The Philosophy of Grammar

My endeavor has been without neglecting investigation into the details of the languages known to me to give due prominence to the great principles underlying the grammars of all languages and thus to make my contribution to a grammatical science based at the same time on sound psychology on sane logic and on solid facts of linguistic history wrote the great linguistic scholar Otto Jesperson when he made this important study forty years ago. He had become convinced of the necessity of studying language through the observation of living speech and only secondarily by examination of written documents.The Philosophy of Grammar a radical innovation in linguistics research when it was first published is now a standard reference work and all students in the field should be familiar with it. The topics covered are living grammar systemic grammar parts of speech the three ranks junction and nexus nexus-substantives subject and predicate object case number person sex and gender comparison time and tense direct and indirect speech classification of utterances moods and negation. Believing that a fixed terminology could be a hindrance to real understanding Mr. Jesperson introduced new terms neither very numerous nor very difficult and discarded some he felt were outmoded. The great merit of this work commented the reviewer for The Times Literary Supplement seems to be in the thorough shaking-up which it gives to a great many venerated idols.