Constituting the second volume of the Idéologie that he founded in 1803, Destutt de Tracy published his Grammar as a »science of signs«; it marks the transition from linguistics to semiotics. In a critical debate with the leading grammarians of his time, his analytic theory of all elements of proposition and syntax argues against hieroglyphic and symbolic scripts, and for a generally applicable ›philosophical‹ universal language, and is also opposed to a universal language solely for scholars that would be detrimental to the enlightenment of the people.