Ancient Grammar: Content and Context (review)

This volume makes progress in fulfilling the promise of the historiography of linguistics, that it is relevant to understanding linguistic concepts as they have developed in current linguistics. At the same time, the focus of interest is generally on the complementary problem of understanding the intentions and functions of grammatical analyses by Classical grammarians when those analyses were relatively new. The volume is concerned with Ancient Greek and Roman grammarians, especially though not exclusively with their theories of parts of speech. As such it contributes to understanding the early development of many basic currently used linguistic concepts, including the baggage they drag with them from their earlier analytical motivations, e.g. in philosophy and the pedagogy of rhetoric and elocution.

The volume contains nine articles in all, seven in English, one in German, one in French. Various passages, sometimes extended, are quoted in the original Greek or Latin, often without translation into the language of the articles, under the assumption that readers are familiar with these languages. In addition, an extended appendix to the last article presents Dionysius Thrax’s Greek text on left-hand pages and a German translation on right-hand pages (177–215). ‘Questions of terminology in a German translation of the Tékhne: grammatiké: of Dionysius Thrax’ by Wilfried Kürschner (163–75) discusses the problem of terminological choices in understanding and translating the Greek text. The appendix demonstrates the problem.

The book starts with a brief preface (vii–xi) by the editors. Section 1, ‘Grammar and grammatical knowledge in antiquity: Definitions, setting, and organization’, contains three articles: Robert Henry Robins, ‘The initial section of the Tékhné grammatiké’ (3–15); Dirk Maria Schenkeveld, ‘Charisius, Ars grammatica I.15: The introduction (P.61.16–63 B = 50.9–51.20 K)’ (17–35); Vivien Law, ‘The mnemonic structure of ancient grammatical doctrine’ (37–52). Section 2, ‘Grammar in ancient Greece: Grammatical concepts and argumentation’, contains two articles: Stephanos Matthaios ‘Kύριον‘óνομα Zur Geschichte eines grammatischen Terminus’ (55–77); Jean Lallot,‘Accusativus et infinitivus ou accusativus cum infinitivo? Construction par addition ou construction par enchâssement chez les grammairiens grecs’ (79–88). Section 3, ‘Grammar in ancient Rome: Style and argumentation in Varro’, contains two articles: Daniel J. Taylor, ‘Style and structure in Varro?’ (91–103), and Wolfram Ax, ‘Pragmatic arguments in morphology. Varro’s Defence of Analogy in book 9 of his de lingua Latina’ (105–19). Section 4, ‘Ancient grammatical terminology: Content and context’, contains two articles. The first, by the editors, ‘Content and context in (translating) ancient grammar’ (123–61), is actually the thematic article of the entire volume, as reflected in its length. Its placement as the next to last article is no doubt prompted by its direct relevance to Kürschner’s article, already mentioned above.

Following the nine articles and the appendix on Thrax’s Tekhné: Grammatiké: are four short indexes: (1) ‘Index Nominorum (names of mentioned grammarians and ancient schools of thought) (217–18); (2) ‘Index of Greek technical terms’ (218); (3) ‘Index of Latin technical terms’ (219); and (4) ‘Index of grammatical concepts’ (219–20).

The book is loaded with information about various ancient approaches to grammatical analysis and the motivations for those approaches, but especially for Dionysos Thrax for Greek and Varro for Latin. Of particular interest for the nonspecialist reader are the various arguments offered for particular analyses by the ancient grammarians as documented and discussed in the articles. Often in spirit and substance they are not far removed from much more recent and even still current types of argumentation for (or against) a particular grammatical analysis and thus reveal the continuity of the analytical tradition from Classical grammar to current linguistics. Such points are not explicitly made in the articles, which focus on the ancient grammarians in their own social context, but are easy to recognize and thus serve further studies interested in...