This study grew out of a series of lectures Jespersen gave at Columbia
University in 1909-10, called "An Introduction to English Grammar."
It is the connected presentation of Jespersen's views of the general principles of grammar based on years of studying various languages through both direct observation of living speech and written and printed documents. "[
The Philosophy of Grammar
and
Analytic Syntax
] set forth the most extensive and original theory of universal grammar prior to the work of Chomsky and other generative grammarians of the last thirty years."--Arne Juul and Hans F. Nielsen, in
Otto
Jespersen: Facets of His Life and Work
"Besides being one of the most perceptive observers and original thinkers that the field of linguistics has ever known, Jespersen was also one of its most entertaining writers, and reading
The
Philosophy of Grammar
is fun. Read it, enjoy it."--James D.
McCawley, from the Introduction Otto Jespersen (1860-1943), an authority on the growth and structure of language, was the Chair of the English Department at the University of Copenhagen. Among his many works are
A Modern English
Grammar
, the latter published by the
University of Chicago Press.