16.3543, Review: History of Linguistics: Luhtala (2005)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-3543. Wed Dec 14 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.3543, Review: History of Linguistics: Luhtala (2005)

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1)
Date: 10-Dec-2005
From: Benjamin Stevens < bstevens at bard.edu >
Subject: Grammar and Philosophy in Late Antiquity: A study of Priscian's sources 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 03:43:01
From: Benjamin Stevens < bstevens at bard.edu >
Subject: Grammar and Philosophy in Late Antiquity: A study of Priscian's sources 
 

AUTHOR: Luhtala, Anneli
TITLE: Grammar and Philosophy in Late Antiquity
SUBTITLE: A study of Priscian's sources
SERIES: Studies in the History of the Language Sciences 107
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2005
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-443.html 

Benjamin Stevens, Classical Studies, Division of Languages and 
Literatures, Bard College

DESCRIPTION

In Grammar and Philosophy in Late Antiquity, Anneli Luhtala (L.) of the 
University of Helsinki argues that, since the grammatical treatise 
Techne Grammatike is not wholly attributable to Dionysius Thrax and 
thus does not date to the first century BCE, one must look to later 
centuries for the development of the so-called 'standard philosophical 
or semantic categories'; as a result of such later developments, L. is 
able to argue for a continued interaction between grammar and 
philosophy into Late Antiquity that is longer and more intensive than 
traditional accounts would allow, and that better explains seeming 
philosophical inconsistencies in the categories as they appear in 
Priscian.

Written generally in the spirit of E. F. K. Koerner's 'linguistic 
historiography' (the book is published in the series edited by him; and 
see e.g. Koerner 1999), L.'s study is explicitly framed as a contribution 
to the 'new model' of scholarship on 'ancient language science' 
(Taylor 1987), and to its ongoing revision of traditionally teleological 
and overly schematic accounts of nascent linguistics in the ancient 
Greco-Roman world. It is detailed and, I think, convincing, and will be 
of interest to students of the history of linguistics and philosophy 
generally and the history of grammar in particular.

CONTENTS

A short Preface (ix-x) contextualizes the study in terms of L.'s own 
interests in ''Priscian's grammatical theory'' and ''the reception of 
Priscian ... in the Carolingian Renaissance'': at issue are 
the ''inconsistencies in [his] philosophical framework'' (ix). Rejecting 
the influential but outdated work of Karl Barwick, L. aligns herself with 
Vincenzo di Benedetto (1958-1959), in particular his ''arguing in 
favour of the inauthenticity of the Techne'' (x), and with subsequent 
scholars who thought out the consequences of the issue.

Chapter 1, Introduction (1-11), summarizes L.'s reading of the 
traditional position and her response to it in light of more recent 
scholarship: ''to diminish the role of philosophy in pre-Apollonian 
grammar and to argue for a constant interaction between grammar 
and philosophy in Late Antiquity'' (9). Traditionally, the 'standard 
philosophical or semantic categories' of the noun (loosely defined 8-9; 
see further the Critical Evaluation, below) were ascribed to the 
Techne Grammatike, itself attributed to Dionysius Thrax. Since that 
attribution is at least not wholly correct, in light of Taylor's ''new model 
of the history of Graeco-Roman language science'' (Taylor 1987) a 
revised understanding of the history of the categories is needed. 
Going farther than Taylor, L. ''would like to emphasize a continuous 
interaction between grammar and philosophy even after grammar has 
become an independent discipline'' (7), i.e. into Late Antiquity. The 
standard philosophical or semantic categories may thus be attributed 
to an ''Apollonian renovation of grammar'' and to a 
subsequent ''process of canonization'' (11).

Chapter 2, Philosophical Tradition (12-24), paves the way for there 
being necessary what L. calls 'Hellenistic syncretism' (Chapter 4 and 
below, Critical Evaluation) by examining the possibility that three 
Classical and Hellenistic Greek philosophical schools may have been 
the ''sources for the standard semantic concepts in ancient grammar: 
the Academy, the Stoa and the Peripatos'' (12). The examination is 
especially interested in comparing Stoic and Aristotelian doctrine (23-
24), in that the grammarians' definitions of the noun and the pronoun 
are attributable to Stoic theory, whereas Aristotle's conception was not 
influential; but also in that, despite this general Stoic origin, Priscian 
occasionally defines the noun in a way that is not Stoic and thus 
presupposes a ''different source'' that ''cannot go back to Hellenistic 
times'' (24). As a result, a later antique development is implied.

Chapter 3, The Alexandrian Grammarians (25-29), briefly treats the 
philosophical and philological researches of Hellenistic Alexandria, 
concluding that their apparently more purely formal definitions of parts 
of speech, linked to a prevailing concern with exegesis and textual 
criticism, imply an absence of the more semantic subcategories of the 
noun seen in later Antiquity.

Chapter 4, Hellenistic Syncretism (30-37), the final stage in L.'s 
preliminary argument, argues that ''it is in the late antique context 
where philosophers showed a vivid interest in language and literature 
that ancient grammar received its canonical form'' (37). In particular, 
philosophers of Middle and Neo-Platonism discuss ''the grammarian's 
parts of speech'' (33), such that the interaction between grammar and 
philosophy continued, in the event productively for the definition of the 
noun.

Chapter 5, Latin Grammarians (38-78), building on the groundwork of 
the preceding chapters, argues that the 'standard definition of the 
noun' (by case inflection and a signification of concrete objects or 
abstract things) ''is a novelty which [is] part of the 'Apollonian 
renovation''' (39, citing Luhtala 2002): ''the Apollonian definition is 
likely to have provided the basis for the standard definition'' (40). The 
bulk of the chapter is devoted to demonstrating this point, including 
interesting excursions on Greek vs. Latin grammarians (the former 
more philosophically inclined) and into the idea of an ongoing debate 
among grammarians as to the relevance of philosophical analysis in 
grammatical analysis (in which Consentius assumes special 
importance, 77-78).

Chapter 6, Priscian (79-128), is a detailed application of L.'s 
developed argument to explain the seeming 'inconsistencies' in 
Priscian's definitions of the noun: although part of Priscian's 
discussion depends on a ''genuinely Apollonian'' set of standard 
semantic subtypes for the noun, another part of his discussion is non-
Apollonian and ''contains many Platonic elements'' (128).

Chapter 7, The Status of the Eight Parts of Speech (129-137), 
surveys the contrast between ''the grammarian's eight parts of speech 
[with] the dialectician's two, the noun and the verb'' as an example of 
how ''grammar continued to interact with philosophy in Late Antiquity'' 
(129). 

The final substantive chapter, Chapter 8, Augustine (138-150), 
extends L.'s central argument to a reading of Augustine's Ars breviata 
as ''an excellent example of a total absence of semantic categories in 
Latin grammar'' (138) - in the terms of her argument, Augustine's Ars 
and his source material were not affected by the ''post-Apollonian 
renovation of grammar'', i.e. by ''the introduction of the semantic 
subcategories of common nouns'' (149), because Augustine himself 
was unaware of such material: ''Augustine is therefore promoting 
something which was already in existence, but the existence of which 
he did not know'' (150). Thus the Ars is good evidence for how the 
Late Antique interaction between grammar and philosophy, by now a 
given, included many varieties dependant among other things on an 
author's extra-linguistic concerns.

Chapter 9, General Conclusions (151-155), summarizes L.'s argument 
about the 'standard philosophical or semantic categories': it is not in 
the Techne Grammatike, wrongly attributed to Dionysius Thrax, but in 
the work of Apollonius Dyscolos ''that we first encounter philosophical 
definitions of the noun and the verb'' (152) which ''probably provided 
models for the standard definitions used both in Latin and Greek 
grammarians'' (154). Moreover, since Apollonius himself does not use 
the definitions as such, whereas they are used as such in subsequent 
grammarians, a continued interaction of grammar and philosophy is 
implied for Late Antiquity.

The end-matter includes References (divided into Primary and 
Secondary sources), an index of authors/passages, and an index of 
topics.

CRITICAL EVALUATION

For a long time, accounts of 'ancient language science' were 
teleological. Accounts of Greco-Roman linguistics in particular looked 
to the first century BCE for both (1) the decisive emergence of 
grammar as a discipline independent of, on the one hand, rhetoric and 
philology (textual criticism), and, on the other, philosophy (including 
dialectic and the analysis of linguistic concepts, e.g. 'meaning'); and 
(2) the canonization of grammatical concepts in a form which would 
remain essentially unchanged through late antiquity, thereby to 
influence European linguistics in the Middle Ages and the 
Renaissance (see esp. Barwick 1922 and 1957; and Steinthal 1890-
1891). Recently such accounts have been subject to reexamination 
and revision, thanks to the ''new model of the history of Graeco-
Roman language science'' as articulated by Daniel J. Taylor (1987).

L.'s study takes part in, and adds to, this ongoing revision. Although L. 
agrees that grammar became independent in the first century BCE, 
she seeks to extend one implication of the new model, that the 
attribution of the Techne Grammatike to Dionysius Thrax is incorrect, 
in order to argue that grammar, even after its emergence as an 
independent discipline, continued to interact with philosophy through 
Late Antiquity, and that it is primarily this late influence, and not a 
putative earlier philosophical influence, that accounts for the 
philosophical aspects of late antique grammar, including the so-
called 'standard philosophical (or semantic) categories' of the noun. In 
L.'s words, the argument seeks ''to diminish the role of philosophy in 
pre-Apollonian grammar and to argue for a constant interaction 
between grammar and philosophy in Late Antiquity'' (9).

This application of the new model successfully produces a more 
nuanced picture of a fundamental topic in Late Antique thought on 
language. At a more general level (i.e., that of Koerner's 
historiography of linguistics), the study joins others in demonstrating 
how ancient thought about language, like pre-modern thought and 
non-Western thought about the same, deserves careful attention 
regardless of whether or not such thought  is 'language science' 
or 'linguistics' avant la lettre.

Some small complaints do not detract from the study's success. L. 
alternates between 'standard semantic' and 'standard philosophical 
subcategories', at times combining them, and defines the term later 
than might be liked. Very awkward is L.'s term 'Hellenistic syncretism' 
(Ch. 4). At first glance, this might naturally mean 'syncretism of 
different definitions and theories in the Hellenistic Age'. If I have 
understood L. correctly, however, this meaning is prohibited by her 
own chh. 2 and 3, such that the term means something like 'Late 
Antique syncretism of what were in origin, at least in some parts, 
Hellenistic definitions and theories': for this I might have 
preferred 'Late Antique syncretism'.

REFERENCES

Barwick, K. (1922) Remmius Palaemon und die römische ars 
grammatica. Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung.

Barwick, K.  (1957) Probleme der stoischen Sprachlehre und Rhetorik. 
Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.

di Benedetto, V. (1958-1959) ''Dionisio Trace e la techne a lui 
attribuita''. Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. 2.27: 169-
210 and 2.28: 87-118.

Koerner, E. F. K. (1999) Linguistic Historiography: Problems and 
Prospects. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Luhtala, A. (2002) ''On Definitions in Ancient Grammar''. In Swiggers 
and Wouters (2002), 257-285.

Robins, R. H. (1996) ''The Initial Section of the Tekhne grammatike''. In 
Swiggers and Wouters (1996), 3-15.

Steinthal, H. (1890-1) Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft bei den 
Griechen und Römern. Berlin: F. Duemmler.

Swiggers, P. and A. Wouters. (1996) Ancient Grammar: Content and 
Context. Leuven and Paris: Uitgeverij Peeters.

Swiggers, P. and A. Wouters. (2002) Grammatical Theory and 
Philosophy of Language in Antiquity. Leuven and Paris: Peeters.

Taylor, D. J. ed. (1987) History of Linguistics in the Classical Period. 
Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Benjamin Stevens is Assistant Professor of Classics at Bard College in 
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. His research interests include the 
history of thought about language, esp. the origin of language; 
linguistic life in Roman antiquity; and Latin and Greek languages and 
literatures. His current research project, tentatively entitled "Like 
Strangers in our Own City: Roman Wanderings in Language and 
Literature", explores the connections among literature as translation, 
cultural multilingualism, and individual and group identities in language 
in ancient Roman authors.





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