Surveys of linguistics in the Middle Ages often begin with the twelfth century, dismissing the preceding six centuries as 'devoid of originality' or 'dependent upon Donatus and Priscian'. This collection of articles devoted to linguistics in the early Middle Ages attempts to redress the balance by presenting a variety of approaches to new and controversial questions. The volume opens with a study of the historiography of early medieval grammar, with a bibliography of primary and secondary literature. The history of linguistic doctrine is discussed in articles dealing with Virgilius Maro Grammaticus, with the Irish contribution to the analysis of Latin, and with the Carolingian grammarians. A paper discussing a grammar from late Anglo-Saxon England (Beatus quid est) offers new insights into pedagogical techniques and the integration of literary texts into grammar teaching. The attitudes towards varieties of Latin in late antique and early medieval grammars are discussed in a wider context of cultural history. Finally, the volume includes two articles on the transmission of the grammars of the later Roman Empire to the early Middle Ages (Priscian and Dynamius).

Surveys of linguistics in the Middle Ages often begin with the twelfth century, dismissing the preceding six centuries as 'devoid of originality' or 'dependent upon Donatus and Priscian'. This collection of articles devoted to linguistics in the early Middle Ages attempts to redress the balance by presenting a variety of approaches to new and controversial questions.The volume opens with a study of the historiography of early medieval grammar, with a bibliography of primary and secondary literature. The history of linguistic doctrine is discussed in articles dealing with Virgilius Maro Grammaticus, with the Irish contribution to the analysis of Latin, and with the Carolingian grammarians. A paper discussing a grammar from late Anglo-Saxon England (Beatus quid est) offers new insights into pedagogical techniques and the integration of literary texts into grammar teaching. The attitudes towards varieties of Latin in late antique and early medieval grammars are discussed in a wider context of cultural history. Finally, the volume includes two articles on the transmission of the grammars of the later Roman Empire to the early Middle Ages (Priscian and Dynamius).

This authoritative and wide-ranging book, first published in 2003, examines the history of western linguistics over a 2000-year timespan, from its origins in ancient Greece up to the crucial moment of change in the Renaissance that laid the foundations of modern linguistics. Some of today's burning questions about language date back a long way: in 1400 BC Plato was asking how words relate to reality. Other questions go back just a few generations, such as our interest in the mechanisms of language change, or in the social factors that shape the way we speak. Vivien Law explores how ideas about language over the centuries have changed to reflect changing modes of thinking. A survey chapter brings the coverage of the book up to the present day. Classified bibliographies and chapters on research resources and the qualities the historian of linguistics needs to develop, provide the reader with the tools to go further.

This study focuses on the uses of the grammatical concept of etymologia in primarily Latin writings from the early Middle Ages. Etymologia is a fundamental procedure and discursive strategy in the philosophy and analysis of language in early medieval Latin grammar, as well as in Biblical exegesis, encyclopedic writing, theology, and philosophy. Read through the frame of poststructuralist analysis of discourse and the philosophy of science, the procedure of the ars grammatica are interpreted as overlapping genres (commentary, glossary, encyclopedia, exegesis) which use different verbal or extraverbal criteria to explain the origins and significations of words and which establish different epistemological frames within which an etymological account of language is situated. The study also includes many translations of heretofore untranslated passages from Latin grammatical and exegetical writings.

This complete revision and updating of Professor Robins' classic text offers a comprehensive account of the history of linguistic thought from its European origins some 2500 years ago to the present day. It examines the independent development of linguistic science in China and Medieval Islam, and especially in India, which was to have a profound effect on European and American linguistics from the end of the eighteenth century. The fourth edition of A Short History of Linguistics gives a greater prominence to the work of Wilhelm von Humboldt, because of the lasting importance of his work on language in relation to general eighteenth century thinking and of its perceived relevance in the latter half of the twentieth century to several aspects of generative grammatical theory. The final section, covering the twentieth century, has been rewritten and divided into two new chapters, so as to deal effectively with the increasingly divergent development of descriptive and theoretical linguistics that took place in the latter half of this century. Readable and authoritative, Professor Robins' introduction provides a clear and up-to-date overview of all the major issues in the light of contemporary scholarly debate, and will be essential reading for undergraduate and graduate students of linguistics alike.

Grammar and Grammarians in the Early Middle Ages is the only book in this field which examines linguistics in the Middle Ages from the standpoint of both the medievalist and the historian of linguistics. Primary source material along with previously unpublished texts are used extensively with all foreign texts translated into English, and are listed in a useful bibliography to aid further study. Historical surveys, author studies and introductions to medieval grammatical terminology are also included to help clarify the historical context of the study. The volume will prove invaluable reading and an important reference work for those studying historical linguistics, for medieval and cultural historians, and to all who are interested in the intellectual life and literature of medieval Europe.

Language and ideology in the scholarship of the late Middle Ages