Port-Royal grammar
The grammar of Port-Royal (actually Grammaire générale et raisonnée contenant les fondemens de l'art de parler, expliqués d'une manière claire et naturelle , "General and rational grammar, including the basis of the art of speaking, explained in a clear and natural way ") was a pioneering work of the philosophy of language .
It was published in 1660 by Antoine Arnauld and Claude Lancelot . Two years later, Arnauld also wrote the logic of Port-Royal together with Pierre Nicole . Both works are named after the Jansenist monastery Port-Royal-des-Champs , where the authors worked. The grammar was strongly influenced by the Regulae ad directionem ingenii des René Descartes and was described by Noam Chomsky as an example par excellence of Cartesian linguistics . A central statement of grammar claimed by Chomsky as an indication of a precursor to his universal grammar is that grammatical structures can be explained by universal mental structures.
literature
- Jacques Rieux and Bernard E. Rollin : General and Rational Grammar: The Port-Royal Grammar (The Hague: Mouton, 1975), English edition
- Elmar Kremer. 2008. Antoine Arnauld. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
- Antoine Arnauld