KEY WORDS

Grammar

Prescription – prescriptive

Description – descriptive

Linguistics

Phonetics

Phonology

Pragmatics

Semantics

Syntax
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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
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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:-
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• 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.
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(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)
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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