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Topic: Prescriptive grammar

Related Topics

Prescription and description

Grammar

Descriptive linguistics

Standard language

English language

Possessive case

Otto Jespersen

Robert Lowth

Novial language

Grammatical number

Edward Sapir

Free radical

Arabic alphabet

List of Latin phrases

Wall of Serpents

	Grammar - Open Encyclopedia (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)
		Grammar is part of the general study of language called linguistics.
		The subfields of grammar are phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics.
		The formal study of grammar is an important part of education from a young age through advanced learning, though the rules taught in schools are not a "grammar" in the sense most linguists use the term, as they are often prescriptive rather than descriptive.
	open-encyclopedia.com /Grammar (732 words)

	Prescription and description - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		However, the "correction" of English grammar was not a large subject of formal study until the eighteenth century.
		Lowth's grammar is the source of many of the prescriptive shibboleths that are studied in schools and was the first of a long line of usage commentators to judge the language in addition to describing it.
		Lowth's grammar was not written for children; nonetheless, within a decade of its appearance, versions of it were adapted for schools, and Lowth's stylistic opinions acquired the force of law in the classroom.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Prescription_and_description (1360 words)

	Grammar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Grammar is the discovery, enunciation, and study of rules governing the use of language.
		Prescriptive grammars are usually based on the prestige dialects of a speech community, and often specifically condemn certain constructions which are common only among lower socioeconomic groups, such as the use of "ain't" and double negatives in English.
		A descriptive grammar is a grammar that describes the language as it is actually used by people, regardless of whether prescriptive grammars would consider a construction correct or not.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Grammar (853 words)

	MSN Encarta - Grammar
		This kind of grammar is called normative, or prescriptive, because it defines the role of the various parts of speech (see Parts of Speech) and purports to tell what is the norm, or rule, of “correct” usage.
		Prescriptive grammars state how words and sentences are to be put together in a language so that the speaker will be perceived as having good grammar.
		A structural grammar should describe what the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure referred to by the French word langue—denoting the system underlying a particular language—that is, what members of a speech community speak and hear that will pass as acceptable grammar to other speakers and hearers of that language.
	encarta.msn.com /encyclopedia_761558783/Grammar.html (1599 words)

	Tech Writers, Grammar, and the Prescriptive Attitude (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)
		While prescriptive grammars were finding their way into the schools, an alternative approach to the study of language was being developed by linguists.
		Prescriptive grammars are interesting as a first attempt to approach the subject of language, but today they are as useless to writers as they are to linguists.
		Prescriptive grammar is useful for teaching English as a second language, but it has little value for the practicing writer.
	www.techwr-l.com /techwhirl/magazine/writing/grammar.html (4146 words)

	grammar
		Grammar involves rules of phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics that are all internalized, usually by the age of 5.
		Prescriptive Grammars, on the other hand, can be thought of as the opposite of Descriptive Grammars in that they describe rules that govern the use of language.
		Grammar studies were considered a means of honing the mind and the classical trivium of grammar, rhetoric, and logic were considered the foundation of all knowledge and were prerequisites for later studies in theology, philosophy, and literature (Weaver 1996).
	www.msu.edu /user/patter90/grammar.htm (6384 words)

	1 Foundational issues
		Rules of prescriptive grammar have the same status as rules of etiquette (like table manners or dress codes) or the laws of society, which divide the entire spectrum of possible human behavior into socially acceptable or legal behavior, on the one hand, and socially unacceptable or illegal behavior, on the other.
		Prescriptive grammar is based on the view that there is a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things.
		In summary, a generative grammar as we've constructed it so far consists of a set of elementary trees, which represent the vocabulary items in a language and the range of their combinatorial possibilities, and a substitution operation, by means of which the elementary trees combine into larger constituents and ultimately into grammatical sentences.
	www.ling.upenn.edu /~beatrice/syntax-textbook/ch1.html (9454 words)

	Grammar (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)
		Grammar is the study of the rules governing the use of a language.
		This is the sense in which some people state that "I didn't do nothing" is bad grammar.
		Programming languages used for the purpose of computer programming (such as Java) have grammars, but do not resemble human languages very much.
	www.bidprobe.com /en/wikipedia/g/gr/grammar.html (752 words)

	A Linguistics-Based Approach to Teaching Prescriptive Grammar (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)
		Traditional grammar was comfortable, and more than that it smacked of tradition, of holy truths passed on from educated generation to educated generation.
		The development of modern linguistics in the 19th and 20th centuries, of course, disturbed the placid waters of grammar teaching, at least for those seriously concerned about understanding the nature of language in general and syntax in particular, as well as those who wished to find better ways to teach composition.
		Thus, the goal of teaching prescriptive rules of standard English is to give to all students a flexibility to conduct a discourse in whatever terms the specific situation requires.
	mtprof.msun.edu /Win1991/ling.html (3247 words)

	Scott Sommers' Taiwan Weblog
		It is what linguists refer to as prescriptive grammar because it makes a prescription for the proper use of the language.
		I'll say that if you spoke only the rules of prescriptive grammar as it is found in grammar textbooks, you would have trouble being understood.
		Suffice it to say to say that the contents of "grammar" or even the "grammar of the English language" are that simply defined.
	blogs.salon.com /0002422/2003/11/24.html (638 words)

	[No title]
		These rules are never mentioned in style manuals or school grammars because the authors correctly assume that anyone capable of reading the manuals must already have the rules.
		Perhaps most importantly, since prescriptive rules are so psychologically unnatural that only those with access to the right schooling can abide by them, they serve as shibboleths, differentiating the elite from the rabble.
		By the logic of grammar, the pronoun is free to have any case it wants.
	pinker.wjh.harvard.edu /articles/media/1994_01_24_thenewrepublic.html (6700 words)

	Descriptive Verses Prescriptive Grammar \| Antimoon Forum
		There are two extreme points of view when it comes to grammar each with their strengths and weaknesses.
		Those in the prescriptive camp argue that the rules of grammar are set in stone and all must follow them lest their English (or whatever particular language they are speaking or writing) be wrong.
		The prescriptive attitude seems to ignor the fact that English has evolved over the centuries into what it is today whereas the descriptive attitude seems to be an anything-goes one.
	www.antimoon.com /forum/2002/370.htm (460 words)

	[No title]
		A good prescriptive approach is based on the natural rules of a language that the descriptivists have noted.
		Those of you who know prescriptive grammar rules will recognize that the first is considered 'incorrect' because the word 'who' should be 'whom', since it is the object of 'see'.
		Although some English grammar books were written quite early in history, it was not a subject that interested most educated people, since education at the time was conducted primarily in Latin with some Greek.
	www.hamline.edu /personal/srundquist/Slec1.html (1707 words)

	Ling 001 Prescriptive grammar (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)
		We also have some dictionary fragments and grammar lessons from a thousand years earlier, when Sumerian was being preserved as a literary and religious language.
		Panini's grammar contained more than 4,000 rules, which were memorized in spoken form only, and were not written down until several hundred years after his death.
		They were working on the foundations of mathematics; the relationship between the grammar and the logic of quantificational expressions in natural languages remains a topic of research to this day.
	www.ling.upenn.edu /courses/Spring_2001/ling001/prescriptive.html (4301 words)

	grammar
		Prescriptive Grammars establish a “proper” way in which to speak or write.
		Glenn views this role of grammar, what she calls “fluid, flexible, lively, ever-changing, emotional, beautiful, stylish, graceful language performance” (10) as the goal of grammar instruction.
		By that, I mean the teaching of Prescriptive School Grammar as outlined in the grand-daddy of all Prescriptive Grammar texts, Warriner’s.
	www.npatterson.net /grammar.html (6418 words)

	Unit 1. What is grammar? Types of grammar and the history of grammar by Naves & Celaya
		The history of grammar: From the Greeks, the Romans, the Jews, the Arabs to the XIX century and present grammars.
		Crystal, David (1998) "The Prescriptive Tradition", "The equality of Languages and "The magic of language" in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (2nd ed) Cambridge University Press.
		Consult Naves' selection of On-line Grammars Web Site to get familiar with a choice of electronic grammars and to discuss the extent to which they can be best described as either descriptive or prescriptive grammars.
	www.ub.es /filoan/DG1grammar.html (851 words)

	All English: Grammar, Linguistics, Vocabulary, and More
		Many English speakers haunted by prescriptive grammar might be surprised and a little relieved to learn that most scholars who study language today are more interested in what they call "descriptive grammar." Instead of establishing and enforcing lists of rules about language, these scholars try to describe the system by which humans communicate.
		Among other areas within the field of linguistics are phonology, the study of sounds used in languages; semantics, the study of meaning; psycholinguistics, the study of the way the brain processes language; and sociolinguistics, the study of language in society, particularly subjects such as dialect, euphemism, and slang.
		Prescriptive grammar, then, can help us master Standard English so that we can communicate effectively when we speak or write to other professionals.
	www.uncp.edu /home/canada/work/caneng/canenwel.htm (1696 words)

	Focus on Grammar (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)
		Focus on Grammar presents grammar exercises at four levels, each level being composed of a student book, a cassette, a workbook, a teacher's manual and a CD-ROM.
		The chapters start with a contextualization or awareness phase where the new structures are presented in context in the form of dialogues, newspaper and magazine excerpts, and so forth, both in written and oral form.
		In addition to the formal grammar explanations and the four-step approach, it also offers constant recycling and revising of the structures already studied all through the books, and proposes activities making use of the four basic skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing.
	www-writing.berkeley.edu /TESL-EJ/ej09/r5.html (1298 words)

	languagehat.com: GRAMMAR AND THE PRESCRIPTIVE ATTITUDE.
		I've always been fond of this summary of prescriptive grammar.
		I believe prescriptive grammar is a very useful tool for criticising grammar.
		Good writing and good grammar (in the prescriptive sense) are nearly orthogonal to one another.
	www.languagehat.com /archives/001763.php (1784 words)

	Resources on Prescriptivism
		Composition Grammar and Southern English –; In case you doubted that prescriptive grammar is politically-motivated, the Confederate States of
		Fowler’s The King’s English –; a prescriptive grammar from 1908
		The Grammar Lady -Mary Newton Bruder began her grammar hotline in Pittsgurgh in the 1980’s and writes a newspaper column on prescriptive grammar
	www-personal.umich.edu /~duanmu/ling211/prescriptive.htm (452 words)

	Types
		These grammars are commonplace in linguistics, where it is standard practice to investigate a 'corpus' of spoken or written material, and to describe in detail the patterns it contains.
		Such 'tecjing grammars' are widely used in schools, so much so that many people have only one meaning for the term 'grammar': a grammar book.
		These grammars were a formative influence on language ttitudes in Europe and America during the 18th and 19th centuries.
	www.llp.armstrong.edu /5800/types.html (411 words)

	“How barbarously...”
		Not until the eighteenth century, however, was English grammar regarded as a worthy subject of investigation in and of itself.
		In modern and living languages, it is absurd to pretend to set up the compositions of any persons whatsoever as the standard of writing, or their conversation as the invariable rule of speaking.
		It is not the business of grammar, as some critics seem preposterously to imagine, to give law to the fashions which regulate our speech.
	ebbs.english.vt.edu /hel/helmod/barbaroi.html (2291 words)

	Besides, prescriptive grammar can lead to pretty weird language:
		Grammar = the language rules in the brain
		Grammar = what the author of a prescriptive grammar would like to see
		Prescriptive grammar is not compatible with the view that language is an instinct
	www.ling.udel.edu /kramer/lec03/allslides03.htm (451 words)

	De. vs. Pre
		Prescriptive grammars do not accurately describe the form and function of natural language
		Prescriptive rules must be learned; they are not part of a native language for a child
		Prescriptive rules are based on ideas about what language should be, even though some of the characteristics of prescriptive grammars are not generally true about many languages of the world.
	www.ling.udel.edu /eastwick/ling101_f99/de_vs_pre.html (563 words)

	Lynch, Guide to Grammar and Style — P
		The grammar books you're used to are what linguists call prescriptive: that is, they prescribe rules for proper usage.
		For several hundred years, "grammar" was synonymous with "prescriptive grammar." You went to a book to get the official word: thou shalt not split infinitives, thou shalt not end sentences with prepositions.
		They've also demonstrated that many self-styled "grammar" experts know next to nothing about grammar as it's studied by professionals, and many aren't much better informed about the history of the language.
	www.andromeda.rutgers.edu /~jlynch/Writing/p.html (4853 words)

	Grammar - Unipedia (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)
		The set of those rules is also called the grammar of the language, and each language has its own distinct grammar.
		Teaching grammar is a combination of prescriptive and descriptive approaches with the aim of teaching a language to children and foreigners.
		The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation: The Mysteries of Grammar and Punctuation Revealed
	www.unipedia.info /Grammar.html (956 words)

	Download Diagnostic Prescriptive Grammar v2.0 Time-limited Trial software - Softlookup Downloads (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)
		Diagnostic tests determine a student's understanding of grammar and direct him/her to the appropriate lesson to improve performance.
		Each lesson focuses on a particular grammar skill, is self correcting, and allows students to advance without teacher intervention.
		Grammar Expert Plus includes a grammar checker, spelling checker, English grammar reference, thesaurus, and a mini word processor.
	www.softlookup.com /display.asp?id=2790 (350 words)

	BBC - h2g2 - Prescriptive vs Descriptive Approaches to Grammar Study
		By this we mean that grammar was regarded as a series of rules and regulations to be learned - sentences could be parsed
		It may be said in defence, as it were, of a prescriptive approach to grammar, that rule-making and labelling of language as ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ was regarded as progress for the best part of 1900 years; perhaps not without some justification.
		The prescriptive approach is to condemn this kind of usage as ‘incorrect’ and attempt to eradicate it from people’s vocabularies.
	www.bbc.co.uk /dna/h2g2/A655599 (1147 words)

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