Page 39 - A GRAMMAR OF BHOJPURI _ PhD Dissertation 2020 TU

CHAPTER 2
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.0 Outline
This chapter deals with the theoretical framework adopted as guideline for the
study. It consists of four sections. Section 2.1 provides theoretical developments in

grammar writing. In section 2.2 we briefly discuss functional-typological and adaptive
approaches to grammar. Section 2.3 deals with assumptions of the framework. In

section 2.4, we summarize the chapter with a brief account of the theoretical works
we have followed and consulted during this research.

2.1 Theoretical developments in grammar writing
A number of approaches have been developed and adopted to describe a

natural language since the linguistic tradition begins. Schmidhauser (2010:499) traces
origin of grammar back to fourth century B. C. in ancient India followed by Greeks in

the third century B. C. In the Indian traditions Panini invents सू# /sutrʌ/ 'threads or

formulae', sandhi rules, कारक /kɑrʌkʌ/ 'case', zero-representation and theory of
sentence structure; followed by Patanjali with discovery of %विन /d ̤ wʌni/ 'sound' and

)फोट /ʂpʰoʈʌ/ 'underlying form' defining a sound unit in terms of वण. )फोट /vʌrɳʌ

ʂpʰoʈʌ/ (Syal and Jindal 1999:38). Bhartṛhari and others contributed in the primitive
Indian traditions.

The origin of traditional grammar or the entire European linguistics can be
traced back to the Greeks with the word grammatiké 'grammar' meant simply the

understanding of letters. It was so because linguistics was only part of philosophy, not
an autonomous discipline of knowledge, consequently, Protagoras differentiated three
genders in Greek Sophistes, Plato analyzed nominal (ōnomɑ) and verbal (rhēma) parts

of a sentence and Aristotle added a class of sȳndesmoi that included all the other words
such as conjunctions, articles and pronouns. Following set up of a library in the Greek

colony of Alexendria, Dionysus Thrax summarized the Greek grammatical tradition.
Romans on the other hand wrote their Latin grammar influenced by the Greeks.

It was the foundation of the grammatical tradition in Europe. Though they slightly
modified the Greek grammatical system, it was carried out to serve the purposes of

philosophy, literary criticism and rhetoric (Lyons 1968:13). As a result the theory of
speculative grammar (grammatical specultiva) emerged in the medieval period.

13