Syntax and dialectic in carolingian commentaries on priscian’s institutiones grammaticae

Anneli Luhtala
University of Helsinki

The present article deals with two aspects of linguistic study associated with the reintroduction of Priscian’s Institutiones in the Carolingian Renaissance – the infiltration of logical concepts into linguistic description and the initiation of syntactic studies. In both of these fields the achievement of ninth-century scholars marks a significant departure from the grammatical tradition of preceding centuries. Evidence for the new orientation of linguistic studies can be found mainly in the philosophical elaboration of grammatical notions in grammatical commentaries as well as in glosses to Priscian’s Institutiones; the latter material is as yet unedited.

Sharing the concern of their philosopher contemporaries for the Aristotelian categories, the grammarians not only elaborated the philosophical notions present in Priscian’s work but searched continuously for new sources of inspiration, mainly in elementary logical texts. Syntactic doctrine, which figures throughout Priscian’s discussion of the parts of speech, is from the start an object of concern for the commentators. The Carolingian scholars achieve an interpretation of Priscian’s syntactic doctrine which is peculiar to them, placing a special emphasis on certain philosophical points of doctrine. An alternative approach to syntactic analysis, applying the dialectical notions of subject and predicate to syntactic description, offered by the De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii of Martianus Capella, is employed by at least one master concerned with both logical and grammatical issues.

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