Page 34 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Linguistics

Notes reflects a reality which underlies the physical world of objects. Their prime concern was to find
out the nature of the relationship between words and this reality. Such a belief prompted them to
the search for universals in grammar, on the assumption that all grammars are basically the same
and only differ superficially. (This view has been revived recently, especially by Chomsky and is
one of the most controversial topics in the study of linguistics now-a-days). The speculative
grammarians held that all languages have words for the same concepts and all languages manifest
the same parts of speech and other general grammatical categories.
3.1.7 The Renaissance and After
The era of discovery and exploration brought new knowledge about the languages of the world.
Travellers and missionaries wrote grammars and dictionaries of languages they found in America,
Africa and other parts of the world. Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Arabic, however, formed the main
body of interest. The Renaissance scholars thought that they were making a radical break with the
scholastic tradition of the Middle Ages. Scholars like Petrarch ridiculed the language of the
schoolmen for its ‘barbarism’, and made Cicero their model and ideal in usage, style and humanism,
holding that humanism was identical to ‘civilization’ as opposed to ‘Barbarism’. Believing that the
literature of classical antiquity was the source of all civilized values, they concentrated their
energies upon the collection and publication of the texts of the classical authors. Once again
grammar became an aid to understanding of literature and to the writing of ‘good’ Latin. Erasmus
himself (in 1513) published a work on Latin syntax based on Donatus. The vernacular languages
of Europe also attracted the attention of the scholars. There were grammars of Irish, Icelandic,
Provencal and French in the field. Yet the classical tradition continued to dominate the scene.
Language still meant the language of literature.
3.1.8 The 17th Century
The ideals of ‘speculative’ grammar were revived in France in the seventeenth century by the
teachers of Port Royal. A celebrated French grammar Grammair general et raisonne written by
C. Lancelot and A. Arnauld—popularly known as the Port Royal Grammar—was published in the
year 1660. ‘Lancelot and Arnauld seem to have anticipated some of the trends we notice in the
writings of the transformational-generative school of Noam Chomsky. The Port-Royal grammarians
are logicians who examined the structure of language. Their writings emphasize the universal
nature of the (logical) form of sentences, of linguistic capabilities and of grammatical categories.’
Through the Renaissance, grammar continued to uphold the classical tradition. It remained the art
of speaking and writing correctly; its object was to discover the relations existing between the
elements of language, whether the relations be ‘natural’ or ‘conventional;’ the grammarian’s task
was to describe ‘good usage’ and prescribe rules: it was a prescriptive and authoritative grammar.
3.1.9 The 18th Century
The eighteenth century was a period of grammars in the classical tradition and of dictionaries. All
linguistic attempts were imitative, authoritarian and prescriptive (although original work was
being initiated in comparative linguistics). The major works of this period are Dr. Johnson’s
Dictionary, James Harris’s A Philosophical Enquiry Concerning Universal Grammar (1751), Joseph
Priestley’s The Rudiments of English Grammar (1761), Robert Lowth’s A Short Introduction to English
Grammar (1762), Lindley Murray’s English Grammar (1795).
3.1.10 The 19th and 20th Centuries
At the end of the eighteenth century a new and highly important stream entered European linguistic
scholarship. It was from India in two forms: (1) the discovery of Sanskrit, and (2) its indisputable
relationship with the major language groups of Europe. It was a period of comparative and
historical linguistics. Its great contribution was to the development of articulatory phonetics. In
Europe general linguistics of the modern period largely grew out of the nineteenth century
comparative and historical studies, especially those dealing with American-Indian communities.
Britain contributed immensely in the field of phonetics, the British tradition being reinforced by
the Indian tradition. At the end of the nineteenth century A.D. and the first half of the twentieth

28 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY