Key Words Grammar Prescription – Prescriptive Description – Descriptive Linguistics

KEY WORDS Grammar Prescription – prescriptive Description – descriptive Linguistics Phonetics Phonology Pragmatics Semantics Syntax

2

GRAMMAR In linguistics, grammar refers to the logical and structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology, semantics and pragmatics. Each language has its own grammar. “English grammar” is the set of rules. A reference book describing the grammar of a language is called a “reference grammar” or simply “a grammar”. A fully explicit grammar exhaustively describing the grammatical constructions of a language is called a descriptive grammar, as opposed to linguistic prescription, which tries to enforce the governing rules of how a language is to be used. Grammatical frameworks are approaches to constructing grammars. The standard framework of generative grammar is the transformational grammar model developed in various ways by Noam Chomsky and his followers from the 1950’s onwards.

HISTORY OF LINGUISTICS The first systematic grammars originated in Iron Age India, with Yaska (6th C. BC), Panini (4th century BC) and his commentators Pingala, Katyayana and Patanjali (2nd century BC). In the West, grammar emerged as a discipline in Hellenism from the 3rd century BC onwards with authors like Rhyanus and Aristarchus of Samothrace, the oldest extant work being the ‘Art of Grammar’, attributed to Dionysius Thrax. Latin grammar developed by following Greek models from the 1st century BC, due to the work of authors like Orbilius Papillus, Remmius Palaemon, Marcus Valerius Probus, Verrius Flaccus, Aemilius Asper. Belonging to the ‘trivium’ of the seven liberal arts, grammar was taught as a core discipline throughout the Middle Ages, following the influence of authors from Late Antiquity, such as Priscian. Treatment of vernaculars began gradually during

3

the High Middle Ages, with isolated works such as the ‘First Grammatical Treatise’, but became influential only in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. In 1486, Antonio de Nebrija published ‘Las introduciones Latinas contrapuesto el romance al Latin’, and the first Spanish grammar, ‘Gramatica de la lengua castellana’, in 1492. During the 16th century. Italian Renaissance, the ‘Questione della lingua’ was the discussion on the status and ideal form of the Italian language, initiated by Dante’s ‘de vulgari eloquentia. Grammars of non-European languages began to be compiled for the purposes of evangelization and Bible translation from the 16th century onward, such as ‘Grammatica o Are de la Lengua General de los Indios de de los Reynos del Peru’ (1560), and a Quenchua grammar by Fray Domingo de Santo Tomas. In 1762, the ‘Short Introduction to English Grammar’ of Robert Lowth was published. From the latter part of the 18th century, grammar came to be understood as a subfield of the emerging discipline of modern linguistics. The Comparative Grammar of Franz Bopp, the starting point of modern comparative linguistics came out in 1833.

DEVELOPMENT OF GRAMMARS Grammars evolve through usage and also due to separations of the human population. With the advent of written representations, formal rules about language usage tend to appear also. Formal grammars are codification of usage that are developed by repeated documentation overtime, and by observation as well. As the rules become established and developed, the prescriptive concept of grammatical correctness can arise. This often creates a discrepancy between contemporary usage and that which has been accepted, over time, as being correct. Linguistics tend to believe that prescriptive grammars do not have any justification beyond their authors aesthetic tasters; however, prescriptions are considered in socio linguistics as part of the explanation for why some people say “I didn’t do nothing” some say “I didn’t do anything’, and some say one or the other depending on social context. Various “grammar frame works” have been developed in theoretical linguistics since the mid 20th century, in particular under the influence of the idea of a “Universal grammar” in the United States, of these, the main divisions are:-

4

•

Transformational grammar (TG)

•

Systemic functional grammar (SFG)

•

Principles and Parameters Theory (P&P)

•

Lexical-functional Grammar (LFG)

•

Generalised Phrase Structure Grammar (GPSG)

•

Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG)

•

Dependency Grammars (DG)

•

Role and Reference Grammar (RRG)

PRESCRIPTION The oldest recorded linguistic descriptions such as those of Arabic, Sanskrit Greek and Latin are prescriptive and pedagogical in purpose; they attempt to describe a language accurately, but they also set out to prescribe how it should be used. In nation-states which have developed highly focussed standard languages, the part of this ancient linguistic tradition which offers a normative model has contributed to a widespread belief that there is one and only one correct way of using the language. This norm of correctness is held to be prescribed by some authoritative source; other varieties, which are held to be inferior, are commonly described as ‘incorrect’ or ‘ungrammatical’.

NORMS AND ATTITUDES Such views underline traditional pedagogical practice in highly developed nation-states. They appear to be resistant to change or conscious reflection and are commonly expressed in letters to the press or the broadcasting authorities which complain of ‘misuses’ of the language. The sentences {1(a-c)} are examples of such supposed misuses of English, while (2a-c) represent the corresponding “correct” forms.

5

(1a)

Peter is different to (or than) John.

(1b)

It was him that did it

(1c)

I didn’t do nothing

(2a)

Peter is different from John

(2b)

It was him who did it.

(2c)

I didn’t do anything

Paradoxically, the “ungrammatical” or “incorrect” variants occur commonly and normally. Both variants of (1a) are widely used in speech and writing by educated speakers and are effectively alternatives to (2a);

(1b) is a normal

colloquial usage which many native speakers of English would naturally adopt in conversation, while reserving (2b) for writing or very formal discourse, and (1c) represents a usage avoided by educated speakers, but probably employed by a majority of all English speakers. However, prescriptive beliefs about correct and grammatical language do not allow for the equal acceptability of more than one alternative form; nor do they admit that where there is a choice, one form might be appropriated to speech and the other to writing. Nor is it admitted that non-standard dialects might be characterised by sets of grammatical rules which are simply different from those of Standard English [(1c) and (2c) for example] Defining Standard English rather loosely as the variety of English used by educated speakers, we may note that the term “grammatical” is used here in a descriptive rather than a prescriptive sense: the grammar of a language or dialect is simply a description of the regularities which underlie its structure. Every human language and dialect have an immensely complex structure, which can be described in terms of grammatical rules. Thus (1c), to the descriptive linguist, is a grammatical sentence of a dialect such as Cockney (London dialect), where double negation is a regularly occurring feature. One consequence of the gulf which has opened up in recent centuries between popular prescriptive approaches to language and contemporary linguistic reality is that millions of native speakers of standardized languages (such as English)

6

consider that their own native language, in some sense, does not represent the real or correct language. The latter is often felt, with varying degrees of explicitness, to be the property of a small number of speakers who confirm to the norms of what (in the case of English) is often called “Oxford English”, “BBC English” or the “Queen’s English”. Alternatively the real language might be thought to be embodied in dictionaries, school grammars, or handbooks of usage. (e.g.: Fowler’s “Modern English Usage”) and to be an ideal from which their own language is a corrupt deviation. These attitudes are very different from those of contemporary descriptive linguistics, who generally, but controversially, view prescription as an issue which lies outside the discipline of linguistics, and whose goals are seen as irreconcilable with those of the prescriptive grammarian. In the linguists differ from the classical grammarians of Greece and Rome; for the latter, the goal of descriptive linguists was pedagogical and their prescriptive norms were also descriptively adequate. Unlike the descriptive linguist, present day prescriptivists generally work partially and selectively, focussing on small and easily specifiable parts of the language, rather than attempting a comprehensive description. The distinctions between speech and writing, between formal and informal situations of language use, and among varieties of language associated with social and geographical factors, are generally not taken into account-nor is the distinction.

ORIGINS Historically, a number of factors are found that give rise to prescriptive tendencies in language. Whenever a society reaches a level of complexity to the point where it acquires a permanent system of social stratification and hierarchy, the speech used by political and religious authorities is preserved and admired. This speech often takes on archaic and honorific colours. The style of language used in ritual also differs from everyday speech in many cultures. When writing is introduced into a culture, new avenues for standards are opened. Written language lacks voice tone and stress, and other vocal features that serve to disambiguate speech, and tends to compensate for these by stricter

7

adherence to norms. And since writers can take more time to think about their words, new avenues of standardization open up. Thus literary language, the specific register of written language, lends itself to prescription to a higher degree than spoken language. The introduction of writing also introduces new economies into language. A body of written texts represents a sunk cost; changes in written language threaten to make the body of preserved texts obsolete, so writing creates an incentive to preserve older forms. Bureaucracy is another factor that encourages prescriptive tendencies in language. When government centres arise, people acquire different forms of language which they use in dealing with the government, which may be seated far from the locality of the governed. Standard writs and other legal forms create a body of precedent in language that tends to be reused over generations and centuries. In more recent times, the effects of bureaucracy have been accelerated by the popularization of travel and telecommunications; people grow accustomed to hearing speech from distant areas. Eventually these several factors encourage standards to arise.

PROBLEMS While many people would agree that some kinds of prescriptive teaching or advice are desirable, prescription easily becomes controversial. Many linguists are skeptical of the quality of advice given in many usage guides, particularly when the author are not qualified in languages or linguistics. Even when practiced by competent experts, giving wise advice is not always easy, and things can go badly wrong. A number of issues pose potential pitfalls. One of the most serious of these is that prescription has a tendency to favour the language of one particular region or social class over others, and thus militates against linguistic diversity. Another problem with prescription is that prescriptive rules quickly become entrenched and it is difficult to change them when the language changes. Thus there is a tendency for prescription to be overly conservative. When in the early 19th century, prescriptive use advised against the split infinitive, the main reason was that

8

this construction was not infact a frequent feature of the varieties of English favoured by those prescribing. Today it has become common in most varieties of English and a prohibition is no longer sensible. A further problem is the difficulty of defining legitimate criteria. Although prescribing authorities almost invariably have clear ideas about why they make a particular choice, and the choices are therefore seldom entirely arbitrary, but they often appear arbitrary to others who do not understand or are not in sympathy with the criteria.

Judgement based on the subjective associations of a word is more

problematic.

Finally, there is the problem of inappropriate dogmatism.

Wise

prescriptive advice may identify a form as non-standard and suggest it be used with caution in some contexts. An example from the 18th century England is Robert Lowth’s tentative suggestion that preposition stranding in relative clauses sounds colloquial; from this grew a grammatical dogma that a sentence should never end with a preposition. For these reasons, some writers have argued that linguistic prescription is foolish or futile.

DESCRIPTION Description involves observing language and creating conceptual categories for it without establishing rules of language. In the study of language, description, or descriptive linguistics is the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is spoken by a group of people in a speech community. All scholarly research in linguistics is descriptive; like all other sciences, its aim is to observe the linguistic world as it is without the bias of preconceived ideas about how it ought to be. Modern descriptive linguistics is based on a structural approach to language, as exemplified in the work of Bloomfield and others. Descriptivism is the belief that description is more significant or important to teach, study, and practice than prescription. An extreme ‘mentalist’ viewpoint denies that the linguistic description of a language can be done by anyone but a competent speaker. Such speakers have internalized something called “linguistic competence”, which gives them the ability to extrapolate correctly from their experience new but correct expressions, and to reject unacceptable expressions.

9

A linguistic description is considered descriptively adequate if it achieves one or more of the following goals of descriptive linguistics: •

A description of the phonology of the language in question

•

A description of the morphology of words belonging to that language

•

A description of the syntax of well-formed sentences of that language.

•

A description of lexical derivations

•

A documentation of the vocabulary including at least one thousand entries.

•

A reproduction of a few genuine texts.

PRESCRIPTION & DESCRIPTION IN CONFLICT Given any particular language controversy, prescription and description represent quite different, though not necessarily incompatible, approaches to thinking about it. For example a descriptive linguist working in English would describe the word ‘aint’ in terms of usage, distribution and history, observing both the growth in its popularity but also the resistance to it in some parts of the language community. Prescription, on the other hand, would consider whether it met criteria of rationality, historical grammatical usage or conformity to a contemporary standard dialect. When a form does not confirm, as is the case for ‘aint’ - the prescriptivist will recommend avoiding it in formal contexts. These two approaches are not incompatible as they attempt different tasks for different purposes.

10

CONCLUSION •

Grammar refers to the logical and structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases and words in any language.

•

Descriptive grammar is explicit describing the grammatical constructions of a language.

•

Prescriptive grammar tries to enforce the

rules of low a language should be

used •

Both prescriptive and descriptive approaches are not incompatible as they attempt different tasks for different purpose.

REFERENCES 1.

Oxford International Encyclopedia of Linguistics second edition

2.

ELsevier Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Second Edition.

3.

Wikipedia