The Grammatical Framework
Collado perceived his task to be the presentation of a grammar of Japanese which would have sufficient scope to equip those dedicated to the propagation of the faith with a knowledge of the proper spoken language of his time. While he concludes his grammar with a brief, and rather presumptuous, statement concerning the written language, his purpose is clearly to train his students in the fundamentals of colloquial speech. His sensitivity to this point is demonstrated by his carefully transforming those examples presented by Rodriguez in the written language in the Arte into correct colloquial expressions in his own grammar.
The description is, of course, prescriptive. But given its age and its purpose this ought not to be construed in the contemporary, pejorative
sense. Collado, as Rodriguez and indeed all the grammarians of the period, felt obligated to train their students in those patterns of speech which were appropriate to the most polite elements of society. Particularly as they addressed themselves to missionaries, they wished to warn them away from such illiteracies as might undermine their capacities to propagate the faith.
The description further reflects the traditional process conceptualization of language. This is particularly obvious in the treatment of the verb. Thus:
Praesens subiunctiui fit ex praesenti indicatiui mutato u in quo finitur in eba.... (The present subjunctive is formed from the present indicative by changing the u in which it ends to eba....) [p. [23]].
In general each of the verbal forms is conceived to be the result of a specified alteration of a basic form. Likewise the nouns are treated within the framework of the declension of cases.
The treatment of Japanese forms is based upon a semantic framework within which the formal characteristics of the language are organized. For example, given the construction aguru coto aró (p. [31]) and its gloss 'Erit hoc quod ist offere: idest offeret (It will be that he is to offer, or he will offer),' it is clear that the aguru coto is classified as an infinitive because of its semantic equivalence to offere. The same is true of the latter supine. If the form in Latin is closely associated with such constructions as 'easy to,' or 'difficult to,' the semantically similar form which appears as the element iomi in iominicui 'difficult to read,' must be classed as the latter supine. Rodriguez in his Arte Breve of 1620—unknown to Collado—makes an attempt to classify the structural units of Japanese along more formal lines; but in Collado's treatment the semantic, and for him logical and true, classes established by the formal structure of Latin constitute the theoretical framework through which the Japanese language is to be described.
Collado makes reference to two specific sources of influence upon his grammar. The first is included in the title to the first section of the grammar, Antonius Nebrissensis. It is to this great Spanish humanist,
better known as Antonio Lebrija (1444-1522), that Collado turns for the model of his description.