The Philosophy of Grammar

by Otto Jespersen

This study grew out of a series of lectures Jespersen gave at Columbia
University in 1909-10, called “An Introduction to English Grammar.”
It is the connected presentation of Jespersen's views of the general
principles of grammar based on years of studying various languages
through both direct observation of living speech and written and
printed documents.

“[ The Philosophy of Grammar and Analytic Syntax ] set
forth the most extensive and original theory of universal grammar
prior to the work of Chomsky and other generative grammarians of the
last thirty years.”—Arne Juul and Hans F. Nielsen, in Otto
Facets of His Life and Work

“Besides being one of the most perceptive observers and original
thinkers that the field of linguistics has ever known, Jespersen was
also one of its most entertaining writers, and reading The
Philosophy of Grammar is fun. Read it, enjoy it.”—James D.
McCawley, from the Introduction

Otto Jespersen (1860-1943), an authority on the growth and structure
of language, was the Chair of the English Department at the University
of Copenhagen. Among his many works are A Modern English
Grammar and Analytic Syntax , the latter published by the
University of Chicago Press.

Genres: Philosophy, Linguistics, Language, Nonfiction

372 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1924

Reviews

[James F · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be the best book I have ever read on language; probably Jespersen's most important work, it is definitely different from and better than the same author's earlier Language which I reviewed two weeks ago. That one was in parts very speculative, while as he says himself, "in this volume I generally keep aloof from speculations about primitive grammar and the origin of grammatical elements." The book is titled accurately a "philosophy" of grammar, in that he discusses all the concepts that have been used for talking about grammar and shows that most of them have been poorly defined, or are in some cases not useful at all. He proposes new explanations and a largely new terminology, some of which have been widely accepted and some not.

Although he occasionally refers to other languages, the book is largely based on the Indo-European (or as he calls it, Aryan) family; apart from Danish, most of his examples are taken from languages I can read. I understand better now many things I never really understood, or in some cases had never even thought about. While not all his comments about English usage seem right to me, this may be because he naturally (as a professor of English in Denmark) bases himself on British rather than American English, and because he wrote this a hundred years ago and the language has of course changed much in a century. In fact he mentions many tendencies which have since gone further.

The book was very influential and is a must-read for anyone who is interested in language.

[A. B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a read. Wonderful, simply wonderful.

[lita]

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