Marxism and Problems of Linguistics - From Marx to Mao

is conceivable without it. But the vocabulary of a languageassumes tremendous importance when it comes under thecontrol of grammar, which defines the rules governing themodification of words and the combination of words intosentences, and thus makes the language a coherent andsignificant function. Grammar (morphology, syntax) is thecollection of rules governing the modification of words andtheir combination into sentences. It is therefore thanks togrammar that it becomes possible for language to invest man’sthoughts in a material linguistic integument.The distinguishing feature of grammar is that it gives rulesfor the modification of words not in reference to concretewords, but to words in general, not taken concretely; that itgives rules for the formation of sentences not in reference toparticular concrete sentences — with, let us say, a concretesubject, a concrete predicate, etc. — but to all sentences ingeneral, irrespective of the concrete form of any sentence inparticular. Hence, abstracting itself, as regards both wordsand sentences, from the particular and concrete, grammartakes that which is common and basic in the modification ofwords and their combination into sentences and builds it intogrammatical rules, grammatical laws. Grammar is theoutcome of a process of abstraction performed by the humanmind over a long period of time; it is an indication of thetremendous achievement of thought.In this respect grammar resembles geometry, which ingiving its laws abstracts itself from concrete objects, regardingobjects as bodies devoid of concreteness, and definingthe relations between them not as the concrete relations ofconcrete objects but as the relations of bodies in general,devoid of all concreteness.22