Overview of Grammar

The Summa Grammatica (Latin for "Overview of Grammar"; c. AD 1240 or c. 1250) was one of the earlier works on Latin grammar and Aristotelian logic by the medieval English philosopher Roger Bacon. It is primarily noteworthy for its exposition of a kind of universal grammar.

The work is apparently a series of lectures given by Bacon for the mandatory classes on Priscian's work On Construction (Books XVII & XVIII of his Institutes of Grammar) at the University of Paris, where he taught in the 1230s and '40s. Much more than Bacon's later linguistic works, the Summa Grammatica lies in the mainstream of 13th-century analysis. The first part borrows directly from Robert Kilwardby's commentary on Priscian. More generally, the work reflects the speculative grammar taught at Oxford in such 13th-century works as the Logica cum Sit Nostra. It is probable that the final draft of the work which Bacon mentions in his Communia Naturalium was never completed. His Greek and Hebrew Grammars and Compendium of Philosophy may have been considered as part of it.