International language of science of the 18th century 9 letters. The science of language in modern times (XVII–XVIII centuries)
Trofimova V. S. St. Petersburg “Universal languages” in the 17th century Projects of artificial, “auxiliary” languages are usually perceived as part of the modern era - the era of globalization. True, such popular artificial languages as Esperanto and Volapuk were developed at the end of the 19th century, but entered the cultural space of the next, 20th century. And although none of these artificial languages has (yet) become a language of international communication, the very existence of such projects testified to a tendency towards rapprochement between different peoples, to closer ties than before between different parts of the globe. But the desire for universality and globalism is not only a feature of the 20th century. Experiments to create a “universal language” were undertaken more than once in the 17th century and became “one of the significant plots of the cultural history” of this period. 1 The desire to rationalize the picture of the world, to destroy “idols” that complicate the process of cognition, the desire to make knowledge accessible to as many people as possible unites a variety of philosophical movements of the early 17th century, for example, Cartesianism and Baconian empiricism. But for the “diffusion and advancement of all arts and sciences” a tool is needed - and this tool is language, and some thinkers of the 17th century were not satisfied with natural languages. They need a “universal language” - a genuine, ideal language, the way it should be.2 Projects for artificial languages arose before the beginning of the 17th century, but they usually passed by the attention of contemporaries. The founder of the idea of a “universal language” is usually considered to be Rene Descartes, and the first theoretical statement on the theory of linguistic design is his letter to Mersenne, dated November 20, 1629. The French philosopher gave an outline of the construction of a language of worldwide communication, the basis of which was a rationally constructed grammar 3. But more important for Descartes was the creation of a philosophical language capable of reforming human thinking. And this task can be solved only with the help of true philosophy. If it were possible to explain what the simple ideas from which people's thoughts are composed are, then a universal language would immediately appear, through which “simple peasants could better judge the truth of things than philosophers now do.” 4 Here we see the famous Cartesian method of dissecting difficulties, but also the desire to change the thinking not only of representatives of the elite, but of man in general, even of the “simple peasant.” Descartes was critical of the universal (artificial) writing system, although he did not reject the possibility of its creation. Jacob Maat identifies several prerequisites for projects of a “universal language”: a) the philosophy of the Renaissance; b) mystical tradition; c) the decline of Latin as an international language (Maat, 5-7). 1 I.E. Borisova. Musical telegraph book. V.F. Odoevsky: contexts, rhetoric, interpretation. //Sounding philosophy. Collection of conference materials. St. Petersburg, 2003. P. 35 2 Jaap Maat. Philosophical Languages in the Seventeenth Century: Dalgarno, Wilkins, Leibniz. Amsterdam, 1999. PP. 9, 26 3 Oleg Izyumenko. Tower of Babel. //Humanus.ru. On-line, 2005 4 Quoted. by: O. Izyumenko. Tower of Babel The beginning of the 17th century is characterized by the destruction of linguistic integrity and the strengthening of the position of national languages in Europe. In search of a new integrity, philosophers and linguists are looking for support in the human mind and creating their own projects of “universal” languages. George Dalgarno, the author of one of the “universal language” projects, also dedicated his book to the language of the deaf. He considered the patronage of the Royal Society to be the key to success. The irony is that Wilkins's book on the “universal language” as a means of international communication, written in English and addressed to the general public, was soon translated into Latin at the request of foreign scholars, in particular Leibniz. The English scientist failed. His language proved too difficult to learn. In this way they prepared the ground for enlightenment thought, and threads stretch from the Enlightenment to modern civilization. 7 Other about Krizhanich, see Pushkarev L. N. Yu. Krizhanich: an essay on life and work. M., 1984
International languages are spoken by a large group of people living on the planet. In this case, we can talk about the global significance of this means of communication. Interethnic methods and languages of international communication (their number ranges from seven to ten) have very blurred boundaries. In the 17th-18th centuries, an attempt was made to create an artificial universal letter - pasigraphy. Nowadays, an analogue of an international language is an artificially created method of communication - Esperanto.
Story
In Antiquity, the language common to all peoples was ancient Greek. More than a thousand years have passed, and in some regions and parts of the world (Mediterranean, Catholic Europe) the means of communication between people has changed. has become the most important way to transmit information in various areas of human communication. With its help, negotiations were conducted, memoirs were written, and trade deals were concluded. For several centuries, Central and Western Asia communicated in the Turkic language, which later replaced Arabic. With the help of the latter, important issues were resolved in the Muslim world.
East Asia has long had its own means of communication, wenyan. In the 16th-17th centuries, the international language in Europe was French at the beginning of the 18th century. In the 19th century, Germany occupied not the last place, standing out for the high achievements of its scientists of that period. As a result, German becomes an international language. At the same time, Spain occupied half the world. The vocabulary of these countries is becoming common to many peoples. By the end of the twentieth century, English became widespread. The international language as a way of communication thus began to include the vocabulary of several countries.
Changes
It is difficult to say which language is international today. The inconstancy of the status of this method of communication between representatives of different countries lies in the acquisition and loss of combinations of geographical, demographic, cultural and economic indicators. Some states bordering each other interact quite closely. For example, along with Chinese and German, Russian is an international language. Some small states located on different continents were at one time involved in the processes of colonization.
During those periods, the means of communication were Spanish, Portuguese and English. States stopped interacting with each other and lost colonies. Accordingly, the need for communication between different peoples disappeared. Latin and Greek ceased to be an international means of communication, and Dutch, Italian, Swedish, Polish, and Turkish became such for a short time. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the influence of Germany, popular at the time, even extended to Poland, Slovakia, and Galicia. But later the German language ceased to serve as an international language.
It should be said that, for example, Spanish vocabulary shows stability in this regard. Since the beginning of the 21st century, it has been strengthening its position. Thus, Spanish has been considered international for more than five centuries. Over time, China is strengthening its foreign policy position. As a result, the vocabulary of this country becomes the largest in terms of the number of speakers in the whole world.
Signs
There are some indicators that characterize international languages:
1. A large group of people can consider them family.
2. A significant part of the population, for whom they are not native, own them as foreign ones.
3. Various organizations use international languages as official languages at conferences and seminars.
4. With their help, people from different countries, continents, and different cultural circles communicate.
Russian language
Considered state and official, it is widespread outside the Russian Federation. Being the most popular and one of the richest, Russian rightfully occupies a leading place among the world languages. If we talk about its application in the foreign policy sphere, it is very diverse. Russian, being the language of science, is considered the best means of communication between scientists from different countries. Most of the world's information needed by humanity is published using domestic vocabulary. The Russian language is widely used in the world's means of communication (radio broadcasts, air and
Meaning
Domestic vocabulary promotes the transfer of knowledge and acts as an intermediary in communication between representatives of different countries. Like other international languages, it makes a great contribution to the implementation of social functions. Russian vocabulary plays an important role in education. With its help, training is carried out not only in Russia, but also in other developed countries. Schools and universities in different countries choose Russian to study. From a legal point of view, it is recognized as working vocabulary.
Conclusion
The Russian language is studied by students from 1,700 universities in ninety countries, as well as students from various schools. About half a billion people own it to varying degrees. The Russian language is in fifth place in terms of prevalence (by the number of those who use it in speech). People of many social classes living in different parts of our planet are familiar with it and are its carriers. Literary and musical works of world significance have been created in Russian.
The content of the article
INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE, an artificial language intended for international use as an auxiliary language; in another sense, a language that was in the past or is currently the language of a nation, but whose use has spread beyond national borders (such languages are also called world languages).
The most important language of the second type is Latin, which served as a means of communication in the learned world and in the Roman Catholic Church for over a thousand years. In the 18th century The French language was cultivated throughout Europe as the language of high society and diplomacy, and was also extremely widespread in literary and scientific circles. In the 19th century Germany took a leading position in science, and German became the international language of science. In the 20th century English became the most common language.
For trade purposes, mixed or hybrid languages arose among a multilingual population; these include the lingua franca in the Levant, Pidgin English in the ports of the Far East, and Swahili in East Africa.
Constructed languages
In the 17th century for the first time they began to develop the concept of “philosophical” or “a priori” language. Leibniz and Descartes believed that language could be constructed from certain elements organized according to logical patterns. In the 18th and 19th centuries. Several such languages have been proposed; as a rule, these were systems of classified concepts that were expressed by corresponding signs.
Much more a posteriori languages were created - those that use words and concepts that are common to several national languages. Between 1880 and 1907, 53 universal languages were proposed. Some of them were amazingly popular. In 1889 there were about a million adherents of the Volapük language. Nowadays the most common language is Esperanto. Some a posteriori languages, such as Esperanto or Ido, are called “schematic”; They are based on the desire for simplicity, which is achieved through the harmony and consistency of spelling, grammar and word formation. Others, such as Occidental, are called “naturalistic” because they strive to resemble natural languages. In addition to these independent languages, there are also those that are the result of a radical simplification of already existing languages. These are Latino-sine-flexione (“Latin without inflection”), in which simplification is achieved through grammar, without attempting to shorten the vocabulary, and Basic English, in which English grammar remains largely unchanged, but the vocabulary is reduced to less than 1000 words.
A serious (although, apparently, inevitable) flaw in all international languages so far created is that they are all based on one of the European languages and Latin-Romance or English vocabulary. Therefore, for the population of Asia, Africa, Oceania and even large parts of Europe, mastering any of them is tantamount to learning a new language: if phonetics and grammar are acquired quite easily, then the vocabulary remains foreign.
Experience has shown that artificial languages can be successfully used as an interethnic means of communication and that most of them are much simpler than any national language. The Danish linguist and creator of the artificial language Novial O. Jespersen said that the best international languages outperform national languages when they are spoken and written by foreigners. The International Auxiliary Language Association of New York, founded in 1924, has been researching the question of what form of international language best suits the needs of modern civilization. In 1951 this group developed a language called interlingua. This language is based on words found in English, Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese; they are grouped according to their common origin, and the common form from which they are all derived is etymologically restored. Interlingua grammar is designed to be as consistent as possible with the grammars of the source languages.
The period to which this section is devoted occupies a special place in history. It was during this era that a sharp turn took place from feudal orders to a new social system - capitalism. On the European continent it was marked by two great revolutions - English and French; in the New World, the struggle of the North American colonies for independence leads to the appearance of the United States of America on the world map. The foundations of modern science are laid: XVII–XVIII centuries. - this is the time of F. Bacon, J. Locke, I. Newton, G.W. Leibniz... The ideology of the Enlightenment is formed and spread: the famous "Encyclopedia", despite censorship prohibitions, becomes the most revered book of thinking Europe. The culture of the continent is also changing radically: classicism, which originated in France, is establishing itself as the leading direction of literature and art. All these events, naturally, could not help but affect the area of interest to us, in which, along with the undoubted continuity with respect to the previous stage of development, a number of fundamentally new phenomena also arise.
First of all, of course, it continues normative-descriptive work related to the formation of national literary languages of European peoples and their normalization. In a number of cases, this task is undertaken by special bodies - academies, whose focus is on vocabulary work. Back in 1587, the Accademia della Crusca was founded, the result of which was the academic dictionary of the Italian language. The French language and culture created in 1634–1635 acquired particular significance in connection with the French language and culture gradually coming to the fore in Europe. The French Academy, which was entrusted with the preparation of a fairly complete standard dictionary of the French language. In 1694, the “Dictionary of the French Academy” was completed, which received great resonance in all European countries. Both the French and other academies have done a lot of work to select recommended and prohibited material in the field of word usage, spelling, grammar and other aspects of the language.
Among the French grammarians of the era in question, one stands out Claude Favre de Vogesla(1585–1650), author of “Notes on the French Language,” published in 1647. Vozhlat believes that the process of normalizing a language should be based primarily on observation and description of it as it appears in real life . Noting that it is not always easy to distinguish “right” from “wrong,” he puts forward as a criterion what is sanctioned by use, and the example of correct use is speech at the royal court, as well as the language of the best writers. Recognizing that new words and expressions can be “correctly” created by analogy, Vozhla opposes attempts to change or purify language, citing rational or aesthetic grounds, and does not accept the censure of those who condemn established and widely used phenomena only because they supposedly contradict reason.
Although no body regulating language culture arose in England, the above-mentioned problem occupied a large place in the life of the educated strata of English society. A whole series of grammatical, spelling and spelling works were published, designed to streamline the literary norm: C. Butler (1534), J. Wallis(1653), etc. In 1685 the work appeared K. Cooper, which specifically calls attention to the differences between sounds and letters, spelling and pronunciation; in 1701 author of the “Practical Phonograph” Jones aims to "describe English speech, especially as it is used in London, the universities and at court." Of particular importance was the publication in 1755 of the famous dictionary of the English language, the creator of which was Samuel Johnson (1709–1784). In the preface, Johnson draws attention to the fact that in English, as in any other living language, there are two types of pronunciation - “fluent”, characterized by uncertainty and individual characteristics, and “solemn”, closer to spelling norms; it is precisely this that, according to the lexicographer, should be oriented towards in speech practice.
Along with the description and normalization of specific languages, the scientific world of the then Europe was also attracted by the problems philosophical-linguistic character. First of all, this includes the question about the origin of human language, which, as we saw above, was of interest to the thinkers of the ancient era, but gained particular popularity precisely in the 17th–18th centuries, when many scientists tried to give a rationalistic explanation of how people learned to speak. The theory of onomatopoeia was formulated, according to which language arose as a result of imitation of the sounds of nature (it was adhered to by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz(1646–1716)); interjections, according to which the first reasons that prompted a person to use the capabilities of his voice were feelings or sensations (adjoined to this theory Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)); social contract, which assumed that people gradually learned to clearly pronounce sounds and agreed to accept them as signs of their ideas and objects (in different versions this concept was supported Adam Smith(1723–1790) and Jean Jacques Rousseau). Regardless of how the degree of reliability of each of them was assessed (and any concept of the origin of language is always more or less based on guesswork, since science did not and does not have any specific facts related to this process), these theories played the most important methodological role, since they introduced the concept of development. The founder of the latter is considered to be the Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico(1668–1744), who put forward the idea of human development according to certain laws inherent in society, and an important role in this process was assigned to the development of language. French scientist Etienne Condillac(1715–1780) suggested that language evolved in its early stages from unconscious cries to conscious use, and by gaining control over sounds, man was able to control his mental operations. Condillac considered sign language to be primary, by analogy with which sound signs arose. He assumed that all languages undergo fundamentally the same path of development, but the speed of the process is different for each of them, as a result of which some languages are more advanced than others - an idea later developed by many authors of the 19th century.
A special place among theories of the origin of the language of the era under consideration belongs to the concept Johann Gottfried Herder(1744–1803), who pointed out that language is universal in its basis and national in its various ways of expression. In his work “Treatise on the Origin of Language,” Herder emphasizes that language is the creation of man himself, a tool created by him to realize an internal need. Skeptical about the theories mentioned above (onomatopoetic, interjectional, contractual) and not considering it possible to attribute divine origin to it (although at the end of his life his point of view changed somewhat), Herder argued that language is born as a necessary prerequisite and tool for concretization, development and expression thoughts. At the same time, according to the philosopher, he represents the force that unites all of humanity and connects with it a separate people and a separate nation. The reason for its appearance, according to Herder, lies primarily in the fact that a person, to a much lesser extent than an animal, is bound by the influence of external stimuli and irritants; he has the ability to contemplate, reflect and compare. Therefore, he can highlight the most important, the most significant and give it a name. In this sense, it can be argued that language is a natural human property and man is created to possess language. However, man is by no means endowed with an innate language; the latter was not inherited by nature, but developed as a specific product of a person’s special mental organization. These views of Herder had a great influence on the philosophical and linguistic ideas of the subsequent era.
The question of the origin of language, naturally, turns out to be closely related to the problem essence language. Among the philosophers of the era in question, it was also dealt with by John Locke(1632–1704), who approached it through the concept of the word. Defining language as a great tool and a close connection of society, Locke believed that the word has a physical nature, consists of articulate sounds perceived by the organs of hearing, and is endowed with the functions of transmitting thought, being a sign for it. Being a physical substitute for thought, the word is arbitrary in relation to the signified and the speaker and has an abstract nature. At the same time, Locke distinguished between general words, conveying general ideas, and individual words, replacing individual thoughts.
Speaking about the philosophical and linguistic concepts of the 18th century, they also name the work of the above-mentioned major English economist Adam Smith, “On the Initial Formation of Languages and the Difference in the Spiritual Disposition of Native and Mixed Languages,” published in 1781. Considering that the signs of the original language were used for energetic , often a motivating report of an event occurring at the moment of speech or felt as actual, Smith assumed that in the early stages of development the word and the sentence existed syncretically. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that the English thinker pointed out that in a number of European languages there was a process of erasing endings (the transition from a synthetic system to an analytical one in later terminology), linking the latter with the mixing of languages. Later, already in the 19th century, this problem occupied an important place among many linguists (the Schlegel brothers, W. von Humboldt, A. Schleicher, etc.), who proposed various typological classifications (which will be discussed in more detail below).
The philosophical approach to language confronted scientists of the 17th–18th centuries. Another problem that deserves separate consideration is the question of the possibility of creating an “ideal” language, free from the shortcomings of ordinary languages.
Natural and artificial languages in linguistic and philosophical concepts of the 17th–18th centuries
Turning to the study of human communication, modern scientists have repeatedly noted that the multilingualism existing in the world is a great inconvenience, overcoming which will significantly contribute to the progress of mankind and the establishment of “world harmony.” On the other hand, in all really existing languages there are all kinds of exceptions, violations of “correctness,” etc., which makes them difficult to use and makes them a rather imperfect means of communication and thinking. Therefore, the time has come to free humanity from the curse of the “Babylonian pandemonium” and reunite it with a certain common language that meets the requirements of science, and various ways of creating it have been outlined.
A purely empirical approach was proposed by one of the founders of modern science Francis Bacon(1561–1626). In his opinion, it would be advisable to create something like a general comparative grammar of the most common European languages, reflecting their advantages and disadvantages, and then, on this basis, to develop, through agreement, a common and unified language for all mankind, free from shortcomings and absorbing the advantages of each, which will allow it to become an ideal container for human thoughts and feelings. On the other hand, Bacon points out that, along with natural language, other means that are perceived by the senses and have a sufficient number of distinctive features can be used in the functions of the latter. Thus, linguistic signs (words) are like coins, which are capable of maintaining the basic function of a means of payment even regardless of the metal from which they are made, i.e., they have conditional character.
The issue under consideration was also touched upon by the great French philosopher Rene Descartes(1590–1650), whose views played a particularly large role in the development of linguistic ideas of the era in question. Descartes expressed his views in a letter to Abbot Mersenne (1629), who sent him a project from an unknown author concerning a universal language. Criticizing the latter, Descartes notes that the main attention should be paid to grammar, in which the uniformity of declension, conjugation and word formation will prevail, recorded in a dictionary, with the help of which even not very educated people can learn to use it in six months. However, not content with the purely practical aspects of creating a universal language, Descartes puts forward the idea that it should be based on a philosophical foundation. Namely: he must have such a sum of initial concepts and relations between them that would allow him to obtain true knowledge as a result of formal operations. In other words, it is necessary to find and calculate those initial indecomposable ideas from which the entire wealth of human thoughts is composed. “This language,” writes Descartes, “could be taught in a very short time thanks to order, that is, by establishing order between all the thoughts that can be in the human mind, just as there is order in numbers... The invention of such a language depends on true philosophy, for otherwise it is impossible to count all the thoughts of people, to arrange them in order, or even to mark them out so that they appear clear and simple... Such a language is possible and... it is possible to discover the science on which it depends, and then through this language the peasants could It would be better to judge the truth of things than philosophers do now.”
Perhaps the greatest breadth of linguistic interests among the philosophers of the era in question was possessed by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz(1646–1716), who was engaged both in the study of the relationships between languages (this side of his heritage will be discussed below) and in philosophical issues related to language.
Among the issues that occupied Leibniz was the art of pasigraphy - the ability, through common written signs, to come into contact with all peoples speaking different languages, if only they knew these signs. The artificial language itself, according to the scientist, should be an instrument of the mind, capable of not only conveying ideas, but also making popular the existing relationships between them. Like Descartes, Leibniz proceeded from the axiom that all complex ideas are a combination of simple ideas, just as all divisible numbers are products of indivisibles. The decomposition process itself is based on the rules of combinatorics, as a result of which first-order terms are identified, consisting of simple concepts, second-order terms, representing two simple concepts, third-order terms, which can be decomposed either into three first-order terms, or into a combination of two first-order terms order with one second-order term. Accordingly, reasoning can be replaced by calculations using natural symbols, which, acting as an international auxiliary language, can express all existing or possible meaning and serve, through the use of certain formal rules, as an instrument for the discovery of new truths from those already known.
The formalized language itself in Leibniz's project looks like this. Nine consecutive digits represent the first nine consonants of the Latin alphabet (1 = b, 2 = c, etc.), decimal places correspond to five vowels (10 = a, 100 = e, etc.), and units of higher digits can be are indicated by two-vowel combinations (for example, 1000000 = au). These ideas of Leibniz were subsequently developed in symbolic logic.
English scientists did not remain aloof from this issue, among whom the names of the first chairman of the Royal Society of London were named John Wilkins(1614–1672) and especially the famous Isaac Newton(1643–1727), who wrote his work in 1661, when he was 18 years old. According to Newton, in each language an alphabetical list of all “substances” should be compiled, after which each unit of the list should be assigned an element of a universal language, and in cases where in natural (English) language “substances” can be expressed by phrases, in an “ideal” language they necessarily correspond to one word. The words themselves acted as names, and the designation of actions or states was made by adding word-forming elements.
If the philosophical and linguistic concepts discussed above, with rare exceptions, had relatively little overlap with the normative and practical work of grammarians and linguists, then the situation was somewhat different with the famous “Grammar of Port-Royal”, the authors of which sought to synthesize the actual linguistic description with the philosophical understanding of language as phenomenon, which gave many historians of science reason to consider it the first experience in creating a general linguistic theory. In view of the role that this work played in the development of our science, it requires separate consideration.
Port-Royal Grammar and its successors
In 1660, in France, a relatively small book was published without mentioning the names of the authors with a long title, according to the custom of that time: “A general and rational grammar, containing the fundamentals of the art of speech, presented in a clear and natural way, the interpretation of what is common in languages and the main differences between them, as well as numerous new remarks about the French language." The creators of this work (abbreviated as “Universal Grammar”, “Rational Grammar”, “Universal Grammar” and, finally, after the place where it was created - the Port-Royal convent near Paris, around which a circle of remarkable scientists formed - “The Grammar of Port ‑Royal") were an outstanding logician and philosopher Antoine Arnault(1612–1694) and a major teacher, expert in classical and modern languages Claude Lanslot(1616–1695). Thanks to such a harmonious collaboration, this work was able to combine a high theoretical level with fairly well presented linguistic material.
The main foundation on which the “Grammar of Port-Royal” was built is traditionally called the rationalistic philosophy of Descartes. The initial thesis of rationalism was the position according to which reason and theoretical thinking are the highest level of knowledge in comparison with sensory perception, and therefore they should be considered the most important and true criterion for the truth of the latter. Without completely abandoning the normative approach (grammar itself is defined as the “art of speech”) and indicating in a number of cases which phrases should be “recommended for use,” Arnauld and Lanslot first of all sought to create a grammar that would allow a reasonable explanation of phenomena or common to all languages, or inherent only in some of them. The factual material used (naturally, except for French) was data from traditional classical languages (Latin, Ancient Greek, Hebrew), as well as, to a certain extent, a number of Romance languages. Speaking about the main provisions of the “Grammar of Port-Roles”, researchers usually highlight the following points:
1. There is a common logical basis for all languages, from which, however, specific languages deviate to varying degrees. Therefore, grammar is closely related to logic, is designed to express it and is based on it, and grammatical analysis is closely related to logical analysis. It is characteristic that Antoine Arnault was the co-author of another famous work - “Logic, or the art of thinking,” written in collaboration with Pierre Nicol(1625–1695), which noted: “It is not so important whether these questions relate to grammar or to logic, but one must simply say that everything that is obtained for the purposes of each art belongs to it.”
2. There is no one-to-one correspondence between grammar and logic. Logically complex concepts can be expressed in simple words, and simple concepts in complex terms.
3. In each language, “clear” and “complex” meanings can be distinguished. The first are logically ordered and accessible to logical analysis, essentially embodying the thought that is expressed in language, the second are linguistic expressions that are logically unordered, contradictory, governed only by custom, subject to fashion and the whims of the taste of individual people. In modern works on the theory of linguistics (for example, in the works of Yu.S. Stepanov), this position is interpreted as the development of the idea of two languages or two layers (levels) of language - higher and lower.
4. There are complex relationships between the two layers of language - rational and everyday. “Usage” does not always agree with reason: for example, proper names, denoting a single and definite thing, do not need an article, but in Greek the latter is often used even with the names of people, and in Italian such use has become common. Similar “quirks of everyday life” can explain, for example, the gender affiliation of those nouns in which it is not motivated: for example, the Latin arbor (“tree”) is feminine, and the French arbre is masculine.
5. People, needing signs to indicate what is happening in their minds, inevitably had to come to the most general development of words, some of which would denote the objects of thought, and others their form and image. The first type includes names, articles, pronouns, participles, prepositions and adverbs; to the second - verbs, conjunctions and interjections. Moreover, names are divided into nouns and adjectives based on the fact that in them “clear meanings” are combined with “vague” ones. To the clear meaning of an attribute (feature), adjectives add a vague meaning of the substance to which this attribute relates.
6. Defining a sentence as “a judgment expressed by us about surrounding objects” and asserting that each sentence necessarily has two members: the subject about which something is asserted, and the attribute - what is asserted, the authors of the “Grammar of Port-Royal” draw attention for those cases when one sentence can contain several propositions: for example, in the sentence “The Invisible God created the visible world” there are three propositions: 1. God is invisible; 2. He created the world; 3. We see the world. The main sentence here is the second sentence, while the first and third are subordinate clauses included in the main sentence as its own parts. “...Such subordinate clauses are often present only in our minds, but are not expressed in words” (although they can be expressed using a relative pronoun: “God, who is invisible, created the world that we see”).
7. Unlike the philosophers of the 18th century. Arnauld and Lanslot do not speak directly about the origin of language, but from the expressions they use “people invented”, “people invented”, etc., one can conclude that they can to some extent be recognized as the predecessors of the theory of “social contract”.
8. The discrepancy between “reason” and “custom” and the presence of two layers in the language raises the question of two types of grammars - general and particular, as well as the relationships between them. This idea has found its clearest expression already in the work Caesar Chesneau du Marsay(1676–1756) "The Laws of Grammar." Noting the existence of two kinds of principles in grammar: those which represent unmodified truth and universal custom, and those which represent the custom only of some people who freely accepted these principles and are able to change the latter or refuse to apply them, and defining the former as the subject of " “General grammar”, and the latter as the area of various kinds of “particular grammars”, du Marsay summarizes: ““General grammar” is a science, since its subject is only purely theoretical reasoning about the unchangeable and universal principles of speech. The science of grammar precedes all languages, since its principles are eternal truths and presuppose only the possibilities of languages. The art of grammar, on the contrary, follows languages, since the customs of particular languages must exist before they can be related by art to universal principles. Despite the indicated difference between grammatical science and grammatical art, we do not think that it is necessary or even possible to separate their study.”
The further fate of the “Grammar of Port-Royal” turned out to be quite complicated. Over the next decades, a number of works appeared, primarily in France itself, based on its basic principles, but modifying and clarifying them. A special role was played by the notes to it, made in 1754 by the royal historiographer Charles Pinault Duclos(1704–1772), who, touching on the extremely important issue for normative grammar about the relationship between “mind” and “everyday life” and the possibility of conscious “correction” of language, wrote: “They say that the master of language is everyday life, or linguistic custom. It is understood that such a statement applies equally to oral and written speech. I am going to distinguish the role of everyday life in relation to the two indicated types of speech... linguistic custom is the rightful owner of the spoken language, while writers have the right to written speech... In this area, the true legislators are grammarians and writers.”
The influence of the Port-Royal Grammar was not limited to France. Having been translated into a number of European languages, it served as an impetus for the creation of a number of similar studies, among which the work of the English scientist stands out James Harris(1709–1786) “Hermes, or a philosophical study of language and universal grammar,” published in 1751. The very principle of a logical approach to the description of language continued to be preserved in many linguistic works of the first half of the 19th century, finding its embodiment in the works of the German scientist Carl Becker (1775–1848).
However, with the emergence of comparative historical linguistics, the “Grammar of Port-Royal”, which fell into the “pre-scientific” study of language, became the object of fierce criticism, primarily because it lacked the idea of the historical development of language, and the linguistic facts themselves were squeezed into logical schemes. And only the 20th century, which in turn revised the claims of comparative studies to be exceptionally “scientific,” again “rehabilitated” the work of Arno and Lanslot, in which the creator of generative grammar Noam Chomsky played a very active role, declaring the representatives of “Cartesian linguistics” his predecessors.
Standing somewhat apart from the “philosophical grammars” is the posthumously published work of the famous philosopher Benedict Spinoza(1632–1677) "An Essay on the Grammar of the Hebrew Language." Dealing with the Hebrew language in connection with the interpretation of biblical texts, Spinoza noted that the latter “must contain the nature and properties of the language in which their authors usually spoke.” Considering that in Hebrew all words, excluding interjections, conjunctions and a couple of particles, have the properties of a name (a scientist names a word by which something that falls under human understanding is designated or indicated by a name), Spinoza argues that the eight parts of speech accepted for Latin grammar are not suitable for Hebrew, where six names can be distinguished: a noun, divided into common and proper nouns, an adjective, a preposition, a participle, an infinitive and an adverb, to which a pronoun replacing the noun can be attached. However, Spinoza's unfinished Latin work was relatively little known and did not have a significant influence on modern and subsequent linguistic thought.
