Cover not available
Article published In:
Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 43:3 (2016) ► pp.285–299

The Emergence of the Syntactic Concept of Phrase in Comenius

| Università degli Studi di Udine

We owe the emergence of the linguistic idea of phrase to Jan Amos Comenius (1592–1670), in his Grammatica Latino-vernacula (Leszno 1649). He proposes to use the stylistic term ‘phrasis’ with a new linguistic meaning, in order to indicate a group of words arranged in a hierarchical structure, which is an intermediate syntactic unit between the word and the sentence. This idea allows us to back-date by a century the discovery of “groups of words”, which is usually ascribed to Gabriel Girard (1677–1774) in 1747.

Published online: 21 December 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.43.3.02oni
References

A.Primary sources

Artopoeus, Petrus
1534  Latinae phrasis elegantiae . Ex potissimis authoribus conscriptae. Vitebergae: apud Georgium Rhau.Google Scholar
Bathe, William
(attributed to) 1611 Ianua linguarum, sive modus maxime accommodates, quo patefit aditus ad omnes linguas intellegendas. Industria Patrum Hibernorum Societatis Iesu, qui in collegio eiusdem nationis Salamanticae degunt. Salamanticae: apud Franciscum Cea Tesa.Google Scholar
Becker, Karl Ferdinand
1841 Organism der Sprache. 21. Ausgabe. Frankfurt: Kettembeil.Google Scholar
Chytraeus, David
1564 De ratione discendi et ordine studiorum in singulis artibus recte instituendo. Vitebergae.Google Scholar
Comenius, Jan Amos
1631 Janua linguarum reserata, sive seminarium linguarum et scientiarum omnium. Lesnae: typis Danielis Vetteri.Google Scholar
1649 Grammatica Latino-vernacula, Annotationes super grammaticam. Lesnae: typis Danielis Vetteri. Ed. by Jiří Beneš & Karel Hubka and published as Jan Amos Komenský, Opera Onmia. 15/III. Academia scientiarum Bohemoslovaca. Praha: Academia 1992.Google Scholar
1657 Opera didactica omnia. Amsterdami: excuderunt Christophorus Cunradus & Gabriel à Roy.Google Scholar
1658 Orbis sensualium pictus, Norimbergae: typis & sumptibus Michaelis Endteri.Google Scholar
Dolet, Etienne
1539 Formulae Latinarum locutionum illustrium. Lugduni: apud eundem Doletum.Google Scholar
1576 Phrases et formulae linguae Latinae elegantiores, Stephano Doleto autore, nunc denuo recognitae, cum praefatione Ioan. Sturmii, quibus adiecimus connubium adverbiorum Ciceronianorum Huberti Sussannaei. Argentorati: excudebat Iosias Rihelius.Google Scholar
Du Bellay, Johachim
1549 La deffence, et illustration de la langue françoise. Paris. (Ed. by Jean-Charles Monferran. Genève: Droz 2001.)Google Scholar
Elyot, Thomas
1533 The doctrinal of princes made by the noble oratour Isocrates, translated out of Greke in to Englishe by syr Thomas Eliot knight, London: in the house of Thomas Berthelet.Google Scholar
Erasmus of Rotterdam
1484–1536 Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami. Ed. by Percy Stafford Allen, Helen Mary Allen, Heathcote William Garrod, Barbara Flower & Elizabeth Rosenbaum. I–XII. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1906–1958.Google Scholar
Girard, Gabriel
1747 Les vrais principes de la langue française ou la Parole réduite en méthode conformement aux lois de l’usage, I1, Paris: chez Le Breton.Google Scholar
Manutius, Aldus
1556 Eleganze della lingua toscana e latina. Venetia: Aldus.Google Scholar
1567 Purae, elegantes et copiosae Latinae linguae phrases. Coloniae Agrippinae: apud Gualtherum Fabricium & Ioannem Gymnicum.Google Scholar
1573 Phrases Linguae Latinae. Nunc primum in ordinem abecedarium adductae & in Anglicum sermonem conversae. Londinii: ex officina Thomae Vautrollerij. (Facs. Ed., Menston: Scholar Press 1970; and Ann Arbor. Mich.: ProQuest EEBO Editions 2010.)Google Scholar
Schorus, Antonius
1548 Phrases linguae Latinae, ratioque observandorum eorum in auctoribus legendis, quae praecipuam ac singularem vim aut usum habent. Coloniae: apud Petrum Horst.Google Scholar
Valla, Laurentius
1444 Elegantiarum linguae Latinae libri sex. [List of manuscripts and printed editions in IJsewijn & Tournoy 1969 (see below).]Google Scholar
Vossius, Gerardus Ioannes
1635 De arte grammatica libri septem. Amsterdami: apud Guilielmum Blaeu.Google Scholar

B.Secondary sources

Auroux, Sylvain, E. F. K. Koerner, Hans-Josef Niederehe & Kees Versteegh
eds. 2000 History of the Language Sciences / Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaften / Histoire des sciences du langage. Vol. I1. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Baratin, Marc
1999 “La conception de l’énoncé dans les textes grammaticaux latins”. Büttgen et al.., eds. 171–188.Google Scholar
Bloomfield, Leonard
1933 Language. New York: Henry Holt & Co.Google Scholar
Bonnet, Guillaume
2011 “Syntagms in the artigraphic Latin grammars”. Matthaios et al.., eds. 361–374.Google Scholar
Breimeier, Heinrich
2001 “Phrasis”. Thesaurus linguae Latinae, vol. X.1, p.2053, coll. 35–56.Google Scholar
Büttgen, Philippe, Stéphane Dieblet & Marwan Rashed
eds. 1999 Théories de la phrase et de la proposition de Platon à Averroès. Paris: Rue d’Ulm.Google Scholar
Campos, Julio
1953 “La phrasis de Quintiliano”. Helmantica 4:13/15.99–121. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Čapková, Dagmar
1970 “J. A. Comenius’s Orbis Pictus in its Conception as a Textbook for the Universal Education of Children”. Paedagogica Historica 10:1.5–27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Caravolas, Jean Antoine
2000 “Les origines de la didactique des langues en tant que discipline autonome”. Auroux et al.., eds. 2000.1009–1022.Google Scholar
Chiron, Pierre & Carlos Lévy
eds. 2010 Les noms du style dans l’Antiquité Gréco-Latine, Louvain: Peeters.Google Scholar
Dolbeau, François
2003 “Phrasis”. Novum glossarium mediae Lainitatis ab anno DCCC usque ad annum MCC. Hafniae: Einar Munksgaard.Google Scholar
Drsková, Kateřina
ed. 2013 Opera Romanica 14. České Budějovice: Filozofická fakulta.Google Scholar
Forsgren, Kjell Åke
1992 Satz, Satzarten, Satzglieder: Zur Gestaltung der deutschen traditionel len Grammatik von Karl Ferdiand Becker bis Konrad Duden 1830–1880. Münster: Nodus.Google Scholar
Garcea, Alessandro
2005 “Systèmes de description et unités linguistiques: le cas du latin dictio ”. Incontri Linguistici 281.145–167.Google Scholar
Geissler, Heinrich
1959 Comenius und die Sprache. Heidelberg: Quelle & Mayer.Google Scholar
Gourinat, Jean-Baptiste
2010 “Y a-t-il une théorie stoïcienne du style?”. Chiron & Lévy, eds. 317–345.Google Scholar
Gmiterek, Henryk
2009 “Comenius”. Stammerjohann, ed. 315–316.Google Scholar
Graffi, Giorgio
1990 “L’analisi in costituenti immediati prima di Bloomfield”. Lingua e Stile 25:3.457–469.Google Scholar
1991 La sintassi tra Ottocento e Novecento. Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
2001 200 Years of Syntax. A critical survey. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hockett, Charles Francis
1958 A Course in Modern Linguistics. New York: Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hubka, Karel
1974 “Komenského lešenská Grammatica latina a latinské mluvnice 16. a 17. stol. Listy Filologické 97:2.73–79.Google Scholar
IJsewijn, Jozef & Gilbert Tournoy
1969 “Un primo censimento dei manoscritti e delle edizioni a stampa degli Elegantiarum linguae Latinae libri sex di Lorenzo Valla”. Humanistica Lovaniensia 181.25–41.Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto
1924 The Philosophy of Grammar. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Knape, Joachim
1994 “ Elocutio ”. Ueding, ed. II1.1022–1083.Google Scholar
Mathúna, Seán P. Ó.
1986 William Bathe, S.J., 1564–1614: A pioneer in linguistics. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matthaios, Stephanos, Franco Montanari & Antonios Rengakos
eds. 2011 Ancient Scholarship and Grammar: Archetypes, concepts and contexts. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Miškovská-Kozáková, Vlasta T.
1979 “Comenius’s Linguistic Theory and Experiment”. Acta Comeniana 4:2.291–319.Google Scholar
Moss, Ann
1996 Printed Commonplace-Books and the Structuring of Renaissance Thought. Oxford: Clarendon Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2003 Renaissance Truth and the Latin Language Turn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norton, Glyn P.
1984 The Ideology and Language of Translation in Renaissance France and their Humanistic Antecedents. Genève: Droz.Google Scholar
Pešek, Ondrej
2013 “ Sententia, periodus, oratio. Éléments de syntaxe textuelle dans les écrits grammaticaux de Comenius”. Drsková, ed. 202–216.Google Scholar
Ries, John
1928 Zur Wortgruppenlehre. Prag: Taussig & Taussig.Google Scholar
Rocca, Silvana
1989 Comenio e la riforma didattica del latino (con testo e traduzione del II Vestibulum). Genova: Compagnia dei Librai.Google Scholar
Russo, Emilio
2008 “Manuzio, Aldo il Giovane”. Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Vol. LIX1.245–250. Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana.Google Scholar
Šabršula, Jan
1992 “La linguistique dans les écrits latins de Comenius”. Listy filologické 1151 Suppl. 11.1–109.Google Scholar
Sadler, John Edward
1966 Comenius and the Concept of Universal Education. New York: Barns & Noble. (Repr., London: Routledge 2013.)Google Scholar
Stammerjohann, Harro
ed. 2009 Lexicon Grammaticorum. A bio-bibliographical companion to the history of linguistics. 2nd ed., 21 vols. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tukey, Ralph Hermon
1911 “The Stoic use of λέξις and φράσις”. Classical Philology 6:4.444–449. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ueding, Gert
ed. 1994 Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik. Vols. I–XII. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Wundt, Wilhelm
1912 Völkerpsychologie. II.2: Die Sprache. 3rd revised ed. [11900] Leipzig: Engelmann.Google Scholar