SOURCE: Toporišič, Jože. “Kopitar's Grammar.” Papers in Slavic Philology 2 (1982): 76-97.

In the following essay, Toporišič examines the morphological features of Kopitar's Grammar.

In the scholarly literature Jernej Kopitar's Grammar¹ has been characterized as scientific, and that by right. Published in 1809 (with the year 1808, when the printing began, imprinted in it), it had two types of forerunners: that of Adam Bohorič (Arcticae horulae succisivae, de Latinocarniolana literatura, ad Latinae linguae analogiam accomodata … [Wittemberg, 1584, reprinted 1715, 1758]), and that of Marko Pohlin (Kraynska grammatika, das ist: Die kraynerische Grammatik oder Kunst die kraynerische Sprache regelrichtig zu reden, und zu schreiben … Zweyte verbesserte Auflage [Ljubljana, 1783; first edition, 1768]), to which Jurij Zelenko's (= Mihael Zagajšek's) from 1791 can be added, and even Ožbalt Gutsman's from 1777 (reprinted five times). Kopitar must have also known the manuscript grammars from Baron Zois' circle (by Kumerdej, Debevec, Japelj). Moreover, he himself mentioned dictionaries which had...