In 1933 Ludwig Wittgenstein revised a manuscript he had compiled from his 1930-1932 notebooks, but the work as a whole was not published until 1969, as Philosophische Grammatik. This first English translation clearly reveals the central place Philosophical Grammar occupies in Wittgenstein's thought and provides a link from his earlier philosophy to his later views.

This study grew out of a series of lectures Jespersen gave at Columbia University in 1909-10, called "An Introduction to English Grammar." It is the connected presentation of Jespersen's views of the general principles of grammar based on years of studying various languages through both direct observation of living speech and written and printed documents. "[The Philosophy of Grammar and Analytic Syntax] set forth the most extensive and original theory of universal grammar prior to the work of Chomsky and other generative grammarians of the last thirty years."--Arne Juul and Hans F. Nielsen, in Otto Jespersen: Facets of His Life and Work "Besides being one of the most perceptive observers and original thinkers that the field of linguistics has ever known, Jespersen was also one of its most entertaining writers, and reading The Philosophy of Grammar is fun. Read it, enjoy it."--James D. McCawley, from the Introduction Otto Jespersen (1860-1943), an authority on the growth and structure of language, was the Chair of the English Department at the University of Copenhagen. Among his many works are A Modern English Grammar and Analytic Syntax.

Wittgenstein wrote the Philosophical Grammar during the years 1931 to 1934 - the period just before he began to dictate the Blue Book. Although it is close to the Investigations in some points, and to the Phiosophische Bemerkungen at others, the Philosophical Grammar is an independent work which covers new ground. It is Wittgenstein's fullest treatment of logic and mathematics in their connection with his later understanding of 'proposition', 'sign', and 'system'. He also discusses inference and generality - critisizing views of Frege and Russell as well as earlier views of his own - and the treatment of mathematical proof in this book, especially of inductive or recursive proofs, is deeper and more extensive than previously.

This volume brings together papers originally presented at a seminar series on Speculative Grammar, Universal Grammar, and Philosophical Analysis, held at the University of Bologna in 1984. The seminars aimed at considering various aspects of the interplay between linguistic theories on the one hand, and theories of meaning and logic on the other. The point of view was mainly historical, but a theoretical approach was also considered relevant. Theories of grammar and related topics were taken as a focal point of interest; their interaction with philosophical reflections on languages was examined in presentations dealing with different authors and periods, ranging from the Middle Ages to the present day.

This book examines the various philosophical influences contained in the ancient description of the noun. According to the traditional view, grammar adopted its philosophical categories in the second century B.C. and continued to make use of precisely the same concepts for over six hundred years, that is, until the time of Priscian (ca. 500). The standard view is questioned in this study, which investigates in detail the philosophy contained in Priscian’s Institutiones grammaticae. This investigation reveals a distinctly Platonic element in Priscian’s grammar, which has not been recognised in linguistic historiography. Thus, grammar manifestly interacted with philosophy in Late Antiquity. This discovery led to the reconsideration of the origin of all the philosophical categories of the noun. Since the authenticity of the Techne, which was attributed to Dionysius Thrax, is now regarded as uncertain, it is possible to speculate that the semantic categories are derived from Late Antiquity.