European Vernacular grammars, their metalanguage and syntactic theories Awareness of national languages

The papers of the thematic issue are a witness of extensive research with the title “For a history of syntactic theories towards the formation of the concept of ‘language’ between metalanguage, grammar and history of European and extra-European ideas.” that has been carried out within the PRIN 2022 project (PRIN2022_COTTI 5 CELLI PNRR project for Mission 4, Component 2, investment 1.1, funded by the European Union — NextGenerationEU PRIN 2022 — 2022ZCE5RA), as an ideal and chronological continuation of the previous PRIN 2017 project (PRIN 2017 2F2FEZ: Parts of speech meet rhetorics: searching for syntax in the continuity between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age). The study of grammar between Late 10 Antiquity and the early modern age opens a crucial window onto the history of European linguistic thought. Grammar is not conceived here as merely a technical description of language, but as a meeting point between linguistic knowledge and reflection, a laboratory of metalinguistic awareness, and a privileged site to measure the emergence of the “national language” both as language in use and as a linguistic 15 system.