Saturday, December 24, 2022

 

Syntax

Francis Macdonald Cornford, Thucydides Mythistoricus (London: Edward Arnold, 1907), p. xii (on A.W. Verrall)
I am conscious, moreover, that in this present attempt to understand, not the syntax, but the mind, of Thucydides, I am following, for part of the way, a path which first opened before me when, in the breathless silence of his lecture-room, I began to understand how literary art could be the passion of a life.
Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, "Brief Mention," American Journal of Philology 28.3 (1907) 351-361 (at 356):
[W]hen Mr. CORNFORD speaks of his Thucydides Mythistoricus as an attempt to understand, not the syntax, but the mind, of Thucydides the syntactician in me revolts against this attitude of superiority. He who does not know the syntax of Thukydides does not know the mind of Thukydides. Syntax has been called the 'Parademarsch' of language, and we are all in the procession. He who sneers at the study of Thukydidean syntax fails to do justice to the conditions of Thukydidean thought.
Fritz Mauthner, Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache, Bd. 3: Grammatik und Logik (Stuttgart: J.G. Cotta, 1902), p. 260:
Die höhere Syntax verhält sich zum Nutzen der Sprache wie der Parademarsch zur Strategie.



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