Best of
Language

1924

The Philosophy of Grammar


Otto Jespersen - 1924
    “[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, the latter published by the University of Chicago Press.