Explanations and Research
“The first attempts to study grammar began in about the 4th cent. BC, in India with Panini's grammar of Sanskrit and in Greece with Plato's dialogue Cratylus. The Greeks, and later the Romans approached the study of grammar through philosophy. Concerned only with the study of their own language and not with foreign languages, early Greek and Latin grammars were devoted primarily to defining the parts of speech. The biblical commentator Rashi attempted to decipher the rules of ancient Hebrew grammar. It was not until the middle ages that grammarians became interested in languages other than their own. The scientific grammatical analysis of language began in the 19th cent. With the realization that languages have a history; this lead to attempts at the genealogical classification of languages through comparative linguistics. Grammatical analysis was further developed in the 20th cent. and was greatly advanced by the theories of structural linguistics and transformational-generative grammar.” (www.encylopedia.com/html/section/grammar_history.asp)
Grammar can be defined many ways, because it means different things to different people. Grammar is the more scientific aspect of the study of language: it's made up of morphology (the forms words take) and syntax (their relation to one another). There are three main periods of grammar. They start with traditional, then structural, and finally transformational.
Traditional grammar focuses on the form of the word. It was studied in the 16th century. This grammar form was derived from the Latin language. Traditional grammar works on identifying the parts of speech. There are eight basic parts of speech derived from this traditional grammar. They are: nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. These parts of speech come together to form phrases, clauses, and sentences. Also, the traditional grammar deals with correct spelling, pronunciation, word forms, and syntax. All in all, traditional grammar is basically what most students know as grammar, the eight parts of speech and the basic English constructions.
Structural grammar looks at the order of how things are put together, the parts of speech. This form dates back to the 1800's. Structural grammar is the use of vocabulary and syntax. Structural grammar tries to describe the ways the words can be put together in formed sentences. This approach to grammar describes where the noun should be placed in the sentence rather than by their definition. In essence, structural grammar is the structure of how the sentences and other constructions are put together.
Also, transformational grammar developed in 1957 by Noam Chomsky. Chomsky, and educator and linguist is said to be the "father" of transformational grammar. He believes that there is an underlying system of understanding language; all language starts inside. He believes that language is deep inside us, it is innate, and it is universal. Chomsky and his colleagues have formatted their own rules for transformational grammar. These rules take a sentence with grammatical structure and turn it into a sentence with a different grammatical structure but still having the same meaning. As a result, Chomsky’s work has been highly controversial, rekindling the age-old debate over whether language is Universal and innate.