Jonson Ben. The English Grammar

• Файл формата pdf
• размером 16,77 МБ

• Добавлен пользователем nehajev 17.05.2022 07:53
• Описание отредактировано 17.05.2022 22:54

New York: Sturgis & Walton Company, 1909. — xii+149 p.

Edited with an introduction and notes by Alice Vinton Waite.

Originally published in 1640.
The full title of The English Grammar informs the reader that the book engages with contemporary living language and that the intended readership includes foreign learners of English: “The English Grammar made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of all strangers, out of his observation of the English language now spoken, and in use.” In the Preface Jonson adds that “the profit of Grammar” is “honourable to ourselves” and that his Grammar helps demonstrate the adequacy of English as “we show the copy of it [English] and matchableness with other tongues” (309). The Grammar consists of two books: the first deals with what Jonson labels ”etymology” but in modern linguistic terms would be subsumed under phonetics and morphology. It is subdivided into twenty-two chapters dedicated to the individual lexical categories (e.g. nouns, adjectives, and verbs), their components (e.g. letters, vowels, and consonants), and their variable forms (e.g. comparisons, declensions, and conjugations). The second book deals with syntax and is subdivided into nine chapters, according to syntactic functions of the specific lexical categories (e.g. “Of the Syntax of One Noun with Another”). (Ema Vyroubalova)