these were based on
Priscian and Donatus.
In the Middle Ages, a number of scholars known collectively as the Modistate or speculative
grammarians, made the most notable contribution to the study of language. Latin grammar was
integrated into a comprehensive scholastic theory of language, itself forming part of a scholastic
philosophical system. The grammarians of this age, inspired by the scholastic ideals of science as
a search for universal and invariant causes, deliberately attempted to derive the categories of
grammar from the categories of logic, epistemology and metaphysics; or rather, to derive the
categories of all the four sciences from the same general principles.
The name ‘Modistae’ was attached to them as they produced numerous works entitled De Modis
Significandi ‘concerning the ways of signifying’. Their other name, the speculative grammarians, is
from the Latin word Speculum ‘mirror’. It arose from the assumption that language in some way

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