ABSTRACT
The term grammar in its broadest sense refers to statements about the regularities and irregularities in language. The Greeks studied language as a part of philosophy, and grammar, and linguistics as we know it was not an autonomous subject. Two very important aspects of the Greek view of grammar need to be stressed. Firstly, it's notional or philosophical approach, and secondly its emphasis on the written rather than the spoken language. Traditional grammar, began as a philosophical enquiry into language based on descriptive categories of Greek. Anthropologists found languages with no writing systems, which consequently had to be studied on the basis of the spoken language. This type of work in North America with American Indian languages brought the linguists into contact with languages very different from the Indo-European family which they were familiar with. A good way of comparing traditional and structural grammar is to examine their respective approaches to the questions of word categories or parts of speech.
