Jan z Głogowa i tradycja gramatyki spekulatywnej

Opis książki:

The research on medieval speculative grammar carried out for several dozen years allows one to present a consistent picture of the development of the science of grammar, i.e. speculative grammar. This latter field of research acquired its specific theoretical status in contrast to the one assigned to applied grammar, which was used for the practical teaching of Latin. At the same time, the expansion of this field of research led to the establishment of rules, which were later used in the commentaries on the handbooks designed for practical teaching of Latin, such as Doctrinale by Alexander de Villa Dei and Graecismus by Eberhard of Béthune. This process ended in the 15th century, when the achievements of speculative grammar reached the schools teaching Latin.
The peak of speculative grammar developent came at the end of the 13th century and the early 14th century. The grammar of that period was called Modism, taking its name from the most important grammatical category used by representatives of this current, i.e. modi significandi, or “modes of signifying”. Both the earlier 13th–century speculative grammar and its Modist branch were related at their doctrinal level to the Realist stance in philosophy. The Modists’ view on the mutual relations between language, thought and reality was consistent with the traditionally conceived semantics of Aristotle, according to which words signified concepts, while concepts signified the objects signified. Modists became part of this tradition by introducing “modes of signifying”, “modes of understanding” and “modes of being”. “Modes of being” were an ontological counterpart to “modes of signifying” and were, in principle, the accidental attributes of real objects. When grasped by the intellect they became “modes of understanding”. Then, the intellect caused words to acquire “modes of signifying” in accordance with its “modes of understanding”. Thus formulated the Modists’ position met with the criticism of representatives of different doctrinal currents; primarily, the Nominalists (Conceptualists), whose views undermined the ontological grounds for modi significandi.
Although Modists’ grammar did not disappear from schools after Nominalist attacks, it lost its impetus. Considerations of mental language were incorporated into the grammars taught then and they also could be found in commentaries on old handbooks, the renown of which had been established for centuries. The well–known examples of commentaries by unidentified authors include the commentary on the second part of Doctrinale by Alexander de Villa Dei (Ms. Ampl. Q. 70 A, f. 95ra–173rb), preserved in Erfurt, and the commentary on Donatus Minor, from Cracow Ms. BJ 2461, (f. 1r–109r). These works demonstrated the efforts to combine the Modist influences with the Nominalist ones. The fact that they were not the only ones is evidenced by traces in other works used by teachers in the early 15th century, e.g. in Cracow, as indicated by the commentary on Donatus Minor by Ioannes Canthius. However, no commentaries in pure Modist form could then be found in Cracow.
In the second part of that century, Cracow saw a shift to Realism, characteristic of all universities in Europe of the time. This could also be readily observed in the field of grammar, where the interest in classical Modist authors returned. At the same time, the influence of Humanist thought grew in Cracow from the third quarter of the 15th century. Both currents — the speculative and the Humanist — coexisted peacefully at Cracow University for the next several dozen years. This was a period of active work by Ioannes Glogoviensis (ca 1445–1507), a long-time lecturer in arts (including grammar) and the author of commentaries on the basic grammar handbooks by Donatus and Alexander de Villa Dei.
The views of Ioannes Glogoviensis on logic and the broadly conceived philosophy of nature, including astronomy and geography, have been interesting for historians of medieval philosophy, who stress the value and significance of his views for the individual fields of knowledge — all the more so as he was one of the first teachers of young Nicholas Copernicus. A controversy concerning Ioannes Glogoviensis as a grammarian has stimulated my interest in his works on grammar, a result of which is the present study. Considering the complicated doctrinal situation, which Ioannes Glogoviensis encountered in Cracow, and the long tradition of speculative grammar, the origin of which dates back to antiquity, it is impossible to understand his views on grammar without presenting the history of the development of this field of science. This tradition encompasses not only well–known works by Western masters but also the ones which had been known or taught in Cracow in the period prior to the times of Ioannes Glogoviensis and which are still accessible in manuscript only. The views of some Cracow predecessors of Ioannes Glogoviensis: Ioannes Canthius, Clemens de Gambycze and others, whose names fell into oblivion, are analysed in this book, even though there is no evidence that Ioannes Glogoviensis knew exactly them; still, they must have shared a common tradition and source materials.
The first chapter of this study, “The tradition of speculative grammar until the 15th century”, presents the history of grammar in medieval Europe, concluded with a sketch of the grammar plied at the 15th–century Cracow University. The second chapter entitled “Ioannes Glogoviensis” provides an outline of his life and views. It is followed by the third chapter, “Grammar as a speculative science. Methodological issues”, which presents typical scholastic methodological and metascientific issues of grammar. The fourth chapter, “Signifiying (significatio) and the modes of signifying (modi significandi) in speculative grammar”, describes the basic semantic as well as semantic–cum–syntactic categories that formed the grammatical doctrine. These categories are analysed in the two main parts of this chapter. The first part (A) — “The passage from a voice to a word” — focuses first on the category of sign and signifying, then — on the category of imposition, i.e. on conferring of meaning to words, and, finally, on the mutual relation between these categories and the objects which they signify. The second part (B) — “The passage from a word to a part of speech and a structural element” — is devoted to the issue of co–signifying and introduces the doctrine of the modes of signifying. The fifth chapter, “Parts of speech in speculative grammar. Selected issues”, is also divided into two parts: one part (A) covers “The inflective parts of speech and their specific modes of signifying”, while the other deals with “The non–inflective parts of speech and their specific modes of signifying”. This chapter considers not only the issues related to the categories of sign and signifying, which are primarily epistemological, but also the issues well-rooted in ontology, e.g. in the problems of Aristotle’s physics, in particular in the problems of motion. The sixth chapter, “The selected problems of syntax, or diasynthetica in speculative grammar”, covers the same issues, showing their strict connection with the speculations of medieval grammarians concerning language. These issues have been extracted from the grammatical works by Ioannes Glogoviensis and set against the background of a wide historical context.
Ioannes was not an innovative thinker in today’s meaning of the word, however one should acknowledge his skill and consistency in compiling existing views. His reputation of an eclectic compiler notwithstanding one can find motifs of, and solutions to detailed grammatical problems, on the basis of which he may be considered a critical thinker, correctly evaluating the theories encountered in the course of his long university career. In response to the basic question concerning the ontological grounds for grammar, Glogoviensis said, following the Modists, that grammar was impossible without making reference to reality, which was the subject of a real science. On the other hand, indicating the philosophical nature of grammar — following the Modists again — he emphasised the value of grammar as a science per se. Not only did he present excerpts from Thomas of Erfurt, which was a frequent phenomenon in post–Modist grammar, but also considered a whole number of issues characteristic of classical Modism. He presented the process of the first imposition, in which the voice uttered by a man became a sign, and considered such concepts related to grammar and logic as signifying and the object signified, exhibiting moderate conceptual Realism in the spirit of late Thomism, combined with late Albertism and a Neoplatonic orientation. Thus, he belonged to the long line of philosophers and grammarians for whom the first object of signifying was a universal nature; moreover, in his understanding of such a universal nature, Glogoviensis came close to the position of late speculative grammarians, for whom it had the status of an extramental being. In his logical writings this concept was most probably related to the idea of the universal secundum esse materiale.
The problems of signifying were directly involved in the issue of imposition, which was called articulation by many grammarians, including Modists, but not Glogoviensis. Showing the difference between the Modist understanding of the first and second impositions and the understanding of the first and second articulations by non-Modist grammarians, I demonstrate how Glogoviensis followed the Modists. The Cracow master did not respond to the suggestion from Gerhard of Züpthen, who used the concept of “articulation” and on whose work he amply drew on other occasions, but claimed that in the process of the second imposition, a word became a part of speech and acquired a mode of signifying which was responsible for both semantic and syntactic functions of the part of speech. In accordance with the thinking of the non–Modist grammarians, however, a part of speech became one in the process of the first articulation and it was only in the process of the second articulation that it acquired its syntactic value.
Glogoviensis’ considerations of a part of speech contain a number of old issues described from the point of view of someone who, having encountered different traditions, tried to choose a middle course in such a way as to ensure that it met the theoretical requirements of universal grammar. As I demonstrate in the third and fifth chapters, there are motifs in his writings that come from both the classic authors of speculative grammar and the tradition of Nominalist grammar. These motifs were expressed by the authors of grammatical commentaries used in the first half of the 15th century and preserved in the manuscripts of the Jagiellonian Library. Since even the Nominalist grammarians of the end of the 14th century tried to adapt their theory to the Modist terminology, their successors — gradually departing from the doctrinal premises of the Nominalists — imitated them primarily at a methodological level and produced grammatical commentaries that were Realist in content and doctrinal premises, but Nominalist in their formal requirements. The works of Ioannes Glogoviensis and his Cracow predecessors were formulated in the language of the second imposition, which allowed science to be treated as a set of statements in the realm of language. This could be seen particularly in the methodological introductions, discussed in the third chapter of this book, and in the science of parts of speech (etymologia), considered in the fifth chapter.
In classification of parts of speech the systematic postulates of Modists were best satisfied by Siger of Courtrai. His division of inflective parts of speech into nominal ones, distinguished by the mode of signifying permanence, and verbal ones, endowed with a common mode of signifying disposition, penetrated, as can be seen in the Cracow manuscripts, into the tradition of post–Modist grammar, to which I refer in the fourth chapter. Glogoviensis, who usually followed Thomas of Erfurt, chose here the economical model originating from Siger as the general assumption. In details, however, he returned to the concepts of Thomas of Erfurt.
Against the background of all traditions: the Modist, the Nominalist–Conceptualist and post-Modist ones, one preliminary assumption of Ioannes Glogoviensis concerning parts of speech seems to be particularly interesting. According to this assumption, a part of speech is an actual part of speech, irrespective of whether it appears in a syntactic context, or outside it. This was a conviction shared by most Modists, with the exception of John of Dacia. The position of the Modists and Ioannes Glogoviensis was shared by a 15th–century anonymous Nominalist grammarian, unknown in Cracow, who was the author of the commentary Expositio praeclara Donati secundum viam nominalium. An opposite opinion was held by representatives of the post-Modist tradition and supporters of Conceptualism in grammar; it was known in Cracow, too. These examples show that the choice of a particular position did not depend on the doctrinal views of the authors but on their views on the theory of language itself. It seems that in this matter Ioannes Glogoviensis maintained a position commendably consistent with his views on the second imposition.
The aim of speculative grammar was to develop a model which would allow a grammarian to disregard meaning. However, the modes of signifying moved the modes of being of objects into the sphere of language. In order to embed the modes of signifying in the modes of being of reality, Modists created specific modes of being, to which the modes of signifying would then correspond. In this sense, one can speak of their interest in semantics. The modes of “a permanent, invariable being” as well as “being”, “flux” and “becoming”, originated in the writings of theologians and in the commentaries on Aristotle’s Physics. Glogoviensis’ theological views as expressed in his grammar tended towards Albertism. He also applied to his grammar results of research done by the Cracow commentators on Aristotle’s Physics.
In the Modist tradition, the search for the source of the modes of signifying in the modes of being coincided with an attempt to identify the origin of the mode of signifying for the names of objects, which either did not have the status of actual beings or the being of which, like that of God, escaped the cognitive powers of man. As demonstrated in the fifth chapter, the work by Ioannes Glogoviensis combines here the influences originated by John of Dacia and Thomas of Erfurt.
Glogoviensis’ views on “ethymology” reflected controversies — not only in Modist grammar, but also in the more broadly understood tradition of speculative grammar. The category of quality of the nominal parts of speech was such a debatable issue. “Quality” served to distinguish between proper and common names and between demonstrative and anaphoric pronouns. The conviction, deeply rooted already in the Greek tradition, that proper and common names were two independent grammatical categories gave rise to the different concepts of the modes of signifying of these names. In this field, two currents became distinct in the Modist tradition: one originating from Michael of Marbais and the other from Thomas of Erfurt. Ioannes fell within the tradition of Michael of Marbais by assuming that the division into proper and common names was accidental rather than essential.
Along with the problems of the quality of pronouns Glogoviensis discusses the problem of understanding demonstrative pronouns, in accordance with the first and second concepts of the object, i.e. ad sensum and ad intellectum. According to Thomas of Erfurt ad sensum we indicate the present objects, whereas ad intellectum we deal with absent objects, but of the same type as that of the indicated object, which is accessible to our senses. Glogoviensis modified Thomas of Erfurt’s idea saying that demonstrative pronouns ad sensum were those that referred in general to things, which were knowable with senses. He reserved the category ad intellectum for extramental things.
As regards the grammatical cases of different parts of speech, their presentation in the work by Glogoviensis combined two currents. In the first one, which the Modists had taken over from the pre-Modist speculative grammarians of the first half of the 13th century, cases were the modes of signifying of the starting and finishing points of activity as expressed by the noun in a sentence. Thus, in this part of the description of the etymology, syntactic factors were considered, which were themselves, in turn, affected by the Aristotelian model of description of motion. The other current, favoured by Glogoviensis, was the Conceptualist thought, present in the writings of the Cracow commentators, but completely absent in the work by Versor. Glogoviensis solved the problem of names with a single ending in line with this thought. They had cases, since in indicating the type of obliquity (obliquitas) or independence (rectitudo) of a name (resp. a pronoun or participle) the case did not have to be demonstrated by the ending. Indeed, in concepts, i.e. mental words, it was simply connoted by this concept, as they had no inflective endings. Thus, the mode of signifying of a case could consist in its connotation without the need to recourse to inflective forms.
Finally, the analysis of the non-inflective parts of speech in the work by Glogoviensis and his predecessors indicates that the post-Modist tradition tended towards the ideas of Simon of Dacia, the author of Domus gramatice, rather than those of Thomas of Erfurt. It also shows a significant difference in Glogoviensis’ and Versor’s approach to the issue of interjection, since the latter believed interjection to express affect only, while the former stuck to the idea of its “being halfway” between concept and affect.
From the times of antiquity to the early 14th century, it was the study of syntax that was developed most and the greatest changes came in the concepts, which were related to it. As indicated in the first and sixth chapters, this development peaked at the end of the 13th century. Later, the Modist achievements began to dissolve in the terminology of positive grammar, losing its distinct theoretical nature. On the other hand, the language of the Modist syntax turned out to be the most appropriate tool for building the syntax in Nominalist grammar. Nominalists took over the Modist concept of describing syntax as a two–part “construction” without giving up the concept of government (regimen), abandoned by Modists. Glogoviensis undoubtedly deserves credit for pointing out the need to restore a theoretical model of syntax, while accepting the changes which had taken place since its heyday. He included regimen in his description of syntax in such a way that it became an integral part of Modist theory and thus it combined the advantages of an existing didactic paradigm with an ambitious theoretical objective.
In the light of Ioannes Glogoviensis’ ability to combine in a consistent manner diverse motifs that could be found in the works of both positive and speculative grammar with a Realist orientation as well as Conceptualist grammar and to present them clearly one can speak perhaps not of his innovativeness, but certainly of originality of his approach, which served well both the didactic objectives of his work and the dissemination of the idea of universal grammar. Indeed, his text makes a pleasant impression in comparison with the popular handbook by Gerhard of Züpthen. Glogoviensis is clearly better not only in terms of his style but also in terms of the manner of considering the problems and a clearly pro–Modist attitude. Obsolete though it might seem for early Cracow Humanists, Glogoviensis’ grammar had sufficient merits to keep it in the curriculum until the mid–16th century and print it until almost the end of the same century. In evaluating the Cracow master from the viewpoint of the history of grammar as a speculative science, we cannot deny his contributions. Glogoviensis, who was educated and worked within the current of 15th–century post-Modism, when the terms of school grammar, abandoned earlier by the classical authors of Modism, were freely mixed with the technical terms of Modist theory, took the effort to put the existing state of things in order, at the same time setting it in a framework that would confer a “truly” Modist character to his commentaries. While this approach did not lead to a new synthesis, it ensured that the considerations of the author were coherent and consistent. Thus, Glogoviensis did not only postulate the theoretical nature of grammar as a science, but he also tried to meet this postulate in his own manner.

Książka "Jan z Głogowa i tradycja gramatyki spekulatywnej" - Krystyna Krauze-Błachowicz - oprawa miękka - Wydawnictwo Naukowe Semper.