Early challengers of norms in the English grammatical tradition

Abstract

It is now widely acknowledged that, between the fifteenth and the seventeenth centuries, most of the European national grammatical traditions were derived from the long-established Graeco-Latin descriptive and normative framework. However, a thorough investigation into the particulars of such a ‘transfer’, at a time when the first grammars of the English vernacular were progressively translated from the Latin, or written directly in English, is still to be carried out. How were classical linguistic norms practically transferred to English? How was usage then looked upon? Why was it decided that the vernacular should be taught? In this paper, I will examine in some detail how the first English grammarians integrated the vernacular of England into the paradigm of Latin grammar. We shall also study the conditions under which the specificities of English were revealed. But our main concern will be to try and determine whether any challenging position to the prevalent model that had sprung from the Graeco-Roman tradition can be traced back. If this long-established tradition appeared at that time as the only one apt to guarantee the efficiency of grammatical description, it seems that it was consistently challenged even by the most prominent figures.