ABSTRACT
The attitude of grammarians with regard to this question has varied a good deal at different times. Some centuries ago it was the common belief that grammar was but applied logic, and that it would therefore be possible to find out the principles underlying all the various grammars of existing languages; people consequently tried to eliminate from a language everything that was not strictly conformable to the rules of logic, and to measure everything by the canon of their so-called general or philosophical grammar. Unfortunately they were too often under the delusion that Latin grammar was the perfect model of logical consistency, and they therefore laboured to find in every language the distinctions recognized in Latin. Not unfrequently a priori speculation and pure logic led them to find in a language what they would never have dreamt of if it had not been for the Latin grammar in which they had been steeped from their earliest school-days. This confusion of logic and Latin grammar with its consequence, a Procrustean method of dealing with all languages, has been the most fruitful source of mistakes in the province of grammar. What Sayce wrote long ago in the article" Grammar" in the ninth edition of the Encyclopredia Britannica, "The endeavour to find the distinctions of Latin grammar in that of English has only resulted in grotesque errors, and a total misapprehension of the usage of the English language "-these words are still worth taking to heart, and should never be forgotten by any grammarian, no matter what language he is studying.
