THE NOTIONS OF CORRECTNESS

Prescriptive and Descriptive Rules of Grammar

Grammatical and Ungrammatical

What is grammar? The grammar of a language consist of

the sounds and sound patterns, the basic units of meaning such as words, and the rules to combine all of these to form sentences with the desired meaning.

Grammar is what we know. It represents our linguistic competence - linguistic knowledge.

Linguistic knowledge is learned subconsciously, with no awareness that rules are being learned => represents a complex cognitive system.

Linguistic performance is applying (using) this knowledge in actual speech production and comprehension (e.g. slips of tongue, hesitations, repetitions etc.).

Prescriptive and descriptive rules of grammar Prescriptivism implies that one variety

of language has an inherently higher value than others, and that this ought to be imposed on the whole of the speech community (esp. in relation to grammar and pronunciation).

Adherents to this variety are said to speak or write ‘correctly’; deviations from it are said to be ‘incorrect’.

Some usages are ‘prescribed’, to be learned and followed accurately; others are ‘proscribed’, to be avoided.

Prescriptive rules prescribe a standard usage – which is appropriate only to specific variety of language usually the correct forms that all educated people should use in speaking and writing.

For example

a. Use ‘shall; when using the first person ( I or we).

b. Use ‘will with 2nd. or 3rd. person (you, he, she, it and they)

c. Never split and infinitived. Never ends a sentence with a

preposition.

I shall go tomorrow. We will go tomorrow. She will bring the books with her. To enhance revenues further, the

company has agreed to new marketing strategies.

To further enhance revenues, the company has agreed to new marketing strategies.

From where do you come? Where do you come from? To whom am I speaking? Whom am I speaking to?

“Purists” believe certain correct forms all educated people should use in speaking and writing.

Language is vigorous and dynamic and constantly changing

Examples:The use of double negatives The double negatives was simply an emphatic

way of negating something. What we have done in standard speech over the centuries is to weaken it.

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Examples:

I don’t have none. You was wrong

about that. Mathilda is fatter

than me. Try to arrive at the

prescriptive rules for these examples.

I don’t have any. You were ………

Mathilda …. than I. (he, they)

(in comparative construction)

Prescriptive rules make value judgement about the correctness of an utterance and try to force a usage that conforms with one formal norm. Not based on actual use.

From linguistic point of view there is no basis for preferring the structure of one language variety over another.

The alternative view is more concerned with the facts of linguistic usage.

The linguists describe and record facts of linguistic diversity.

Descriptive rules accept the patterns a speaker actually uses and tries to account for them. Allow for different varieties of a language.

Grammatical versus ungrammatical

In all languages, every sentence is a sequence of words but not every sequence of words is a sentence. For danced Herod Salome

Sequence of words that conform to the rules of syntax are said to be well-formed or grammatical. Violation to the syntactic rules are ill-formed or ungrammatical

A sentence is said to be grammatical when it conforms to the rule of grammar – mental grammar and description of the internalised grammar

Not all strings of words constitute sentences in a language - our knowledge of a language determines which are and which are not.

“rules for forming sentences”.

Grammaticality is based on rules acquired or constructed unconsciously as children.

The ability to make grammatical judgments depends on syntactic knowledge. Enormous crickets in pink socks danced

at the prom A verb crumpled the milk

Grammatical judgements do not depend on whether the sentence is meaningful or not.

Grammaticality does not depend on the truth of sentences.

The notion of ungrammatical is used to characterize utterances that cannot be said by native speakers of a language.

For example any violation of a relatively small set of prescriptive “rules” like these:

Never split the infinitive. Never begin a sentence with and or but It’s me is ungrammatical; it is I is

grammatical.

Check the grammaticality of the following sentences:

Robin forced the sheriff leave. The devil made Faust leave. That birds can fly amazes. Myself bit John It is easy to frighten Emily.

Syntactic knowledge accounts for double meaning, or ambiguity of expressions usually found in cartoons.

The humor of cartoons depends on the ambiguity – structural and lexical ambiguity

Structural ambiguity Visiting professors can be interesting The boy saw the man with the

telescope

Lexical ambiguity This curry is hot. This will make you smart.

Why rules that do not reflect actual language use survive?

They provide a standard of English that is accepted by most speakers

A set of standard rules is necessary for students learning English as a second language.

Social reasons- non-standard dialects are still frowned upon and can inhibit one’s progress in society .Hence,

prescriptive rules allow a speaker of a non-standard dialect to learn the rules of the standard dialect and employ them in appropriate social circumstances.

The role of linguistics in language teaching

A teacher who has been exposed to linguistics will be more aware of the nature of language and how it works.

Teacher becomes more competent and confident.

Linguists provide a rigorous description of language to be taught as well as the native language.