Abstract
Summary This paper focuses on Dutch grammar-writing in the 18th century so as to put the linguistic works of Robert Lowth (1710–1787) in an international, comparative perspective. It demonstrates that certain characteristics of the “Lowthian” approach to grammar and of 18th-century English linguistics in general are parallelled by similar developments in the history of Dutch linguistics. The transition from normative grammar to prescriptive grammar which characterises the English late 18th century has a counterpart in the Dutch development from ‘civil’ to national grammar. Lowth’s recognition of different stylistic levels with corresponding levels of grammatical acceptability has a Dutch counterpart as well. The transition towards prescriptivism and the relevance of different stylistic levels are closely connected, which is exemplified by a case study on the treatment of adnominal inflection in 18th-century grammars of Dutch.
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