In this Module, the students will learn about the following lessons:

Lesson 1: Brief History of Grammar

 grammar.
The narrative on grammar as a discipline, though, begins before the
English language
existed, during the ancient times, and provides information about
the factors which have caused the warping of various ancient pre-
English dialects into the linguistic structure of our times.
The historical account regarding the changes which shaped those
+ dialects into the Modern English is
long, and eventful, but full of relevance for the speakers of the
English language, whether native
or foreign.
The purpose of this paper is to review the historical base of the
English grammar, and
to examine the grammatical development of this language from
the beginning until the present.
EXCURSUS: THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE

An examination of the ancient roots of the English grammar should not ignore the
tongue which has provided a large volume of ancient literature and whose grammar
continues to astound modern linguists—the old Indo-Aryan dialectal group, part of the Indic
Languages, that is known as the Sanskrit language.

Although Sanskrit is a distant relative of Greek and Latin, languages with a significant
influence in the development of the English language structure, its grammatical base has
been at least an inspiration for the grammarians of modern times.

The polished dialects of the old Indo-Aryan group, known as classical Sanskrit,
constitute the language of the Vedas, revered and sacred texts in the Indian tradition, the
most archaic form of Sanskrit.

The Vedic dialects that were examined and described in the grammar of the famous
grammarian Pānini are also accepted and venerated as classical Sanskrit.

Little is known about the life of Pānini, an ancient Indian grammarian. Historical
folklore places him between the seventh and fourth centuries B.C.

THEGREEKBACKGROUNDOFTHEENGLISHGRAMMAR

No data appears to be available about the potential influence that Panini’s grammar
might have had on the development of the European grammar tradition, and this research
must continue now with the role of the Greek language in the evolution of the English
grammar.

Historical facts indicate that at the time the Greeks were beginning to develop their
literature, “Semitic tribes, the ancestors of the Arabs and Jews, were the leaders in literacy
in the Mediterranean world,” writers who used a simple, consonant-based alphabet.

The Greeks loaned Phoenician signs and produced an alphabet which contained both
consonants and vowels.
EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH
The design of a human alphabet which “represented human speech” in an accurate
manner, made available for the Greeks to produce the monumental works of prose and
drama that have enriched world literature (Mulroy, 2003).

The introduction of the alphabet in the Greek culture and the creation of literature
caused a revival of the decadent Greek civilization. Language began to assume an increased
space in the social and intellectual Greek life.

THE POEMS [OF HOMER] represented the ideal form of language that students
were expected to mimic so as to preserve the “purity” of Homeric Greek.

Thus Greek education developed a prescriptive stance with respect to language and
grammar, defining notions of “correct” and “incorrect” language in use in terms of
adherence to literary norms that characterized Greek hundreds of years past.

The establishment of grammar as a discipline seems to begin with Plato and the
Sophists, who had developed the schools of rhetoric.
PLATO appears to have used for the first time the word “grammar,” and he, together
with the Sophists, Aristotle, and the Stoics defined the basic notions of the discipline.
.
Plato and the Sophists “made distinctions between nouns and verbs,” while the
Sophists “discussed gender and the moods of verbs.”

ARISTOTLE “refined their definitions and also distinguished the tenses of verbs,” the
Stoic philosophers “organized the grammar and linguistics into a branch of philosophy in its
own right,” and refined grammar concepts that are still current at the present time:

At that point it included many terms and concepts recognized today—even if they were
not defined in quite the same way—including conjunctions, adverbs, articles, predicates,
active and passive voice, number in verb and noun, and the nominative, accusative.

DIVERGENCE ABOUT LANGUAGE CORRECTNESS, PRESCRIPTIVISM, AND

DESCRIPTIVISM was beginning to appear between different language schools even during those
ancient times, and was related to the inquiry about “how regular and predictable a language could be,
especially over a long period of time,” an issue debated among two grammar schools, one
“prescriptive,” (the Analogists), and the other “descriptive”(the Anomalists).

The first school believed in “the existence of pattern and regularity in the way words
mean and in the grammatical categories and their inflections,” while the other
faction“argued that patterns in language were only approximate, that most grammatical
rules were only labels invented by people, that irregularities and exceptions
—“anomalies”—were fundamental characteristics of language” (Haussamen, 2000).

The debate among the members of the two grammar schools produced the context for
the PUBLISHING OF TWO GRAMMARS which appeared during the time. The first one
was written by Crates of Mallos.

This grammar reflected the Anomalist stance, and was “part of a comparison of Greek
and Latin.” The second one, written by Dionysios Trax—a professor of Greek in Rome,
assumed the Analogist point of view, was considered “the most successful wok of the time “
and “became popular among the Romans and in the schools of the Hellenized world around
100 B.C.”.

Marked issues which characterized both grammars were the role of the classics in the
Greek social world, and the indestructible connection between grammar and literature
(Haussamen, 2000).

EDUCATION IN THE GREEK SCHOOLS was well organized, and covered a range
of topics, among which language (grammar) and literature were the most important.

States Williams: Young students were taught by a grammatistes, who provided

instruction in the alphabet (grammata), reading, writing, and grammar.

A grammatists also gave instructions in other subjects, such as music and mathematics.

When students were proficient readers and writers, they were deemed grammatikos, or
literate. At this point they began to study literature in earnest.

“Language knowledge—speech, writing, and grammar—increased therefore its role in

the Greek school and the social and political life:
Citizens needed to speak persuasively and correctly if they were to guide the ship of
state.”
Power was linked to speaking ability, which was the result of study and practice.

Thus, the careful study of language, both grammatical and rhetorical, grew to
paramount importance and formed the basis of Greek education.
ENGLISH GRAMMAR: THE LATIN INFLUENCE

The TERRITORIAL EXPANSION OF THE GREEKS under Alexander the Great

into the Eastern world spread also the Greek civilization and culture over a great
geographical area through the process of deliberate Hellenization. Rome, the rising power
in the West after Alexander’s death, came in contact with the Greek culture through the
influence of a few
Greek colonies which were located on Italian and Sicilian lands, and “assimilated numerous
Greek customs and practices, including the educational system” (Williams, 2005).

The Romans recognized the superior Greek culture and hurried to imitate and adopt what
constituted the main aspects of the Greek socio-political life, and education.

States Mulroy: “It is hardly a coincidence

that these people who would supplant the Greeks as the dominant power in the
Mediterranean were also among the first to adapt the Greek alphabet to their own
language. In fact, the eagerness with which the Romans emulated the Greek’s
literary accomplishments is one of the most remarkable facts in ancient history.”

Greek cultural characteristics into the Roman civilization was not limited to customs and
politics, but comprised also the Greek education with its stress on the Greek language andgrammar:
As Rome grew in power and size, it assimilated numerous Greek customs and practices, including
the educational system. Therefore, grammar also held a central place in Roman schools.

Dykema (1961) noted that Romans, like Greeks, believed that knowledge of grammatical
terms was fundamental to correct language use.

The INFLUENCE OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE ON THE ROMAN UPPER CLASS

became so central that the “educated Romans were bilingual, therefore “manuals for translation
were written and used,” and “Roman grammarians took Greek grammar and applied it to their
language,” thus organizing the Roman grammars in the Greek tradition (Haussamen, 2003).

“Grammar became such an important subdiscipline in language education that some of

the best known and most used western grammars were written at that time.”

The books of Donatus and Priscian became the foundations of the study of grammar, and thus
the entire liberal arts curriculum, in the middle ages. Although Priscian was the great authority on
grammar.
Donatus’ brief de Partibus was the most influential textbook.

It was such a standard for so long that the term donatist or its equivalent came to denote a
beginner in any field in several different languages (Mulroy, 2005).

GRAMMARSTAGNATIONANDRESTORATION

The GERMAN DOMINATION IN EUROPE, after the fall of the Roman Empire, did not
safeguard the remarkable gains in the Greek and Roman cultures, but was a time of relative
stagnation.

The church assumed the lead in the preservation of classical culture, and knowledge found
protection in the monasteries.

Progress in European education continued after Charlemagne became the emperor of the
western area of the dissolved Roman Empire.

He “fostered the growth of education,” encouraged “scholarship in the monasteries,” and

established schools “in the cathedrals of his realm.”
 Under his administration, the Carolingian empire experienced the “Carolingian Renaissance.”
The aims which Charlemagne had in his sight were eloquence in writing, and knowledge of the
liberal arts, which included language (and grammar) (Mulroy, 2003).

The fourteenth century witnessed a new phase in the progression of humanism, a reaction to the
scholasticism of the mediaeval schools which had abandoned the liberal arts in favor of the logic
science, or “disputation,” and the emphasis on languages.

The speculative feature which grammar adopted during the time seems rather similar to the
generative-transformational theories which have been part of the present language research (Mulroy,
2003).

“Grammar research was becoming more and more theoretical, and the grammarians “attempted
to formulate grammatical definitions that could meet this more rigorous [scientific] standard
required.”

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH GRAMMAR

The scholar who introduced humanism to England is ERASMUS, the Dutch intellectual who is
known as a renowned humanist and theologian, and is also credited to be leader of the German
humanism.

Instructed in the ancient classics and committed to them, Erasmus mastered the Latin and Greek
languages, and was an accomplished linguist.

His expertise in language prompted him to seek a change in this area, so that “one of his
particular concerns was reforming instruction in grammar, especially by eliminating the modistae’s
confusing ideas” (Mulroy, 2003).

“Erasmus believed that young students need to be trained in elementary grammar, this was to
provide a foundation for the study of classical works of literature, selected for their aesthetic
appeal, and for the cultivation of the students’ own eloquence.”

The effect of an education that included ANCIENT CLASSICS AND A STANDARD

GRAMMAR was the generation of the seventeenth century classic English literature whose authors
were eminent men like Spenser, Bacon, Marlowe, Ford, Johnson, and Shakespeare.

All these authors appear to have learned grammar, have read the classical Latin writers, and
have acquired some awareness of the Greek language, or knowledge of the elements of this language
(Mulroy, 2003).

This basic education in grammar and classics gave SHAKESPEARE adequate knowledge to
write the poems and plays which made him world famous.

The grammar book written by Lindley Murrey also contained instructions concerning WORD
ORDER in sentences and specific syntactic rules which resemble the syntactic rules in the present
textbooks.

The emphasis was on writing correct English, therefore the English Grammar aimed “to teach a
level of competence in writing that would make the student self-sufficient in this skill,” and was “a
response to the need of a growing middle class for the ability to use written English confidently”
(Haussamen, 2000).

The new method of grammar instruction was materialized in the book published in 1907, which
had the title Handbook of Composition: A Compendium of Rules Regarding Good English,
Grammar, Sentence Structure, Paraphrasing, Manuscript Arrangement, Punctuation, Spelling, Essay
Writing, and Letter Writing.

The Handbook of Composition became a template for future writers, “for his is the format that
handbooks have followed ever since”—a student’s guide to the most prevalent writing errors and punctuation
issues, designed with the purpose to teach academic English (Haussamen, 2000).
 Structuralism introduced the idea of immediate constituents or phrases as part of sentence
structure, and emphasized description rather than prescription in grammar teaching.

The practical application of such notions has been organizing phrases and sentences in
ReedKellogg diagrams and tree diagrams.

The trouble with Reed-Kellogg diagrams is that sentence constituents have no label, and are
therefore hard to recognize. In tree diagrams constituents have labels and the order and organization
of phrases in the sentences is easier to follow (Williams, 2005).

Learning grammar is a formidable task that takes crucial energy away from working on your
writing, and worse yet, the process of learning grammar interferes with writing: it heightens your
preoccupation with mistakes as you write out each word and phrase, and makes it almost
impossible to achieve that undistracted attention to your thoughts and experiences as you write
that is so crucial for strong writing (and sanity).

For most people, nothing helps their writing so much as learning to ignore grammar (cited in
Kolln & Hancock, 2005).

TASK 1.
ENGLISH GRAMMAR: THE LATIN INFLUENCE

GRAMMAR STAGNATION AND RESTORATION

TASK 2.

APPLICATION

Suppose that you are a grammar historian, what can you say about the over-all theme
of the history of grammar?

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Choose a period which prompted the highest leap of grammar development and a
period where many concerns arised which caused the slow development in grammar
learning.
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What salient points have you realized in learning the history of grammar
development over the years which you think are helpful in teaching grammar? How
and why. Discuss succinctly.

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Cardona, G. (1976). Panini: A survey of research. Mouton, Hague-Paris.

Elbow, P. (1981). Writing with power: Techniques for mastering the writing process. New
York: Oxford.
Haussamen, B. (2000). Revising the rules: Traditional grammar and modern linguistics,
2nd edition. Revised printing. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.
Kolln, M. & Hancock, C. (2005). The story of English grammar in United States schools.
English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 4(3), 11-31.
Mulroy, D. (2003). The war against grammar. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cool Publishers,
Inc.
Shibatani, M. (1977). Grammatical relations and surface cases. Language, 53(4), 789-809.
Trudgill, P. (1999). Tony Bex & Richard J. Watts eds. Standard English: the widening
debate.
London: Rutledge, 117-128.

Williams, J. D. (2005). The teacher’s grammar book. Mahwah: NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Inc. Publishers.