1. Is the scientific study of language
2. Has three periods
3. Antiquity or The classical era
3.1. Is the greek linguistic tradition
3.2. Language was studied within philosophy
3.3. The greek philosophers studied language by asking questions about
3.3.1. -The origins of language. -The relation between language and thought. -Parts of speech.
3.3.2. For example Plato: He was the first scholar to present a debate between the naturalists and the conventionalists in his book Cratylus
3.3.3. Aristotle: -He defined a word as linguistic unit, he added the category of conjutions -He added the category of tenses -He introduce the intermediate gender -He was plato´s pupil and he was a conventionalist
3.3.4. Stoics -They were naturalists because the believed that language is part of humman knowledge -They gave the difference between form and meaning. -Introduce the active and passive voice. -They made a distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs as a far grammatical categories
3.3.5. Alexandrians: -They introduce Analogy Vs Anomaly -They studied the literary texts, and they focused on the study of written form of language -They presented a debate between the analogists ans anomalists -Anlogists explained that language is regular (It cannot change) and Anomalists explained that language is irregular (It can change)
3.4. Greek Language
3.4.1. Dionysius Thrax -He wrote the first grammar of te greek language -He was long considered to be the author of the earliest grammatical text on the Greek Language
3.4.2. The Indian tradition -Panini: Indian scholar studied the Sanskrit language in order to protect their religious text (Vedas) -He is a well known scholar, he studied phonetics and morphology -The Indian tradition is superior to the western tradition mainly in phonetics
3.4.3. The Roman tradition -They imitated the Greeks, they took the grammar of Thrax as a modal to study Latin. -They introduced the art of correct speech, parts of speech, good and bad style