For this reason, I have chosen a definition ofgrammarthat is concise but that is
sufficiently broad to include a wide range of language features and forms:
Grammar is the formal study of the structure of a language and describes
how words fit together in meaningful constructions.This definition is not complete, and perhaps no single definition can be. Be-
ing generic, it does not, for example, take into account the fact that there are
multiple ways—and therefore multiple grammars—to study the structure of a
language. Nevertheless, this definition is essentially congruent with how spe-
cialists in language study—linguists—use the term. Indeed, grammar is an im-
portant area inlinguistics,which includes not only grammar (often referred to
assyntax) but also several other features of language, such as meaning (seman-
tics), sound (phonology), dialects, pragmatics, and language acquisition. Fur-
thermore, this definition has the advantage of linking grammar to education,
which is important because this book is designed for teachers and because
grammar has been such an important part of education throughout Western his-
tory. In fact, until modern times, grammar was the most important part of a
young person’s education. Even now, we often refer to elementary school as
grammarschool.
Greek Beginnings
Like so many other elements of Western culture, the formal study of grammar
began in ancient Greece, probably in the late 6thcentury BC, when a number
of factors combined to motivate the Greeks to examine the structure of their
language. However, the emergence of grammar study may not have occurred
if the ancient Greeks had not already placed a high value on language.
Homer’sIliadandOdyssey,put into written form between 900 and 800 BC,
provide some insight into the nature of Greek education before the 6thcentury.
In theIliad,we find that the hero Achilles was tutored as a youth to be “a
speaker of words and a doer of deeds” (9.454–455), and the work includes nu-
merous speeches that illustrate the importance of speaking well. As
Wheelock (1974) noted, “All this foreshadows the conspicuous place of ...
elocution and rhetoric in later Greek education” (p. 4).
In earlier times, education was in the hands of parents, with mothers edu-
cating their daughters and fathers educating their sons. But we see inThe Il-
iadthat by Homer’s time (and possibly much earlier), wealthy families
commonly employed professional tutors. By the end of the 6thcentury, educa-
tion had become systematized and more or less universal for boys, who began
2 CHAPTER 1