SUMMA. Repositorio Institucional

VOSSIUS, SPÏÏsTOZA, SCHULTENS: The Application of Analogia in Hebrew Grammar 0. INTRODUCTION ' When we take careful note of the development of speech in children we notice that after a certain age they tend to ignore linguistic usage (usus linguœ) and replace, e.g., strong verbal forms by weak ones. Therefore, some children might use / writed for / wrote at a certain age while earlier they used the correct past of to write. They probably construct this past after verbs as to like and to dine, the former one being more likely since usually most toddlers just eat. Without having thoroughly studied grammars such as Varro's De lingua latina or bearing knowledge of the grammatical views of Aristarchus of Samothrake (c. 217-145 B.C.), it is apparent that they adhere to the point of view that 'the people as a whole ought in all words to use Regularity' (populus uniuersus debet in omnibus uerbis uti analogia, Varro 1979, L. IX, cap. 1, 5: 444). The term regularity is the correct translation of Greek analogia. In this paper, I will first discuss the concept of analogia and its application in grammars from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. First, I shall treat of Vossius, who was respon- 1 A shortened version of this paper was read at the 15th Annual Colloquium of the Henry Sweet Societyfor Linguistics Ideas, Amsterdarn,16-19 September 1998.

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