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A grammar book is a book or treatise describing the grammar of one or more languages. In linguistics, such a book is itself frequently referred to as a grammar.

Etymology

Ancient Greek had the term τέκνή γραμματική (téchnē grammatikḗ, 'skill in the use of letters'), which was adapted into Latin as ars grammatica. This term was used in the title of works about writing and language, which came to be known in English as grammar-books or grammars.

Definition

Although the style and content of grammar-books varies enormously, they generally aim for a fairly systematic and comprehensive survey of one language's phonetics, morphology, syntax and word-formation. Since languages vary across time, space, social groups, genres, and so forth, grammars inevitably cannot represent every single aspect of a language, but usually select a particular variety with a view to a particular readership.

The readerships of grammars and their needs vary widely. Grammars may be intended for native-speakers of a language or for learners. Many grammars are written for use by children learning a language in a school environment. Many grammars are reference grammars, intended not to be read from beginning to end like a textbook, but to enable readers to check particular details as the need arises. Some grammars are prescriptive, aiming to tell readers how they ought to use language; others are descriptive, aiming to tell readers how language is used in reality. In either case, popular grammars can be enormously influential on language-use.

History

The earliest known descriptive linguistic writing, leading to early grammar-books, took place in a Sanskrit community in northern India; the best known scholar of that linguistic tradition was Pāṇini, whose works are commonly dated to around the 5th century BCE. The earliest known grammar of a Western language is the second-century BCE Art of Grammar attributed to Dionysius Thrax, a grammar of Greek.

Key stages in the history of English grammars include Ælfric of Eynsham's composition around 995 CE of a grammar in Old English based on a compilation of two Latin grammars, Aelius Donatus's Ars maior and Priscian's Institutiones grammaticae. This was intended for use by English-speaking students of Latin, and is the first known grammar of Latin written in a vernacular language, but was arguably also intended to use Latin as a basis for explaining English grammar. A key step in the development of English grammars was the 1586 publication of William Bullokar's published his Pamphlet for Grammar, which used a framework derived from Latin grammars to show how English too had grammatical structures and rules. Numerous grammars aimed at foreign learners of English, sometimes written in Latin, were published in the seventeenth century, while the eighteenth saw the emergence of English-language grammars aiming to instruct their Anglophone audiences in what the authors viewed as correct grammar, including an increasingly literate audience of women and children; this trend continued into the early twentieth century. A key shift in grammar-writing is represented by Charles Carpenter Fries' 1952 The Structure of English, which aimed to give up-to-date, descriptive rather than prescriptive, information on English grammar, and drew on recordings of live speech to inform its claims.

List of first printed grammars

See also

• Dictionaries
• Glossaries
• Language documentation
• List of Croatian grammar books

Further reading

• Görlach, M. (1998), An annotated bibliography of nineteenth-century grammars of English (Amsterdam: Benjamins)
• Graustein, G. and Leitner, G. (eds.) (1989), Reference grammars and modern linguistic theory, Linguistische Arbeiten, 226 (Tübingen: Niemeyer)
• Leitner, G. (1984), 'English grammaticology', International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 23, 199–215.
• Leitner, G. (ed.) (1986), The English reference grammar: language and linguistics, writers and readers (Tübingen: Niemeyer)
• Leitner, G. (ed.) (1991), English traditional grammars: an international perspective (Amsterdam: Benjamins)

References

1. ^ Andrew Linn, 'English Grammar Writing', in The Handbook of English Linguistics, ed. by Bas Aarts and April McMahon (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 72–92.
2. François & Ponsonnet (2013).
3. Melinda J. Menzer, 'Ælfric's English Grammar', The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 103 (2004), 106-24.
4. Ingelhart, Louis E. (1998). Press and Speech Freedoms in the World, from Antiquity until 1998: A Chronology. Greenwood. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-313-30851-2.
5. Dondi, Cristina (2020). Printing R-evolution and Society 1450-1500: Fifty Years that Changed Europe. Edizioni Ca' Foscari - Digital Publishing. pp. 279–297. ISBN 978-88-6969-333-5.
6. Waltke, Bruce K.; O'Connor, Michael Patrick (1990). An introduction to biblical Hebrew syntax. Winona Lake, Ind: Eisenbrauns. p. 39. ISBN 0931464315.
7. Hymes, Dell H. (1974). Studies in the history of linguistics: traditions and paradigms. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 361–379. ISBN 0253355591.
8. Kelly, Samantha (2024). Translating faith: Ethiopian pilgrims in Renaissance Rome. Harvard University Press. p. 243. ISBN 9780674294172.
9. "Old orthographies, grammars and handbooks of Polish language". gramatyki.uw.edu.pl.
10. Palabıyık, Nil Ö (2023). Silent teachers: Turkish books and oriental learning in early modern Europe, 1544-1669. Routledge. p. 205. ISBN 0367359782.
11. McQuown, Norman A. (1968). Handbook of Middle American Indians, Volume 5: Linguistics. University of Texas Press. p. 203. ISBN 978-1-4773-0663-5.
12. Considine, John P. (2017). Small Dictionaries and Curiosity: Lexicography and Fieldwork in Post-medieval Europe. Oxford University Press. p. 244. ISBN 978-0-19-878501-9.
13. Hamilton, Alastair (2006). The Copts and the West, 1439-1822: The European Discovery of the Egyptian Church. OUP Oxford. p. 199-206. ISBN 978-0-19-928877-9.
14. Auroux, Sylvain; Koerner, E. F. K.; Niederehe, Hans-Josef; Versteegh, Kees (2008). History of the Language Sciences / Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaften / Histoire des sciences du langage. 2. Teilband. Walter de Gruyter. p. 1132. ISBN 978-3-11-019421-0.
15. Zwartjes, Otto; Troia, Paolo De (2021). Missionary Linguistics VI: Missionary Linguistics in Asia. Selected papers from the Tenth International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, Rome, 21–24 March 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 202. ISBN 978-90-272-5843-4.
16. Koerner, E. F. K.; Asher, R. E. (28 June 2014). Concise History of the Language Sciences: From the Sumerians to the Cognitivists. Elsevier. p. 181. ISBN 978-1-4832-9754-5.
17. Ahlqvist, Anders (1992). Diversions of Galway: Papers on the History of Linguistics from ICHoLS V, Galway, Ireland, 1-6 September 1990. John Benjamins Publishing. p. 59. ISBN 978-90-272-4555-7.
18. Saarela, Marten Soderblom (2020). The Early Modern Travels of Manchu: A Script and Its Study in East Asia and Europe. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 175. ISBN 978-0-8122-5207-1.
19. Knight, Sarah; Tilg, Stefan (2015). The Oxford Handbook of Neo-Latin. Oxford University Press. p. 567. ISBN 978-0-19-994818-5.
20. Wickremasuriya, Sarathchandra (1978). "The beginnings of the Sinhalese Printing Press". Senarat Paranavitana Commemoration Volume. Brill. pp. 283–300. ISBN 978-90-04-64647-6.
21. Sharma, Ghanshyam; Lowe, John J. (8 November 2021). Trends in South Asian Linguistics. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 273. ISBN 978-3-11-075306-6.
22. Miodunka, Władysław (1987). Language and Nation: Material from a Symposium. Jagiellonian University. p. 41. ISBN 978-83-01-07840-9.
23. Hualde, José Ignacio; Urbina, Jon Ortiz de (2011). A Grammar of Basque. Walter de Gruyter. p. 10. ISBN 978-3-11-089528-5.
24. Zwartjes, Otto (2011). Portuguese Missionary Grammars in Asia, Africa and Brazil, 1550-1800. John Benjamins Publishing. p. 75. ISBN 978-90-272-4608-0.
25. Offredi, Mariola (2000). The Banyan Tree: Essays in Early Literature in New Indo-Aryan Languages. Manohar. p. 324. ISBN 978-81-7304-277-5.
26. Lebsanft, Franz; Tacke, Felix (2020). Manual of Standardization in the Romance Languages. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 276. ISBN 978-3-11-045606-6.
27. Bajalan, Djene Rhys; Karimi, Sara Zandi (2017). Studies in Kurdish History: Empire, Ethnicity and Identity. Taylor & Francis. p. 34. ISBN 978-1-317-50216-6.
28. Kochhar, Rajesh (2021). Sanskrit and the British Empire. Taylor & Francis. pp. 13–14. ISBN 978-1-000-43553-5.
29. Lepschy, Giulio C. (2014). History of Linguistics Vol III: Renaissance and Early Modern Linguistics. Routledge. p. 122. ISBN 978-1-317-89524-4.
30. Andronov, Mikhail Sergeevich (1996). A Grammar of the Malayalam Language in Historical Treatment. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 18. ISBN 978-3-447-03811-9.

• Grammar books