The theory of case by Thomas of Erfurt: an example of relative progress in the history of language studies

Abstract

The Grammatica speculativa by Thomas of Erfurt (c. 1310) is considered the most representative surviving medieval text which contains matured ideas of speculative grammarians. These schoolmen wrote treatises on traditional Latin grammar in France and Northern Europe during the last decades of the thirteenth century. The theory of case proposed by Thomas of Erfurt in his grammar seems to be an example of systematization and an elaboration of such grammar. This article aims to demonstrate that this theory, in its notional option (BORGES NETO; DASCAL 2004), in its method (BURSILL-HALL, 1971) and in its fidelity to the correspondence program to which it adheres (SWIGGERS, 2003), represents an instance of relative progress (KOERNER, 1989) in the development of the extended Latin grammar postulated by Sylvain Auroux (2009).