Cover not available
Article published In:
Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 18:2/3 (1991) ► pp.281–299

Richard Johnson

A case of 18th-century pragmatics

| Tel Aviv University

The grammarians of 16th, 17th, and 18th century England were, in the main, conservative, but the elements of continuity and change characteristic of these times make for a strange blend of uniformity and variety in the grammars they produced. Of all the grammatical categories, the treatment of mood is most hesitant, variable, and problematic. Building on this confusion, and taking a cue from the modern discussion of mood which lends itself to pragmatic analysis, the paper asks about pragmatics in the treatment of mood in earlier periods. In this it is claimed that although numerous hints and inklings provide evidence of some pragmatic tendencies, only one grammarian, Richard Johnson, in the Grammatical Commentaries of 1706, comes close to an explicit rendering of moods akin to speech acts and based on language use. His theory of moods is presented and analyzed; it is seen to formulate theoretical, pragmatic principles for moods and, furthermore, to apply such principles in the detailed analysis of specific moods. Johnson emerges as unique in his time for his treatment of moods, but obviously still limited by its conceptual frameworks.

Published online: 1 January 1991
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.18.2-3.03bil
References
Åqvist, Lennart
1967 “Semantic and Pragmatic Characterizability of Linguistic Usage”. Synthese 171.281–291. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam
1966 Cartesian Linguistics. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Cram, David
1989 “Seventeenth-Century Punctuation theory: Butler’s Philosophical Analysis and Wilkins’ Philosophical Critique”. Folia Linguistica Historica 81.309–349.Google Scholar
Danes, John A.
1637 A Light to Lilie. Being an Easie Method for the Better Teaching and Learning of the Grounds of the Latine Tongue. London: Norton. (Facsimile repr., Menston: Scolar Press 1968.)Google Scholar
Davidson, Donald
1976 “Moods and Performances”. Meaning and Use ed. by Avishai Margalit, 9–20. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Follesdal, Dagfinn
1967 “Comments on Stenius’s ‘Mood and Language Game’”. Synthese 171.254–274. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Richard
1706 Grammatical Commentaries: Being an Apparatus To a New National Grammar: By way of Animadversion Upon the Falsities, Obscurities, Redundancies, and Defects of Lilly’s System Now in Use. London: the author. (Facsimile repr., Menston: Scolar Press 1969.)Google Scholar
Kasher, Asa
1974 “Mood Implicatures: A logical way of doing generative pragmatics”. Theoretical Linguistics 11.6–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1981 “Minimal Speakers, Necessary Speech Acts”. Festschrift for Native Speaker ed. by Florian Coulmas, 93–101. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Lappin, Shalom
1982 “On the Pragmatics of Mood”. Linguistics and Philosophy 41.559–578. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C.
1983 Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lewis, David
1972 “General Semantics”. Semantics of Natural Language ed. by Donald Davidson & Gilbert Harman, 169–218. Dordrecht: Reidel. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lily, William & John Colet
1549 A Short Introduction of Grammar. (Facsimile reprint of unique copy in the Bodleian Library. Menston: Scolar Press 1970.)Google Scholar
Linacre, Thomas
1524 De Emendata Structura Latinii Sermonis. Libri sex. London: R. Pynsonum. (Facsimile repr. Menston: Scolar Press 1968.)Google Scholar
Michael, Ian
1970 English Grammatical Categories and the Tradition to 1800. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Morris, Charles
1938 Foundations of the Theory of Signs. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Padley, George Arthur
1976 Grammatical Theory in Western Europe 1500–1700. The Latin tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
1985 Grammatical Theory in Western Europe: Trends in vernacular grammar. Vol.I1. Ibid.Google Scholar
1988 Grammatical Theory in Western Europe: Trends in vernacular grammar. Vol.II1. Ibid.Google Scholar
Poldauf, Ivan
1948 “On the History of Some Problems of English Grammar Before 1800”. Prague Studies in English 551.1–322.Google Scholar
Reed, John O.
1988 “Englishmen and Their Moods: Renaissance grammar and the English verb”. An Historic Tongue ed. by Graham Nixon & John Honey, 112–130. London & New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Schenkeveld, D[irk] M.
1984 “Studies in the History of Ancient Linguistics II: Stoic and Peripatetic Kinds of Speech Act and the Distinctions of Grammatical Moods”. Mnemosyne 371.291–353. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Searle, John R.
1965 “What is a Speech Act?”. Philosophy in America ed. by Max Black, 221–239. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Stenius, Erik
1967 “Mood and Language Game”. Synthese 171.254–274. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vorlat, Emma
1975 The Development of English Grammatical Theory 1586–1737. Leuven: Leuven Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Wilkins, John
1668 An Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language. London: Gellibrand. (Facsimile repr., Menston: Scolar Press 1968.)Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig
1958 Philosophical Investigations. Transl. by Gertrude E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Biletzki, Anat
1996. Is there a history of pragmatics?. Journal of Pragmatics 25:4 ► pp. 455 ff. DOI logo
Nerlich, Brigitte & David D. Clarke
1994. Language, action and context linguistic pragmatics in Europe and America (1800–1950). Journal of Pragmatics 22:5 ► pp. 439 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.