Grammar book

Ancient Greek had the term τέκνή γραμματική (téchnē grammatikḗ, 'skill in the use of letters'), which was adapted into Latin as ars grammatica. This term was used in the title of works about writing and language, which came to be known in English as grammar-books or grammars.[1]^: 72

Although the style and content of grammar-books varies enormously, they generally aim for a fairly systematic and comprehensive survey of one language's phonetics, morphology, syntax and word-formation. Since languages vary across time, space, social groups, genres, and so forth, grammars inevitably cannot represent every single aspect of a language, but usually select a particular variety with a view to a particular readership.[1]^: 73–74

The readerships of grammars and their needs vary widely. Grammars may be intended for native-speakers of a language or for learners. Many grammars are written for use by children learning a language in a school environment. Many grammars are reference grammars, intended not to be read from beginning to end like a textbook, but to enable readers to check particular details as the need arises. Some grammars are prescriptive, aiming to tell readers how they ought to use language; others are descriptive, aiming to tell readers how language is used in reality. In either case, popular grammars can be enormously influential on language-use.[1]^: 73–74

The earliest known descriptive linguistic writing, leading to early grammar-books, took place in a Sanskrit community in northern India; the best known scholar of that linguistic tradition was Pāṇini, whose works are commonly dated to around the 5th century BCE.[2] The earliest known grammar of a Western language is the second-century BCE Art of Grammar attributed to Dionysius Thrax, a grammar of Greek.

Key stages in the history of English grammars include Ælfric of Eynsham's composition around 995 CE of a grammar in Old English based on a compilation of two Latin grammars, Aelius Donatus's Ars maior and Priscian's Institutiones grammaticae. This was intended for use by English-speaking students of Latin, and is the first known grammar of Latin written in a vernacular language, but was arguably also intended to use Latin as a basis for explaining English grammar.[3] A key step in the development of English grammars was the 1586 publication of William Bullokar's published his Pamphlet for Grammar, which used a framework derived from Latin grammars to show how English too had grammatical structures and rules.[1]^: 74 Numerous grammars aimed at foreign learners of English, sometimes written in Latin, were published in the seventeenth century, while the eighteenth saw the emergence of English-language grammars aiming to instruct their Anglophone audiences in what the authors viewed as correct grammar, including an increasingly literate audience of women and children; this trend continued into the early twentieth century.[1]^: 74–78 A key shift in grammar-writing is represented by Charles Carpenter Fries' 1952 The Structure of English, which aimed to give up-to-date, descriptive rather than prescriptive, information on English grammar, and drew on recordings of live speech to inform its claims.[1]^: 74

• Görlach, M. (1998), An annotated bibliography of nineteenth-century grammars of English (Amsterdam: Benjamins)
• Graustein, G. and Leitner, G. (eds.) (1989), Reference grammars and modern linguistic theory, Linguistische Arbeiten, 226 (Tübingen: Niemeyer)
• Leitner, G. (1984), 'English grammaticology', International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 23, 199–215.
• Leitner, G. (ed.) (1986), The English reference grammar: language and linguistics, writers and readers (Tübingen: Niemeyer)
• Leitner, G. (ed.) (1991), English traditional grammars: an international perspective (Amsterdam: Benjamins)

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