Two Medieval Critics of Traditional Grammar

The converging criticisms of traditional grammar undertaken by Anselm of Canterbury and Boethius of Dacia involve their deprecation of the roles of usage and experience and their expulsion of substance from adjectival meaning. However, usage, experience, and fact turn out to be relevant in completing the truncated functors involved in their interpretation of adjectival meaning. The identification of these functors in terms of Leśniewski systems and the categorial indices described by Lejewski serves to determine the status of their critical enterprise in general and of the modi significandi in particular.