Editing History of linguistics (section)

==Antiquity==
Across cultures, the early history of linguistics is associated with a need to disambiguate discourse, especially for ritual texts or arguments.  This often led to explorations of sound-meaning mappings, and the debate over conventional versus naturalistic origins for these symbols. Finally, this led to the processes by which larger structures are formed from units.

=== Babylonia ===
The earliest linguistic texts – written in [[Cuneiform script|cuneiform]] on clay tablets – date almost four thousand years before the present.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Linguistics: An Introduction|last=McGregor|first=William B.|author-link=William B. McGregor|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic|year=2015|isbn=978-0567583529|pages=15–16}}</ref> In the early centuries of the second millennium BCE, in southern [[Mesopotamia]], there arose a grammatical tradition that lasted more than 2,500 years. The linguistic texts from the earliest parts of the tradition were lists of [[noun]]s in [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]] (a [[language isolate]], that is, a language with no known genetic relatives), the language of religious and legal texts at the time. Sumerian was being replaced in everyday speech by a very different (and unrelated) language, [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]]; it remained however as a language of prestige and continued to be used in religious and legal contexts. It therefore had to be taught as a foreign language, and to facilitate this, information about Sumerian was recorded in writing by Akkadian-speaking scribes.

Over the centuries, the lists became standardised, and the Sumerian words were provided with Akkadian translations. Ultimately texts emerged that gave Akkadian equivalents for not just single words, but for entire paradigms of varying forms for words: one text, for instance, has 227 different forms of the verb ''ĝar'' "to place".

===India===
{{main|Vyakarana|Tolkāppiyam}}
Linguistics in [[Vedic civilization|ancient India]] derives its impetus from the need to correctly recite and interpret the [[Vedas|Vedic]] texts. Already in the oldest Indian text, the [[Rigveda]], {{IAST|''[[vāk]]''}} ("speech") is deified.  By 1200 BCE,<ref>Staal, J. F., ''The Fidelity of Oral Tradition and the Origins of Science''. North-Holland Publishing Company, 1986.  p. 27
</ref> the oral performance of these texts becomes standardized, and treatises on ritual recitation suggest splitting up the [[Sanskrit]] compounds into words, [[word stem|stem]]s, and phonetic units, providing an impetus for [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]] and [[phonetics]].

Some of the earliest activities in the [[descriptive linguistics|description of language]] have been attributed to the [[India]]n grammarian [[Pāṇini]] (6th century BCE),<ref>{{Cite book|title=A New History of the Humanities: The Search for Principles and Patterns from Antiquity to the Present|last=Bod|first=Rens|author-link=Rens Bod|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0199665211|year=2014|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KaOcAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA14}}</ref><ref>Sanskrit Literature The Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 2 (1909), p. 263.</ref><ref name="FPencyclo" /> who wrote a rule-based description of the [[Sanskrit|Sanskrit language]] in his ''[[Aṣṭādhyāyī]]''.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Ashtadhyayi of Panini (2 Vols.) |author=S.C. Vasu (Tr.) |publisher=Vedic Books |year=1996 |isbn=9788120804098|url=http://www.vedicbooks.net/ashtadhyayi-panini-vols-p-2313.html}}</ref>

Over the next few centuries, clarity was reached in the organization of sound units, and the [[stop consonant]]s were organized in a 5x5 square ({{Circa|800 BCE}}, [[Pratisakhya]]s), eventually leading to a systematic alphabet, [[Brāhmī script|Brāhmī]], by the 3rd century BCE.<ref>{{Cite web|date=|title=Brāhmī Alphabet|url=https://www.omniglot.com/writing/brahmi.htm|website=Omniglot|access-date=September 28, 2023}}</ref>{{Better source needed|date=September 2023}}

In semantics, the early Sanskrit grammarian [[Śākaṭāyana]] (before {{Circa|500 BCE}}) proposes that verbs represent ontologically prior categories, and that all nouns are etymologically derived from actions.  The [[etymologist]] [[Yāska]] (c. 5th century BCE) posits that meaning inheres in the sentence, and that word meanings are derived based on sentential usage.  He also provides four categories of words—[[noun]]s, [[verb]]s, pre-verbs, and particles/invariants—and a test for nouns both concrete and abstract: words which can be indicated by the pronoun ''that''.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}}

Pāṇini (c. 6th century BCE) opposes the Yāska view that sentences are primary, and proposes a grammar for composing [[semantics]] from [[morpheme|morphemic]] roots. Transcending the ritual text to consider living language, Pāṇini specifies a comprehensive set of about 4,000 aphoristic rules (''[[sutra]]s'') that:

# Map the semantics of verb argument structures into [[thematic relation|thematic role]]s
# Provide morphosyntactic rules for creating verb forms and nominal forms whose seven cases  are called ''karaka'' (similar to [[grammatical case|case]]) that generate the [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]]
# Take these morphological structures and consider [[phonology|phonological]] processes (e.g., root or stem modification) by which the final phonological form is obtained
In addition, the Pāṇinian school also provides a list of 2000 verb [[Root (linguistics)|roots]] which form the objects on which these rules are applied, a list of sounds (the so-called ''Shiva-sutras''), and a list of 260 words not derivable by the rules.

The extremely succinct specification of these rules and their complex interactions led to considerable commentary and extrapolation over the following centuries.  The phonological structure includes defining a notion of sound universals similar to the modern [[phoneme]], the systematization of [[consonant]]s based on oral cavity constriction, and [[vowel]]s based on height and duration.  However, it is the ambition of mapping these from [[morpheme]] to semantics that is truly remarkable in modern terms.

Grammarians following Pāṇini include [[Katyayana|Kātyāyana]] (c. 3rd century BCE), who wrote aphorisms on Pāṇini (the ''Varttika'') and advanced [[Indian mathematics|mathematics]]; [[Patañjali]] (2nd century BCE), known for his commentary on selected topics in Pāṇini's grammar (the ''Mahabhasya'') and on Kātyāyana's [[aphorisms]], as well as, according to some, the author of the ''[[Yoga Sutras of Patanjali|Yoga Sutras]]'', and ''[[Pingala]]'',  with his mathematical approach to [[Prosody (linguistics)|prosody]]. Several debates ranged over centuries, for example, on whether word-meaning mappings were conventional (''[[Vaisheshika]]-[[Nyaya]]'') or eternal (''Kātyāyana-Patañjali-[[Mīmāṃsā]]'').

The ''[[Nyaya Sutras]]'' specified three types of meaning: the individual (''this cow''), the [[Universal (metaphysics)|type universal]] (''cowhood''), and the image (''draw the cow'').
That the sound of a word also forms a class (sound-universal) was observed  by [[Bhartṛhari]] (c. 500 CE), who also posits that language-universals are the units of thought, close to the [[nominalism|nominalist]] or even the [[linguistic determinism]] position. Bhartṛhari also considers the sentence to be ontologically primary (word meanings are learned given their sentential use).

Of the six canonical texts or ''[[Vedanga]]s'' that formed the core syllabus in [[Brahmin]]ic education from the 1st century CE until the 18th century, four dealt with language:
*''[[Shiksha]]'' (''{{IAST|śikṣā}}''): [[phonetics]] and [[phonology]] ([[sandhi]]), Gārgeya and commentators
*''[[Chandas]]'' (''{{IAST|chandas}}''): [[prosody (poetry)|prosody]] or [[Meter (poetry)|meter]], Pingala and commentators
*''[[Vyakarana]]'' (''{{IAST|vyākaraṇa}}''): [[grammar]], Pāṇini and commentators
*''[[Nirukta]]'' (''{{IAST|nirukta}}''): [[etymology]], Yāska and commentators

[[Bhartrihari]] around 500 CE introduced a philosophy of meaning with his ''[[sphoṭa]]'' doctrine.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}

Pāṇini's rule-based method of linguistic analysis and description has remained relatively unknown to Western linguistics until more recently. [[Franz Bopp]] used Pāṇini's work as a linguistic source for his 1807 Sanskrit grammar but disregarded his methodology.<ref>The science of language, Chapter 16, in [[Gavin D. Flood]], ed. ''The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism'' [[Blackwell Publishing]], 2003, 599 pages {{ISBN|0-631-21535-2}}, {{ISBN|978-0-631-21535-6}}.  p. 357-358</ref> Pāṇini's system also differs from modern [[formal linguistics]] in that, since Sanskrit is a free word-order language, it did not provide [[syntax|syntactic]] rules.<ref name="Kiparsky_2009">{{cite book |last=Kiparsky |first=Paul|author-link=Paul Kiparsky |editor-last1=Huet |editor-first1=G. |editor-last2=Kulkarni |editor-first2=A. |editor-last3=Scharf |editor-first3=P. |title=Sanskrit Computational Linguistics, ISCLS 2007, ISCLS 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 5402 |publisher=Springer |date=2015 |pages=33–94 |chapter= On the Architecture of Pāṇini's Grammar |volume=5402 |doi=10.1007/978-3-642-00155-0_2|isbn= 978-3-642-00155-0 }}</ref> Formal linguistics, as first proposed by [[Louis Hjelmslev]] in 1943,<ref name="Seuren_1998">{{cite book |last=Seuren|first=Pieter A. M.|author-link=Pieter Seuren|title=Western linguistics: An historical introduction |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |isbn=0-631-20891-7 |pages=160–167 |date=1998}}</ref> is nonetheless based on the same concept that the expression of [[semantics|meaning]] is organised on different layers of linguistic form (including phonology and morphology).<ref name="Hjelmslev_1969">{{cite book |last=Hjelmslev |first=Louis |title=Prolegomena to a Theory of Language |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |date=1969 |orig-year=First published 1943 |isbn= 0299024709 |author-link=Louis Hjelmslev}}</ref>

The Pali Grammar of Kacchayana, dated to the early centuries CE, describes the language of the Buddhist canon.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}

===Greece===
The Greeks developed an [[alphabet]] using symbols from the [[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenicians]], adding signs for vowels and for extra consonants appropriate to their idiom (see Robins, 1997). In the [[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenicians]] and in earlier Greek writing systems, such as [[Linear B]], graphemes indicated syllables, that is sound combinations of a consonant and a vowel. The addition of vowels by the Greeks was a major breakthrough as it facilitated the writing of Greek by representing both vowels and consonants with distinct graphemes. As a result of the introduction of writing, poetry such as the [[Homeric poems]] became written and several editions were created and commented on, forming the basis of [[philology]] and criticism.

Along with written speech, the Greeks commenced studying grammatical and philosophical issues. A philosophical discussion about the nature and origins of language can be found as early as the works of Plato. A subject of concern was whether language was man-made, a social artifact, or supernatural in origin. [[Plato]] in his [[Cratylus (dialogue)|''Cratylus'']] presents the [[Naturalism (philosophy)|naturalistic]] view, that word meanings emerge from a natural process, independent of the language user.  His arguments are partly based on examples of compounding, where the meaning of the whole is usually related to the constituents, although by the end he admits a small role for convention. The [[sophists]] and [[Socrates]] introduced dialectics as a new text genre. The Platonic dialogs contain definitions of the meters of the poems and tragedy, the form and the structure of those texts (see the ''Republic'' and ''Phaidros'', ''Ion'', etc.).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://plato-dialogues.org/works.htm|title=Plato and his dialogues: a list of Plato's works|first=Bernard F.|last=SUZANNE|website=plato-dialogues.org}}</ref>

[[Aristotle]] supports the conventional origins of meaning. He defined the logic of speech and of the argument. Furthermore, Aristotle's works on [[rhetoric]] and [[poetics]] became of the utmost importance for the understanding of tragedy, poetry, public discussions etc. as text genres. Aristotle's work on logic interrelates with his special interest in language, and his work on this area was fundamentally important for the development of the study of language (''logos'' in Greek means both "language" and "logic reasoning"). In [[Categories (Aristotle)|''Categories'']], Aristotle defines what is meant by "synonymous" or univocal words, what is meant by "homonymous" or equivocal words, and what is meant by "paronymous" or denominative words. He  divides forms of speech as being:

* Either simple, without composition or structure, such as "man," "horse," "fights," etc.
* Or having composition and structure, such as "a man fights," "the horse runs," etc.

Next, he distinguishes between a subject of predication, namely that of which anything is affirmed or denied, and a subject of inhesion. A thing is said to be inherent in a subject, when, though it is not a part of the subject, it cannot possibly exist without the subject, e.g., shape in a thing having a shape. The categories are not abstract platonic entities but are found in speech, these are substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action and affection. In ''[[de Interpretatione]]'', Aristotle analyzes categoric propositions, and draws a series of basic conclusions on the routine issues of classifying and defining basic linguistic forms, such as simple terms and propositions, nouns and verbs, negation, the quantity of simple propositions (primitive roots of the quantifiers in modern symbolic logic), investigations on the excluded middle (which to Aristotle isn't applicable to future tense propositions — the Problem of future contingents), and on modal propositions.

The [[Stoics]] made linguistics an important part of their system of the cosmos and the human. They played an important role in defining the linguistic sign-terms adopted later on by [[Ferdinand de Saussure]] like "significant" and "signifié".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/stoicism/|title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|first=Dirk|last=Baltzly|chapter=Stoicism |editor-first=Edward N.|editor-last=Zalta|date=5 June 2018|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|via=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref>  The Stoics studied phonetics, grammar and etymology as separate levels of study. In [[phonetics]] and [[phonology]] the [[articulators]] were defined. The [[syllable]] became an important  structure for the understanding of speech organization. One of the most important contributions of the Stoics in language study was the gradual definition of the terminology and theory echoed in modern linguistics.

Alexandrian [[Alexandrine grammarians|grammarians]] also studied speech sounds and [[prosody (linguistics)|prosody]]; they defined [[parts of speech]] with notions such as "noun", "verb", etc. There was also a discussion about the role of analogy in language, in this discussion the grammatici in Alexandria supported the view that language and especially morphology is based on analogy or paradigm, whereas the grammatic in schools in Asia Minor consider that language is not based on analogical bases but rather on exceptions.

Alexandrians, like their predecessors, were very interested in meter and its role in [[poetry]]. The metrical "[[Foot (prosody)|feet]]" in the Greek was based on the length of time taken to pronounce each syllable, with syllables categorized according to their weight as either "long" syllables or "short" syllables (also known as "heavy" and "light" syllables, respectively, to distinguish them from long and short vowels). The foot is often compared to a musical measure and the long and short syllables to whole notes and half notes. The basic unit in Greek and Latin prosody is a [[mora (linguistics)|mora]], which is defined as a single short [[syllable]]. A long syllable is equivalent to two moras. A long syllable contains either a long [[vowel]], a [[diphthong]], or a short vowel followed by two or more consonants.

Various rules of elision sometimes prevent a grammatical syllable from making a full syllable, and certain other lengthening and shortening rules (such as [[correption]]) can create long or short syllables in contexts where one would expect the opposite. The most important Classical meter as defined by the Alexandrian grammarians was the dactylic hexameter, the meter of Homeric poetry. This form uses verses of six feet. The first four feet are normally dactyls, but can be spondees. The fifth foot is almost always a dactyl. The sixth foot is either a spondee or a trochee. The initial syllable of either foot is called the ictus, the basic "beat" of the verse. There is usually a [[caesura]] after the ictus of the third foot.

The text [[Art of Grammar|''Tékhnē grammatiké'']] (c. 100 BCE, Gk. ''gramma'' meant letter, and this title means "Art of letters"), possibly written by [[Dionysius Thrax]] (170 – 90 BCE), is considered the earliest grammar book in the Greek tradition.<ref name="Bod"/> It lists eight parts of speech and lays out the broad details of Greek morphology including the [[declension|case]] structures.  This text was intended as a pedagogic guide (as was Panini), and also covers punctuation and some aspects of prosody.  Other grammars by [[Charisius]] (mainly a compilation of Thrax, as well as lost texts by [[Remmius Palaemon]] and others) and [[Diomedes]] (focusing more on prosody) were popular in [[Ancient Rome|Rome]] as pedagogic material for teaching Greek to native [[Latin]]-speakers.

One of the most prominent scholars of Alexandria and of the antiquity was [[Apollonius Dyscolus]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://schmidhauser.us/apollonius/|title = Apollonius Dyscolus}}</ref> Apollonius wrote more than thirty treatises on questions of syntax, semantics, morphology, prosody, orthography, dialectology, and more. Happily, four of these are preserved—we still have a ''Syntax'' in four books, and three one-book monographs on pronouns, adverbs, and connectives, respectively.

[[Lexicography]] become an important domain of study as many grammarians compiled dictionaries, thesauri and lists of special words "λέξεις" that were old, or dialectical or special (such as medical words or botanic words) at that period. In the early medieval times we find more categories of dictionaries like the dictionary of [[Suida]] (considered the first encyclopedic dictionary), etymological dictionaries etc.

At that period, the Greek language functioned as a ''lingua franca'', a language spoken throughout the known world (for the Greeks and Romans) of that time and, as a result, modern linguistics struggles to overcome this. With the Greeks a tradition commenced in the study of language. The terminology invented by Greek and Latin grammarians in the ancient world and medieval period continue as a part of our everyday language. Think, for example, of notions such as the word, the syllable, the verb, the subject etc.

===Rome===
{{further|Grammarian (Greco-Roman world)}}
In the 4th century, [[Aelius Donatus]] compiled the Latin grammar ''Ars Grammatica'' that was to be the defining school text through the Middle Ages.  A smaller version, ''Ars Minor'', covered only the eight parts of speech; eventually when books came to be printed in the 15th century, this was one of the [[Johannes Gutenberg#Printed books|first books]] to be printed. Schoolboys subjected to all this education gave us the current meaning of "grammar" (attested in [[English language|English]] since 1176).

===China===
Similar to the Indian tradition, Chinese philology ({{zhi|c=小學|p=xiǎoxué|l=elementary studies}}) emerged as an aid to understanding the [[Chinese classics]] {{circa|the 3rd century&nbsp;BCE}}, during the [[Western Han dynasty]]. Philology came to be divided into three branches: exegesis ({{zhi|c=訓詁|p=xùngǔ}}), grammatology ({{zhi|c=文字|p=wénzì}}) and phonology ({{zhi|c=音韻|p=yīnyùn}}).<ref>{{Cite book |last=McDonald |first=Edward |title=Grammar West to East |publisher=Springer |year=2019 |isbn=978-981-13-7597-2 |pages=87–88}}</ref> The field reached its golden age in the 17th century, during the [[Qing dynasty]]. The ''[[Erya]]'' ({{circa|3rd century&nbsp;BCE}}), comparable to the Indian ''[[Nighantu]]'', is regarded as the first linguistic work in China. ''[[Shuowen Jiezi]]'' ({{circa|100&nbsp;CE}}), the first [[Chinese dictionary]], classifies [[Chinese characters]] by [[radical (Chinese character)|radical]]s, a practice that would be followed by most subsequent [[lexicographer]]s. Two more pioneering works produced during the Han dynasty are ''[[Fangyan (book)|Fangyan]]'', the first Chinese work concerning [[dialect]]s, and ''[[Shiming]]'', devoted to etymology.

As in ancient Greece, early Chinese thinkers were concerned with the relationship between names and reality. [[Confucius]] ({{circa|551|479&nbsp;BCE}}) famously emphasized the moral commitment implicit in a name, (''zhengming'') stating that the moral collapse of the pre-[[Qin dynasty|Qin]] was a result of the failure to rectify behaviour to meet the moral commitment inherent in names: "Good government consists in the ruler being a ruler, the minister being a minister, the father being a father, and the son being a son... If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things." (''[[Analects]]'' 12.11, 13.3).
<!-- the second part is perhaps not very relevant?  That translation is Legge, and the first part is from the Confucius article in the Stanford Ency of Philo. -->

However, what is the reality implied by a name? The later [[Mohists]] or the group known as [[School of Names]],
consider that a name ({{zhi|c=名|p=míng}} may refer to three kinds of actuality ({{zhi|c=實|p=shí}}): type universals (horse), individual (John), and unrestricted (thing). They adopt a [[philosophical realism|realist]] position on the name-reality connection{{snd}}universals arise because "the world itself fixes the patterns of similarity and difference by which things should be divided into kinds".<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2020 |title=Mohist Canons |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mohist-canons/ |last=Fraser |first=Chris}}</ref>  The philosophical tradition features a well known conundrum "[[When a White Horse is Not a Horse|a white horse is not a horse]]" by [[Gongsun Longzi]] (4th century &nbsp;BCE), which resembles those of the [[sophists]]; Gongsun questions if in [[copula (linguistics)|copula]] statements (''X is Y''), are ''X'' and ''Y'' identical or is ''X'' a subclass of ''Y''.

[[Xunzi (philosopher)|Xunzi]] ({{circa|310|after 238&nbsp;BCE}}) revisits the principle of ''zhengming'', but instead of rectifying behaviour to suit the names, his emphasis is on rectifying language to correctly reflect reality. This is consistent with a more "conventional" view of word origins.

The study of phonology in China began late, and was influenced by the Indian tradition, after [[Buddhism]] had become popular in China. The [[rime dictionary]] is a type of dictionary arranged by [[tone (linguistics)|tone]] and [[syllable rime|rime]], in which the pronunciations of  characters are indicated by ''[[fanqie]]'' spellings. [[Rime table]]s were later produced to aid the understanding of ''fanqie''.

Philological studies flourished during the Qing dynasty, with [[Duan Yucai]] and [[Wang Niansun]] as the towering figures. The last great philologist of the era was [[Zhang Binglin]], who also helped lay the foundation of modern Chinese linguistics. The Western [[comparative method]] was brought into China by [[Bernard Karlgren]], the first scholar to reconstruct [[Middle Chinese]] and [[Old Chinese]] with Latin alphabet (not [[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]]). Important modern Chinese linguists include [[Yuen Ren Chao]], [[Luo Changpei]], [[Li Fanggui]] and [[Wang Li (linguist)|Wang Li]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kuzuoğlu |first=Uluğ |title=Codes of Modernity: Chinese Scripts in the Global Information Age |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2024 |isbn=978-0-231-20939-7 |location=New York |pages=198, 220}}</ref>

Ancient commentators on the classics focused their attention on  lexical content and the function of linking words rather than syntax; the first modern Chinese grammar was produced by [[Ma Jianzhong]] (late 19th century), based on a Western model.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Vogelsang |first=Kai |title=Introduction to Classical Chinese |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2021 |isbn=978-0-19-883497-7 |pages=xviii–xix}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Dong |first=Hongyuan |title=A History of the Chinese Language |publisher=Routledge |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-415-66039-6 |publication-place=London |page=85}}</ref>