Review Of The Philosophy Of Grammar

As the representative work of world-class linguists Jespersen, The Philosophy of Grammar sells well since it was published in 1924. In this book, he used new methods to probe into most important problems of general linguistics and grammar on the basis of analyzing a large number of various language materials. He especially focused on the relationship between logic category and grammatical category, and systematically formulated his series of language theories, which enables this book being regarded as a masterpiece in the transition period from traditional normative grammar to modern descriptive grammar and becomes a classic work recognized by linguistics circle.Theories about language, linguistics and general grammar in The Philosophy of Grammar contain many scientific insights. This book not only had a huge influence throughout the world, but also gave great enlightenment to the Chinese scholars who led the innovation of Chinese grammar in the 1930’s and 1940’s. However, there are some partial theories in this book, which had once caused great controversy. Therefore, studies specifically aiming at The Philosophy of Grammar have relatively small numbers at home and abroad. And so far, there is no treatise does overall interpretation of the book, thus this article with the purpose of doing a comprehensive in-depth mining to make objective narration and evaluation about its linguistics values by restudying this classics again.The article mainly interprets The Philosophy of Grammar from two aspects:"narration" and "evaluation". "Narration" refers to the discourses about the grammatical notions in The Philosophy of Grammar, and "evaluation" refers to the comments about these grammatical notions and the analysis of its academic value and theoretical limitations. The first part of the main body discusses the universal grammar thought which runs throughout the whole book, and then analyzes separately the relationship between syntactic categories and notional categories in the latter 20 chapters of the book so that to illustrate Jespersen’s viewpoint of notional universal grammar. At the same time, this part also probes into four aspects of the discordance between grammar and notions. Then it analyzes how does Jespersen’s viewpoint of universal grammar play the role as the connecting link between Humboldt and Chomsky’s universal grammar thoughts and what controversies does Jespersen’s viewpoint of universal grammar arouses. The second part of the main body largely discusses Jespersen’s grammar systems which refers to his binary system with the combination of phonetics and meanings and his trisection system with adding the notions. Furthermore, this part also evaluates the influences his new grammar system has on English grammar and Chinese grammar study, especially greatly impact Lv Shuxiang whose grammar book named Essentials of Chinese Grammar referenced Jespersen’s double angle research methods and created a new Chinese grammar description way. At the end of this chapter it analyzes the disadvantage of his grammar systems and points out his shortcomings. The third and fourth part of the main body mainly discusses Jespersen’s three theoretical foundation of grammar:The Three Ranks, Junctions and Nexus.On the basis of predecessors’ research, this article further illustrates in details of these three grammatical theories. It not only discusses the reason why Wang Li and Lv Shuxiang introduced these grammar theories into China, but also analyzes their influences on English grammar studies. Except for the affirmation, it also discusses their defects and illustrates the reason why Wang Li and Lv Shuxiang finally denied The Three Ranks. The last part of the main body discusses Jespersen’s other important grammar viewpoints, such as grammar teaching method, comparison method and the essence of language, which are seldom concerned by other scholars. This article collects these grammar viewpoints together to have a brief explanation for the purpose of having a further insight into the fascination of Jespersen’s grammar viewpoints.