Antonio de Nebrija (1444?–1522) published his Gramática Castellana in 1492, at a time when humanist appreciation of Castilian as a cultural language had not yet advanced to a discussion of its possibilities to become an established norm. However, an analysis of Nebrija’s linguistic and grammatical theories does shed some light on this question. For instance, it becomes clear that the new method which he proposes for the teaching of Latin (nova ratio Nebrissensis) presupposed a recognition of the presence of universal grammatical concepts in the pupil’s mother tongue. Such a conception is possible because Nebrija accepts an essential starting point of the medieval speculative tradition: language composition may be reduced to two basic concepts: materia (lexical element submitted to ‘corruption’) and forma (other elements – ‘accidents’ – which are stable). This composition is common to all languages. Therefore, Nebrija holds that by making use of the constrastive method it is possible to study two languages such as Latin and Castilian (which also happen to be closely related). Therefore, we must not consider the Gramática Castellana as separate from the rest of Nebrija’s scholarly production. He himself had coined the notion of ‘unity in diversity’ concerning his grammatical work. In order to teach the Castilian language and, starting from Castilian, Latin, Nebrija writes grammatical and lexicographical works which have an underlying unity. His general approach was exclusive to Nebrija; however, although nobody before him had worked out such an ambitious project, there is no doubt that he was continuing on the way in which grammatical tradition had been heading for some time. An example of this tradition is the so-called Grarnmatica proverbiandi. In this paper, the main features of this kind of medieyal grammar are analyzed. It is argued that they constitute the immediate precursor of the Nebrija’s undertaking, since we find in them didactic postulates which he developed further. These postulates led Nebrija to a contrastive grammar of Latin and Castilian and the creation of a grammatical terminology for the vernacular.
Aldrete, Bernardo José. 1606. Del origen y principio de la lengua castellana o romance que oi se usa en España. Roma: Carlo Vulliet. (Nova ed. de Lidio Nieto, Madrid: CSIC, 1975.)
Anon. 1555. Util, i breve institution, para aprender los principios, y fundamentos de la lengua Hespañola. Lovaina: Bartholomaei Gravii. (Nova ed. de Antonio Roldán, Madrid: CSIC, 1977.)
Anon. 1559. Gramática de la lengua Vulgar de España. Lovaine: Bartholomaei Gravii. (Nova ed. de Antonio Roldán & Rafael de Baibín, Madrid: CSIC, 1966.)
Bursill-Hall, Geoffrey L.1974. “Toward a History of Linguistics in the Middle Ages (1100–1450)”. Studies in the History of Linguistics: Traditions and paradigms ed. Dell H. Hymes, 72–92. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press.
Bustos, Eugenio de. 1983. “Nebrija, primer lingüista español”. Actas de la Tercera Academia Literaria Renacentista, 205–222. Salamanca: Publica-ciones de la Universidad.
Cerezo, Andrés G. de. 1485. Grammatica Brevis. Burgos: Fadrique de Ba-silea.
Colón, Germà & Amadeu J. Soberanas. 1985. Panorama de la lexicografia catalana. De les glosses medievals a Pompeu Fabra. Barcelona: Bibliote-ca Universitaria.
González Rolán, Tomás & Pilar Saquero Suárez-Somonte. 1992. “La ense-ñanza gramatical en Valencia a comienzos del siglo XV: Importancia de la Grammatica proverbiandi en la renovación pedagógica del latín”. Ex-cerpta Philologica: Antonio Holgado Redondo (= Sacra Revista de Filo-logía Griega y Latina, 1), 299–331. Universidad de Cádiz.
Keniston, Hayward. 1975. “The « Liberis educandis » of Antonio de Lebri-ja”. Homenaje a R. Menéndez Pidal, vol. III1: Miscelánea de estudios lin-güísticos, literarios e históricos, 127–141. Madrid: Hernando.
Mates, Bartolomé. 1468. Libellus pro efficendis orationibus. Barcelona: Johannes Gherling.
Nebrija, Antonio de. 1481. Introductiones Latinae. Salamanca: s.i.
Nebrija, Antonio de. 1482/1483. Introductiones Latinae. Salamanca: s.i.
Nebrija, Antonio de. 1488. Introductiones Latinae. Salamanca: s.i.
Nebrija, Antonio de. 1492. Diccionario latino-español. Salamanca: s.i.
Nebrija, Antonio de. 1495. Vocabulario de romance en latín (VEL). Salamanca: s.i.
Nebrija, Antonio de. 1495. Introductiones Latinae (Recognitio). Salamanca: s.i.
Nebrija, Antonio de. 1992[1492]. Gramática Castellana. Antonio de Nebrija. Introductión y notas de Miguel-Ángel Esparza & Ramón Sarmiento. Madrid: SGEL.
Nepos, Ferdinandus C.1492. Materies grammatices. Toulouse: Henricus Mayer.
Niederehe, Hans-Josef. 1987. Alfonso X el Sabio y la lingüística de su tiempo. Madrid: SGEL.
Pastrana, Juan de. C.1495. Compendium grammatice. Toulousse: Henricus Mayer.
Reichling, Dietrich, ed. 1893. Das Doctrinale des Alexandre de Villa-Dei. Kritisch-exegetische Ausgabe mit Einleitung, Verzeichniss der Handschriften und Drucke nebst Registern. (= Monumenta Germaniae Pedagögica, 12.) Berlín: A. Hofmann.
Rico, Francisco. 1978. Nebrija freute a los bárbaros. Salamanca: Ediciones de la Universidad.
Rico, Francisco. 1981. “Un prólogo al Renacimiento español. La dedicatoria de Nebrija a las Introductiones Latinae, 1488”. Homenaje a Marcel Bataillon, 6194. Sevilla-Bordeaux: Universidad de Sevilla & Universidad de Bur-deos.
Ridruejo, Emilio. 1977. “Notas romances en gramáticas latino-españolas”. Revis ta de Filología Española 591.51–80.
Sisón, Daniel. 1490. Perutile grammaticale compendium. Zaragoza: Juan Hums.
Thurot, Charles. 1868. Extraits de divers manuscrits latins pour servir à l’histoire des doctrines grammaticales au moyen âge. Paris: Imprimerie Impériale. (Reed., Frankfurt/Main: Minerva, 1964.)
Torre y del Cerro, Antonio de la & José Rubio y Balaguer. 1971. Documentes para la historia de la Universidad de Barcelona. Barcelona: Fa-cultad de Filosofía y Letras.
Valdés, Juan. 1984[1535]. Diálogo de la lengua. Editión de Juan M. Lope Blanch. Madrid: Clásicos Castalia.
Villalón, Cristóbal de. 1558. Gramática Castellana: Arte breve y compen-diosa para saber hablar y escrevir en la lengua Castellana congrua y de-centemente. Anvers: Guillermo Simón. (Nova ed. de Constantino García, Madrid: CSIC, 1971.)
Cited by (5)
Cited by five other publications
Gómez Asencio, José J.
2020. La cuenta de la vida de Antonio de Nebrija grammatico. Revista de Filología Española 100:2 ► pp. 513 ff.
Fernandes, Gonçalo
2017. Sources of theNotabilia(1427), a medieval handwritten grammatical treatise from the Portuguese monastery of Alcobaça. Folia Linguistica 51:s38-s1 ► pp. 75 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 3 august 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.