Summa Grammatica

The work is apparently a series of lectures given by Bacon for the mandatory classes on Priscian's work On Construction (Books XVII & XVIII of his Institutes of Grammar) at the University of Paris,[5] where he taught in the 1230s and '40s. Much more than Bacon's later linguistic works, the Summa Grammatica lies in the mainstream of 13th-century analysis.[3] The first part borrows directly from Robert Kilwardby's commentary on Priscian.[6][7] More generally, the work reflects the speculative grammar taught at Oxford in such 13th-century works as the Logica cum Sit Nostra.[8] It is probable that the final draft of the work which Bacon mentions in his Communia Naturalium[9] was never completed.[10] His Greek and Hebrew Grammars and Compendium of Philosophy may have been considered as part of it.[10]

It survived in two manuscripts: P and W. P is a copy in book hand evidently intended for a personal library.[11] W is a students' copy written in the informal hand of the late 13th or early 14th century.[5][12]

The work describes figurative language, rhetorical devices, and irregular Latin grammar[13] using "sophisms" or illustrative examples.[14] It aims to complement Bacon's students' required readings of Priscian's work On Construction by presenting its important points in a more thorough and logical order.[14] It assumes a mastery of standard grammatical rules which the students would have already learnt as glomerelli.[15] It most frequently cites Priscian, but more often adopts the solutions of Peter Helias.[15]

The first section lays out rules regarding grammatical agreement and the rhetorical devices antithesis,[16][17] synthesis,[18][19] procatalepsis,[20][21][8] From the Arisotelian notion that "art imitates nature to the extent that it can"[22][23] and under the influence of Averroës's commentaries,[8] Bacon argues that nouns and pronouns can be distinguished from verbs and adverbs owing to the distinction between permanent and successive things.[8] Further, verbs constitute a kind of movement from the subject[n 2] to the object[24][n 3] which imposes obligations on the grammar.[8] For instance, owing to their origin from verbs, Bacon considers that participles and infinitives are too unstable to function properly as the object of a sentence, as "nothing which is in motion can come to rest in something in motion, no motion being able to complete itself in something in motion".[8]

The second section deals with non-figurative constructions including impersonals,[25][26] gerundives,[27][28] interjections,[29][30] and ablative absolutes.[31][32][8]

The third section[33] covers illustrative examples by topic in greater or less detail[8] and more or less at random.[34] The primary ones are Moris erat Persis ducibus tunc temporis omnem ducere in arma domum,[35] Vestes quas geritis sordida lana fuit,[36] Amatus sum vel fui,[37] Vado Romam que est pulcra civitas,[38] Video centum homines uno minus,[39] Lupus est in fabula,[40] In nostro magistro habet bonum hominem,[41] Margarita est pulcherrimus lapidum,[42] Quid nisi secrete leserunt Philide silve,[43] and Nominativo hic magister.[44] Most of these examples appear in other collections.[34]

The fourth section analyses short sentences, along with adverbial phrases and liturgical formulas[8] such as ite missa est[45] whose use of ellipsis presented certain problems.[34] It's divided into three sections on "On Some Cases in the Nominal Absolute",[46][47] "On Mediate Apposition",[48][49] and "On Some Difficulties in Speech".[50][51]

Bacon emphasizes that grammatical rules cannot be applied mechanistically but must be understood as a structure through which to attempt to understand the author's intent (intentio proferentis).[8] The desire to communicate some particular idea may require breaking some of the standard rules.[52] Such exceptions must, however, be linguistically justified.[8] In this he follows Kilwardby.[8] Although Bacon considered an understanding of logic to be important for clarity in philosophical and theological texts, he found his era's Modist analyses needed to be tempered by a contextual understanding of the linguistic ambiguity inevitable in the imposition of signs and from the shifts of meaning and emphasis over time.[8]

Bacon argues for a universal grammar underlying all human languages.[2] As more tersely stated in his later Greek Grammar:[2]

Grammar is one and the same in all languages, substantially, though it may vary, accidentally, in each of them.[55][n 4]

Hovdhaugen leaves open the possibility, however, that, unlike the Modists who followed Bacon, his own statements on the subject did not refer to a universal grammar but to a universal science to be employed in studying linguistics across languages.[56] This derives from an ambiguity in the Latin grammatica, which referred variously to the structure of language, to its description, and to the science underlying such descriptions.[56]

• Modistae, the philosophical school which developed partially under the influence of this work[2]
• Book III of the Opus Majus