La storia della derivatio, il problema del tempo e le grammatiche rationales tra il XII e il XVIII secolo

It is usually assumed that between the 16th and 18th centuries language sciences were divided into three main research lines: studies on language origin, practical grammars and “philosophical” grammars. At the same time, scholars working on the history of word-formation have never discussed the link between the history of word-formation, “philosophical” grammars and the synchrony/diachrony confusion. The present paper thus aims to show that the “philosophical” grammars comprise two types of works which are substantially different as for their settlement on the time axis and their theory of word-formation. The first group includes a-chronic grammars which develop a semantic-metaphysical theory of word-formation or exclude data on word-formation completely, e.g. the Modistae’s grammaticae speculativae and Port Royal’s Grammaire. The second group includes pan-chronic grammars that describe data on word-formation, but interpret these data only sub specie originis linguae, e.g. Scaliger’s and Sanctius’ grammars, as well as Schottel’s and Adelung’s works. If such a division of “philosophical” grammars is accepted a better understanding of the history of word-formation and a more precise description of the architecture of language sciences between the 16th and 18th centuries are obtained.