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The historical comparative method

Periods of the development of English Grammar.

Early pre-normative grammars

Until the 17th century the term grammar in English was applied only to the study of Latin, because Latin grammar was the only one studied in school. One of the earliest and most popular Latin grammars written in English by William Lily was published in the first half of the 16th century and went through many additions. W. Lily presented standards for similar arrangement of the English grammatical material proceeding from Latin paradigms and using the same terminology as in Latin grammar. Lily’s Latin grammar may be considered the precursor of the earliest English grammars. Attempts to break with Latin grammatical tradition characterise the treatment of the structure of English in Bullokar's and Ch. Butler's grammars but in many cases they still follow the Latin pattern.

The early prenormative grammars of English reproduced the Latin classification of the word-classes which included eight parts of speech. Substantives and adjectives were grouped together as two kinds of nouns, the participle was considered as a separate part of speech. In the earliest English grammars the parts of speech were divided dichotomically into declinable and indeclinable parts of speech or words with number and words without number (Ben Jonson), or words with number and case and words without number and case (Ch. Butler).

Ben Johnson’s and Charles Butler’s English grammars pointed out two cases of the English noun, while in Wallace’s grammar (1653), which was written in Latin, the category of cases is said to be nonexistent, and the ‘s form is defined as a possessive adjective. This view was supported by an early 18th century grammar, attributed to John Brightland, who preferred also the two-case system. In J. Brightland's grammar the number of partsof speech was reduced to four. These were: names (nouns), qualities (adjectives), affirmations (verbs) and particles.

Prescriptive grammar

The age of prescriptive grammar began in the second half of the 18th century. The most influential grammar at that period was R. Lowth’s grammar, which was called Short introduction to English grammar. It was published in 1762, and its aim was to reduce the English language to rules and to set up a standard of correct usage. The grammar settled most disputed points of usage by appealing to reason, to the laws of thought or logic, which were considered to be universal; hence another name of this grammar is Universal grammar.

The historical comparative method

The relations between the languages of the Indoeuropean family were studies systematically at the beginning of the 19th century by Franz Bopp, Rasmus Rask, Jacob Grimm and A. Vostokov. These scholars not only made comparative and historical observations of the kindred languages, but defined the fundamental conception of linguistic kinship or relationship. In fact, they created the method.

This was the time when linguistics appeared as a science. The historical and comparative study of the Indoeuropean languages became the principal line of European linguistics for many years to come. This method was further developed in the works of such scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries, as Buslaev, Fortunatov and Meillet and others.



The historical comparative method is used to analyze and discover relationship between the different languages and groups of languages to reconstruct prehistoric lingual elements. By means of this method scholars collected vast material for studying general laws of language development. The actual process of language division is very complex. It is connected with repeated mixings and redivision of tribes and nationalities throughout centuries and millennia. This process is accompanied by appearances and disappearances of some languages, it deals with dialects of a language, which may grow into different languages. There are such features of resemblance between different languages that clearly prove that they have the same origin.


Date: 2016-03-03; view: 1814


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