Cover not available

Article published In: Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 43:3 (2016) ► pp.285–299

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

The Emergence of the Syntactic Concept of Phrase in Comenius

 | Università degli Studi di Udine
Published online: 21 December 2016
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.43.3.02oni
Summary
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.
Résumé
Nous devons l’émergence de l’idée linguistique de syntagme à Jan Amos Comenius (1592–1670), dans sa Grammatica Latino-vernacula (Leszno 1649). Il propose d’utiliser le terme stylistique phrasis avec une nouvelle signification linguistique, afin d’indiquer un groupe de mots disposés dans une structure hiérarchique. Ceux-ci forment une unité syntaxique intermédiaire entre le mot et la phrase. Cette idée nous permet d’antédater par un siècle la découverte de « groupes de mots », qui est habituellement attribuée à Gabriel Girard (1677–1774) de 1747.
Zusammenfassung
Wir verdanken die Entstehung des linguistischen Konzepts ‘Syntagma’ Jan Amos Comenius (1592–1670) in seiner Grammatica Latino-vernacula (Leszno 1649). Er schlägt vor, den stilistischen Begriff ‘phrasis’ in einer neuen sprachlichen Funktion zu verwenden, um eine in einer hierarchischen Struktur angeordnete Gruppe von Wörtern anzuzeigen, die eine syntaktische Einheit zwischen dem Wort und dem Satz darstellt. Diese Idee ermöglicht es uns, die Entdeckung von ‘Wortgruppen’ (Syntagmen) um ein Jahrhundert zurückzudatieren, die in der Regel Gabriel Girard (1677–1774) d.J. 1747 zugeschrieben wird.
References (62)
References
A. Primary sources
Artopoeus, Petrus. 1534. Latinae phrasis elegantiae . Ex potissimis authoribus conscriptae. Vitebergae: apud Georgium Rhau.Google Scholar logo with link to 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Becker, Karl Ferdinand. 1841. Organism der Sprache. 21. Ausgabe. Frankfurt: Kettembeil.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chytraeus, David. 1564. De ratione discendi et ordine studiorum in singulis artibus recte instituendo. Vitebergae.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Comenius, Jan Amos. 1631. Janua linguarum reserata, sive seminarium linguarum et scientiarum omnium. Lesnae: typis Danielis Vetteri.Google Scholar logo with link to 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1657. Opera didactica omnia. Amsterdami: excuderunt Christophorus Cunradus & Gabriel à Roy.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1658. Orbis sensualium pictus, Norimbergae: typis & sumptibus Michaelis Endteri.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dolet, Etienne. 1539. Formulae Latinarum locutionum illustrium. Lugduni: apud eundem Doletum.Google Scholar logo with link to 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 logo with link to 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 logo with link to 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 logo with link to 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 logo with link to 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Manutius, Aldus. 1556. Eleganze della lingua toscana e latina. Venetia: Aldus.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1567. Purae, elegantes et copiosae Latinae linguae phrases. Coloniae Agrippinae: apud Gualtherum Fabricium & Ioannem Gymnicum.Google Scholar logo with link to 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 logo with link to 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Valla, Laurentius. 1444. Elegantiarum linguae Latinae libri sex. [List of manuscripts and printed editions in IJsewijn & Tournoy 1969 (see below).]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vossius, Gerardus Ioannes. 1635. De arte grammatica libri septem. Amsterdami: apud Guilielmum Blaeu.Google Scholar logo with link to 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Baratin, Marc. 1999. “La conception de l’énoncé dans les textes grammaticaux latins”. Büttgen et al.., eds. 171–188.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language. New York: Henry Holt & Co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bonnet, Guillaume. 2011. “Syntagms in the artigraphic Latin grammars”. Matthaios et al.., eds. 361–374.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Breimeier, Heinrich. 2001. “Phrasis”. Thesaurus linguae Latinae, vol. X.1, p.2053, coll. 35–56.Google Scholar logo with link to 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Campos, Julio. 1953. “La phrasis de Quintiliano”. Helmantica 4:13/15.99–121. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Chiron, Pierre & Carlos Lévy, eds. 2010. Les noms du style dans l’Antiquité Gréco-Latine, Louvain: Peeters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dolbeau, François. 2003. “Phrasis”. Novum glossarium mediae Lainitatis ab anno DCCC usque ad annum MCC. Hafniae: Einar Munksgaard.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drsková, Kateřina, ed. 2013. Opera Romanica 14. České Budějovice: Filozofická fakulta.Google Scholar logo with link to 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Garcea, Alessandro. 2005. “Systèmes de description et unités linguistiques: le cas du latin dictio ”. Incontri Linguistici 281.145–167.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Geissler, Heinrich. 1959. Comenius und die Sprache. Heidelberg: Quelle & Mayer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gourinat, Jean-Baptiste. 2010. “Y a-t-il une théorie stoïcienne du style?”. Chiron & Lévy, eds. 317–345.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gmiterek, Henryk. 2009. “Comenius”. Stammerjohann, ed. 315–316.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Graffi, Giorgio. 1990. “L’analisi in costituenti immediati prima di Bloomfield”. Lingua e Stile 25:3.457–469.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1991. La sintassi tra Ottocento e Novecento. Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001. 200 Years of Syntax. A critical survey. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hockett, Charles Francis. 1958. A Course in Modern Linguistics. New York: Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hubka, Karel. 1974. “Komenského lešenská Grammatica latina a latinské mluvnice 16. a 17. stol. Listy Filologické 97:2.73–79.Google Scholar logo with link to 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1924. The Philosophy of Grammar. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Knape, Joachim. 1994. “ Elocutio ”. Ueding, ed. II1.1022–1083.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mathúna, Seán P. Ó. 1986. William Bathe, S.J., 1564–1614: A pioneer in linguistics. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matthaios, Stephanos, Franco Montanari & Antonios Rengakos, eds. 2011. Ancient Scholarship and Grammar: Archetypes, concepts and contexts. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Miškovská-Kozáková, Vlasta T. 1979. “Comenius’s Linguistic Theory and Experiment”. Acta Comeniana 4:2.291–319.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moss, Ann. 1996. Printed Commonplace-Books and the Structuring of Renaissance Thought. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. Renaissance Truth and the Latin Language Turn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Norton, Glyn P. 1984. The Ideology and Language of Translation in Renaissance France and their Humanistic Antecedents. Genève: Droz.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pešek, Ondrej. 2013. “ Sententia, periodus, oratio. Éléments de syntaxe textuelle dans les écrits grammaticaux de Comenius”. Drsková, ed. 202–216.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ries, John. 1928. Zur Wortgruppenlehre. Prag: Taussig & Taussig.Google Scholar logo with link to 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Russo, Emilio. 2008. “Manuzio, Aldo il Giovane”. Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Vol. LIX1.245–250. Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Šabršula, Jan. 1992. “La linguistique dans les écrits latins de Comenius”. Listy filologické 1151 Suppl. 11.1–109.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sadler, John Edward. 1966. Comenius and the Concept of Universal Education. New York: Barns & Noble. (Repr., London: Routledge, 2013.)Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stammerjohann, Harro, ed. 2009. Lexicon Grammaticorum. A bio-bibliographical companion to the history of linguistics. 2nd ed., 21 vols. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tukey, Ralph Hermon. 1911. “The Stoic use of λέξις and φράσις”. Classical Philology 6:4.444–449. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ueding, Gert, ed. 1994. Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik. Vols. I–XII. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wundt, Wilhelm. 1912. Völkerpsychologie. II.2: Die Sprache. 3rd revised ed. [11900]. Leipzig: Engelmann.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 10 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue