The Port-Royal Grammar was a pioneering work in the philosophy of language

Philosophy of language

Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. As a topic, the philosophy of language for analytic philosophers is concerned with four central problems: the nature of meaning, language use, language cognition, and the relationship between language...

. Published in 1660 by Antoine Arnauld

Antoine Arnauld

Antoine Arnauld — le Grand as contemporaries called him, to distinguish him from his father — was a French Roman Catholic theologian, philosopher, and mathematician...

 and Claude Lancelot

Claude Lancelot

Claude Lancelot was a Jansenist monk and grammarian.Lancelot was born in Paris. He participated in the creation of the Petites écoles de Port-Royal in May 1638 .Lancelot was placed in charge of the education of the duke of Chevreuse and of the princes of Conti.Lancelot was...

, it was the linguistic counterpart to the Port-Royal Logic

Port-Royal Logic

Port-Royal Logic, or Logique de Port-Royal, is the common name of La logique, ou l'art de penser, an important textbook on logic first published anonymously in 1662 by Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, two prominent members of the Jansenist movement, centered around Port-Royal. Blaise Pascal...

 (1662), both named after the Jansenist monastery of Port-Royal-des-Champs where their authors worked. The Grammar was heavily influenced by the Regulae

Rules for the Direction of the Mind

In 1619, René Descartes began work on an unfinished treatise regarding the proper method for scientific and philosophical thinking entitled Regulae ad directionem ingenii, or Rules for the Direction of the Mind. This work outlined the basis for his later work on complex problems of mathematics,...

 of René Descartes

René Descartes

René Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...

 and it has been held up as an example par excellence of Cartesian linguistics

Cartesian linguistics

The term Cartesian linguistics was coined with the publication of Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought , a book on linguistics by Noam Chomsky, written with the purpose of deepening "our understanding of the nature of language and the mental processes and...

 by Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...

. The central argument of the Grammar is that grammar is simply mental processes, which are universal; therefore grammar is universal

Universal grammar

Universal grammar is a theory in linguistics that suggests that there are properties that all possible natural human languages have.Usually credited to Noam Chomsky, the theory suggests that some rules of grammar are hard-wired into the brain, and manifest themselves without being taught...

.

It has been translated into English and published by Jacques Rieux and Bernard E. Rollin under the title General and Rational Grammar: The Port-Royal Grammar (The Hague: Mouton, 1975).

Sources

• Elmar Kremer. 2008. Antoine Arnauld. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a freely-accessible online encyclopedia of philosophy maintained by Stanford University. Each entry is written and maintained by an expert in the field, including professors from over 65 academic institutions worldwide...
  
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• Antoine Arnauld