Approaches to Grammar Ed McCorduck English 402--Grammar SUNY Cortland

traditional grammar o a.k.a. prescriptive grammar o stresses “correctness,” the “proper” way to say or write things o Standard English o Edited American English slide 2: traditional grammar English 402: Grammar

descriptive grammar o where prescriptive grammar is normative, descriptive grammar is neutral (any variation in natural language is neither “wrong” nor “corrupt”) o rigorous, scientific analysis of actual language slide 3: descriptive grammar English 402: Grammar

transformational grammar (a.k.a. generative grammar, a.k.a. transformational/generative grammar) o a grammar is a model of native speakers’ competence—it should produce the grammatical sentences of a language and only the grammatical sentences o rigorous, scientific analysis of actual language slide 4: transformational grammar English 402: Grammar

 grammatical vs. ungrammatical  in traditional grammar, “right” vs. “wrong,” “correct” vs. “incorrect,” “proper” vs. “improper”  in descriptive and especially transformational grammar, “natural” vs. “unnatural,” “well formed” vs. “malformed” (or “ill formed”) slide 5: explanation of grammatical vs. ungrammatical English 402: Grammar

examples We don’t have any bananas today. is “grammatical” in all the above senses of the term slide 6: example of a “grammatical” evaluation English 402: Grammar

We don’t have no bananas today. is “ungrammatical” in the traditional sense, but “grammatical” in the descriptive and transformational senses (may be produced naturally by some speakers) We doesn’t have no bananas today. is maybe more “ungrammatical” in the traditional sense, but still “grammatical” in the descriptive and transformational senses because it may be produced by some speakers Ain’t got none of them there bananas today. is even more “ungrammatical” in the traditional sense, but still naturally occurring and thus descriptively and transformationally “grammatical” slide 7: examples of traditional “ungrammatical” evaluations English 402: Grammar

*Has us doesn’t banana of today any. is “ungrammatical” (signified by *) in the descriptive and transformational senses slide 8: example of a descriptive and transformational “ungrammatical” evaluation English 402: Grammar