A Study on the Shift of Syntactic Analysis in Grammar Books by Hidesaburo Saito

Abstract

In Meiji Period Japan, Hidesaburo Saito was called a titan in English studies due to his syntactic analysis of verbs and predicates in his grammar books. Saito (1898) classified the verbs in the same way as shown in the Five Sentence Forms; however, no attempt has been made to clarify how he developed his syntactic analysis. This paper primarily investigates the transition seen in his syntactic analysis of verbs and predicates in his grammar books; closely examining books which described the syntax of verbs and/or predicates, and how Saito was influenced by William Swinton and John Collinson Nesfield.