Alexander Gill’s Logonomia Anglica

Abstract

In this paper I attempt to draw as accurately as possible the picture of the cultural environment wherein Alexander Gill’s main work, the outstanding Logonomia Anglica, published in London in 1619, was written. In effect, it is in the Renaissance scholarly context where most relevant Humanistic work has grown in England as well as in Western European nations. Grammatical theories at that time were indebted both to classical language learning tradition and to the new learning of national vernacular tongues. This complex framework is the clímate that sees the publication of Gill’s grammar. Subsequently I approach the study of the original publication in a facsímile edition of Stockholm. I discuss some grammatical paradigms of the verb and the contribution he made to the study of English language in his time.