THE GRAMMAR OF DIONYSIOS THRAX.
[This famous little pamphlet, the first attempt at a systematic grammar made in the Western World, and for many generations a text-book in the schools of the Roman Empire, appears, I believe, now for the first time in English. Pretty nearly all that we know about the person of Dionysios is what we are told by Suidas, who says:
"Dionysios the Alexandrian, called the Thracian from [the native country of] his father Teros, was a disciple of Aristarchos, and a grammarian. He was a public professor (ἐσοφίστευσεν) in Rome in the time of Pompey the Great, and was preceptor to Tyrannion the Elder. He composed a very large number of grammatical works, as well as set treatises and commentaries." – Cf. Max Müller, Lectures on the Science of Language, 1st Ser., p. 90 (English ed.); Lentz, Herodiani Technici Reliquiæ, Præf. p. clxvi.; Steinthal, Gesch. der Sprachw. bei den Griechen und Römern, pp. 478, 568 sqq.
The Grammar of Dionysios was first printed (I believe, though Lersch says "zuletzt abgedruckt") in 1816. in Immanuel Bekker's Anecdota Græca (pp. 629-643) along with the scholia of Chœroboskos, Diomedes, Melampous, Porphyry, and Stephanos (pp. 647-972). The genuineness and authenticity of the work have been impugned, but have been defended by Lersch. Die Sprachphilosophie der Alten, Pt. II. pp. 64 sqq., and are now generally admitted. Cf. K. E. A. Schmidt, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Grammatik des Gr. und des Lat., pp. 81, 189, 216, 519.
To my very literal translation I have added a few explanatory notes which seemed necessary, and a number of references for the convenience of persons who may wish to pursue the subject further. – Translator.]
1. On Grammar. (γραμματική).
Grammar is an experimental knowledge (ἐμπειρία) of the usages of language as generally current among poets and prose writers. It is divided into six parts:
- 1°. Trained reading with due regard to Prosody.[1]
- 2°. Explanation according to poetical figures.
- 3°. Ready statement of dialectical peculiarities[2] and allusions (ἱστορίαι).
- 4°. Discovery of Etymology.
- 5°. An accurate account of analogies.[3]
- ↑ Prosody (προσῳδία), in the Greek sense, includes everything designated by diacritical marks — aspiration, accentuation, quantity, and sometimes pauses. Vid. Bekker, Anecdota Græca, pp. 679 sqq. ; K. E. A. Schmidt, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Grammatik, pp. 181 sqq. Prosody had nothing whatsoever to do with verse-making, although it was related to music.
- ↑ Vid. Waitz, Aristotelis Organon, vol. i. pp. 323 sq.
- ↑ Here came in all that we generally understand by Grammar. The whole of the first part of Lersch's Sprachphilosophie der Alten is devoted to the question of Analogy and Anomaly.
