INTRODUCTION
Grammar did not appear as a separate body of knowledge until a late period in the Greek civilization. The merest ground-work of the science had sufficed to meet all the demands of education, of philosophy, and of a literature in course of production; for its development it was necessary to await a period of literary criticism. When the Alexandrian scholars began to compare the idiom of Homer with that of their own day, the requisite stimulus for the scientific study of language was given, and grammar may be regarded as dating from the Alexandrian age.
What was at that time termed grammar, γραμματική, included far more than the modern science; it was the study of literature at large. The grammarian might have nothing to do with what we call grammar, but be a student of textual criticism or mythology. Any sort of study undertaken for the purpose of elucidating the poets was grammatical. Like the modern professor of literature, the only invariable characteristic of the grammarian was his literary point of view.[155]
The grammatical studies of the Romans were patterned closely after those of the Greeks; the Greek terminology and organization of the science were adopted without change. The Roman interest in the subject was no doubt heightened by the fact that the Roman culture was a bilingual one; thus a broad basis for the study was furnished, and naturally much attention was given to the derivation of words. A large number of scholarly works was produced, and the inferiority of the borrowed Roman culture is perhaps less noticeable in this department than in any other.
It was inevitable that this ‘grammar’, in a condensed form, should come to be used in common education. Its outlines, however, were rather vague, and many of its departments did not lend themselves to the concise statement necessary in a text-book. The first Greek school grammar, the τεχνὴ γραμματικὴ[156] of Dionysius Thrax, which was destined to be the basis of all the school grammars of antiquity, appeared about 80 B.C. It is noticeable that although the definition of grammar that is given[157] is the definition of the grammar of the scholars, the subjects actually treated are little more than the parts of speech. It was natural that there should be this gap between promise and performance. For a long time no doubt this mere outline was filled in by the oral interpretation of the masterpieces in the manner of the scholars; but when these ceased to be studied, in the early medieval period, the study of grammar was confined to the material offered in the text-books.[158]
The first of the Romans to produce a school grammar was Remmius Palaemon, who flourished in the first half of the first century. He had many successors in the later centuries of the Roman Empire, and the literary tradition of the school grammar continued unbroken into the Middle Ages. The most influential exponent of the subject was Aelius Donatus, whose Ars, written in the fourth century, was used throughout the Middle Ages. The chief writers of grammatical texts in the centuries preceding Isidore were Victorinus, Donatus, Diomedes, Charisius, and Martianus Capella in the fourth; Consentius and Phocas in the fifth; and Cassiodorus in the sixth. No new contributions were being made to the science, and these writers had no other resource than to copy their predecessors, which they did in a slavish manner.[159] The verbal similarity in all of them is so strong that it is impossible to trace with certainty the immediate source of any one of the later writers.
Isidore’s account of grammar is of somewhat more than the average length[160] found in these text-books, but its lack of solid substance, in which it differs from the books of the fourth century, measures the decline in intellectual grasp and thoroughness of the two intervening centuries. Donatus, Servius, and even Capella, stick closely to the technique of the subject and are thorough-going; their books are calculated to afford a severe discipline to the student. But in Isidore a feebleness in handling the subject is evident; he is apparently unaware of the superior importance of such subjects as conjugation and declension, and he is very easily led into confusion by the trains of thought suggested by his frequent derivations.[161]
ANALYSIS[162]
| A. | Introductory. | ||||
| 1. | Definition of ars and disciplina (ch. 1). | ||||
| 2. | Definition of the seven liberal arts (ch. 2). | ||||
| 3. | The Hebrew and Greek alphabets (ch. 3). | ||||
| 4. | The Latin alphabet (ch. 4). | ||||
| B. | Grammar. | ||||
| 1. | Definition and divisions[163] (ch. 5). | ||||
| 2. | Parts of speech (chs. 6–14). | ||||
| a. | de nomine (ch. 7). | ||||
| Propria (four sub-classes of proper nouns are given). | |||||
| Appellativa (twenty-eight sub-classes of common nouns are given). | |||||
| Nominis comparatio (comparison of adjectives). | |||||
| Genera (genders). | |||||
| Numerus. | |||||
| Figura (simple and compound nouns). | |||||
| Casus.[164] | |||||
| b. | de pronomine[165] (ch. 8). | ||||
| c. | de verbo (ch. 9). | ||||
| Formae (desiderative, inchoative and frequentative verbs). | |||||
| Modi (indicative, imperative, optative, conjunctive, infinitive, impersonal). | |||||
| Conjugationes.[166] | |||||
| Genera (active, passive, neuter, common, and deponent verbs). | |||||
| d. | de adverbio[167] (ch. 10). | ||||
| e. | de participio (the participle) (ch. 11). | ||||
| f. | de conjunctione (ch. 12). | ||||
| g. | de praepositionibus (ch. 13). | ||||
| h. | de interjectione (ch. 14). | ||||
| 3. | Articulate speech (ch. 15). | ||||
| 4. | The syllable (ch. 16). | ||||
| 5. | Metrical feet[168] (ch. 17). | ||||
| 6. | Accent[169] (chs. 18, 19). | ||||
| 7. | Punctuation (ch. 20). | ||||
| 8. | Signs and abbreviations (Notae) (chs. 21–26). | ||||
| a. | Notae sententiarum (critical marks used in manuscripts). | ||||
| b. | Notae vulgares (shorthand). | ||||
| c. | Notae militares (abbreviations used in military rolls). | ||||
| d. | Notae litterarum (cipher-writing). | ||||
| e. | Notae digitorum (sign language). | ||||
| 9. | Orthography (ch. 27). | ||||
| 10. | Analogy[170] (ch. 28). | ||||
| 11. | Etymology (ch. 29). | ||||
| 12. | Glosses (ch. 30). | ||||
| 13. | Synonyms (ch. 31). | ||||
| 14. | Barbarisms, solecisms[171] and other faults[172] (chs. 32–34). | ||||
| 15. | Metaplasms (poetic license in changing the forms of words) (ch. 35). | ||||
| 16. | Schemata (rhetorical figures) (ch. 36). | ||||
| 17. | Tropes[173] (ch. 37). | ||||
| 18. | Prose (ch. 38). | ||||
| 19. | Metres[174] (ch. 39). | ||||
| 20. | The fable (ch. 40). | ||||
| 21. | History (chs. 41–44). | ||||