Ogic and Grammar

Abstract

(1) Large portions of conventional grammar may quite rightly be described as grammar of material, since we are there concerned only with the material of signs. This happens for example in phonetics, but also in morphology. The latter for instance is concerned with the various declensions: on the basis of material differences it makes distinctions and so creates Schemata. For example, the two plural forms ‘children’ and ‘dishes’ differ only in that the first ends in en and the other in es. If one uses these two forms there is no difference in plural meaning over and above the difference of material. A classification by such differences concerns the acoustic difference between n and s or between the marks on paper. Similarly with the Classification of verbs into strong and weak, for example sing, sang, sung, and paint, painted, painted. All these distinctions (differences in declension, conjugation, imperative mood and so on) were based on differences in material and have nothing to do with the signs’ meanings. We can therefore say: grammar of material is involved wherever a material difference shows up in language without a corresponding semantic difference; such differences would not be recorded in a logical grammar. We have no wish to abolish these differences by intervening in the field of conventional grammar in order, for instance, to simplify (as Esperanto does).