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rather than to that of the grammarian. The inflected subjunctive (be, were, save in "God save the Queen," &c.) is rapidly disappearing. New inflected forms, however, are coming into existence; at all events, we have as good a right to consider ivont, shant, cant new inflected forms as the French aimerai (amare habeo), aimerais (amare habebam). If the ordinary grammars are correct in treating forms like " I am loving," "I was loving/ "I did love," as separate tenses, they are strangely inconsistent in omitting to notice the equally important emphatic form "I do love" or the negative form " I do not love (" I don t love "), as well as the semi-inflexional "I ll love," "he s loving." It is true that these latter contracted forms are heard only in conversation and not seen in books ; but the grammar of a language, it must be remembered, is made by those who speak it and not by the printers.

Our school grammars are the inheritance we have received from Greece and Rome. The necessities of rhetoric obliged the Sophists to investigate the structure of the Greek language, and to them was accordingly due the first analysis of Greek grammar. Protagoras distinguished the three genders and the verbal moods, while Prodicus busied himsslf with the definition of synonyms. Aristotle, taking the side of Democritus, who had held that the meaning of words is put into them by the speaker, and that there is no necessary connexion between sound and sense, laid down that words " symbolize " objects according to the will of those who use them, and added to the ovo/j.a or "noun," and the prj^a or "verb," the o-uVSeoy/.os or "particle." He also introduced the term Trrokris, "case," to denote any flexion whatsoever. He further divided nouns into simple and compound, invented for the neuter another name than that given by Protagoras, and starting from the termination of the nominative singular, endeavoured to ascertain the rules for indicating a difference of gender. Aristotle was followed by the Stoics, who separated the apOpov or " article " from the particles, determined a fifth part of speech, the TravSeVr^s or " adverb," confined the term " case " to the flexions of the nouns, distinguishing the four principal cases by names, and divided the verb into its tenses, moods, and classes. Meanwhile the Alex andrian critics were studying the language of Homer and the Attic writers, and comparing it with the language of their own day, the result being a minute examination of the facts and rules of grammar. Two schools of gram marians sprang up, the Analogists, headed by Aristarchuf, who held that a strict law of analogy existed between idea and word, and refused to admit exceptions to the gram matical rules they laid down, and the Anomalists, who denied general rules of any kind, except in so far as they were consecrated by custom. Foremost among the Anoma lists was Crates of Mallos, the leader of the Pergamenian school, to whom we owe the first formal Greek grammar and collection of the grammatical facts obtained by the labours of the Alexandrian critics, as well as an attempt to reform Greek orthography. The immediate cause of this grammar seems to have been a comparison of Latin with Greek, Crates having lectured on the subject while ambas sador of Attalus at Rome in 1 59 B.C. The zeal with which the Romans threw themselves into the study of Greek re sulted in the school grammar of Dionysius Thrax, a pupil of Aristarchus, which he published at Rome in the time of Pompey, and which is still in existence. Latin grammars were soon modelled upon it, and the attempt to translate the technical terms of the Greek grammarians into Latin was productive of numerous blunders which have been per petuated to our own day. Thus tenues is a mistranslation of rtie Greek t/aAa, "unaspirated ; " genetivus of yevix??, the case "of the genus;" accusativus of amaTi/o?, the case "of the object ; " infinitivus of aTrape /^aTo?, "without a second ary meaning " of tense or person. New names were coined to denote forms possessed by Latin and not by Greek ; ablative, for instance, was invented by Julius Caesar, who also wrote a treatise De Analogia. By the 2d century of the Christian era the dispute between the Anomalists and the Analogists was finally settled, analogy being recognized as the principle that underlies language, though every rule admits of exceptions. Two eminent grammarians of Alex andria, Apollonius Dyscolus and his son Herodian, summed up the labours and controversies of their predecessors, and upon their works were based the Latin grammar composed by ^Elius Donatus in the 4th century, and the eighteen books on grammar compiled by Priscian in the age of Justinian. The grammar of Donatus dominated the schools of the Middle Ages, and, along with the productions of Priscian, formed the type and source of the Latin and Greek school-grammars of modern Europe.

A few words remain to be said, in conclusion, on the bearing of a scientific study of grammar upon the practical task of teaching and learning foreign languages. The grammar of a language is not to be confined within the rules laid down by grammarians, much less is it the creation of grammarians, and consequently the usual mode of making the pupil learn by heart certain fixed rules and paradigms not only gives a false idea of what grammar really is, but also throws obstacles in the way of acquiring it. The unit of speech is the sentence; and it is with the sentence therefore, and not with lists of words and forms, that the pupil should begin. When once a sufficient number of sentences has been, so to speak, assimilated, it will be easy to analyse them into their component parts, to show the relations that these bear to one another, and to indicate the nature and varieties of the latter. In this way the learner will be prevented from regarding grammar as a piece of dead mechanism or a Chinese puzzle, of which the parts must be fitted together in accordance with certain artificial rules, and will realize that it is a living organism which has a history and a reason of its own. The method of nature and science alike is analytic; and if we would learn a foreign language properly we must learn it as we did our mother- tongue, by first mastering the expression of a complete thought and then breaking up this expression into its several elements.

See Steinthal, CharaJctcristik der hauptsachlichstcn Typen des Sprachbaucs, Berlin, 1860; Schleicher, Compendium of the Com parative Grammar of the Indo-European Languages, translated by H. Bendall, London, 1874 ; Pezzi, Aryan Philology according to the most recent Researches, translated by E. S. Roberts, London, 1879 ; Sayce, Introduction to the Science of Language, London, 1879 ; Lerseh, Die Sprachphilosophie der Altai, Bonn, 1838-41 ; Steinthal, Geschichte der SpracJnvisscnschaft bci den Oriechen und Romern mit besonderer Riicksicht auf die Logik, Berlin, 1863 ; Delbriick, Ablativ Localis Instrumental in Altindischen, Lateinischen, Griechischen, und Deutschen, Berlin, 1864; Jolly, Ein Kapitcl verglcichcnder Syntax, Munich, 1873; Hiibsclmiann, Zur Casuslchre, Munich, 1875 ; Holzweissig, Wahrheit und Irrthum der local istischen Casus- theorie, Leipsic, 1877; Draeger, Ifistorische Syntax der Lateinischen Sjwache, Leipsic, 1874-76; Sweet, Words, Logic, and Grammar, London, 1876.

(A. H. S.)


GRAMMONT (Belgian, Geeraerdsbergen), a town of Belgium, province of East Flanders, is situated on both sides of the Dender, 21 miles S.S.E. of Ghent. It is sur rounded by walls and possesses a college, a town-hall, and a hospital. Its principal manufactures are lace, cotton, and woollen goods, leather, beer, paper, and tobacco ; and there are also bleaching and dyeing works. The population in 1866 was 8861.


GRAMONT, Philibert, Count de (1621-1707). A happy accident has preserved for the instruction of mankind rather than for their edification the portrait and the history of a man who entirely represents one section, fortunately a small section, of the society of his day. Of good family,

rich, a gallant soldier, endowed with every kind of clever-