Editing Syntax (section)

== Early history ==
The ''[[Aṣṭādhyāyī]]'' of [[Pāṇini]], from {{circa|4th century BC}} in [[Ancient India]], is often cited as an example of a premodern work that approaches the sophistication of a modern syntactic theory since works on [[grammar]] had been written long before modern syntax came about.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fortson |first=Benjamin W. |title=Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction |date=2004 |publisher=Blackwell |isbn=978-1-4051-8896-8 |page=186 |quote=[The ''Aṣṭādhyāyī''] is a highly precise and thorough description of the structure of Sanskrit somewhat resembling modern generative grammar...[it] remained the most advanced linguistic analysis of any kind until the twentieth century.}}</ref> In the West, the school of thought that came to be known as "traditional grammar" began with the work of [[Dionysius Thrax]].

For centuries, a framework known as {{lang|fr|grammaire générale}}, first expounded in 1660 by [[Antoine Arnauld]] and [[Claude Lancelot]] in a [[Port-Royal Grammar|book of the same title]], dominated work in syntax:<ref>{{cite book |last1=Arnauld |first1=Antoine |last2=Lancelot |first2=Claude |last3=Rollin |first3=Bernard E. |last4=Danto |first4=Arthur Coleman |last5=Kretzmann |first5=Norman |last6=Arnauld |first6=Antoine |title=The Port-Royal grammar: General and rational grammar |date=1975 |publisher=De Gruyter |location=The Hague |isbn=9789027930040 |pages=197}}</ref> as its basic premise the assumption that language is a direct reflection of thought processes and so there is a single most natural way to express a thought.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Arnault |first1=Antoine |last2=Lancelot |first2=Claude |title=Grammaire générale et raisonnée de Port-Royal |date=1660}}</ref>

However, in the 19th century, with the development of [[historical-comparative linguistics]], linguists began to realize the sheer diversity of human language and to question fundamental assumptions about the relationship between language and logic. It became apparent that there was no such thing as the most natural way to express a thought and so [[logic]] could no longer be relied upon as a basis for studying the structure of language.{{citation needed|date=October 2015}}

The [[Port-Royal-des-Champs|Port-Royal]] grammar modeled the study of syntax upon that of logic. (Indeed, large parts of [[Port-Royal Logic]] were copied or adapted from the ''Grammaire générale''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Arnauld |first=Antoine |url=http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=Gallica&O=NUMM-57444 |title=La logique |publisher=G. Desprez |year=1683 |edition=5th |location=Paris |pages=137 |quote={{lang|fr|Nous avons emprunté...ce que nous avons dit...d'un petit Livre...sous le titre de Grammaire générale.}}}}</ref>) Syntactic categories were identified with logical ones, and all sentences were analyzed in terms of "subject – copula – predicate". Initially, that view was adopted even by the early comparative linguists such as [[Franz Bopp]].

The central role of syntax within [[theoretical linguistics]] became clear only in the 20th century, which could reasonably be called the "century of syntactic theory" as far as linguistics is concerned. (For a detailed and critical survey of the history of syntax in the last two centuries, see the monumental work by Giorgio Graffi (2001).{{sfnp|Graffi|2001}})