1. Prescriptive grammar

2. Prescriptive Grammar: a set of prescribed rules which tells people how to speak/write 18 century

3. Representatives Robert Lowth Lindley Murray Alexander Bain Joseph Priestley

4. The first grammars of English were prescriptive, not descriptive. The most influential grammar of this period was R. Lowth’s Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762). The aim of this grammar was “to teach us to express ourselves with propriety... and to enable us to judge of every phrase and form of construction, whether it be right or not”

5. a noun was presented in the form of the Latin noun paradigm: Nominative: the house Genitive: of the house Dative: to the house Accusative: the house Ablative: in, at, from the house Vocative: house

6. Latinization of English grammar was also reflected in the system of parts of speech. Patterning after Latin, prescriptivists set up a classification of eight parts of speech: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction,and interjection

7. To sum up, prescriptive grammar could be characterized by the following features: 1) Patterning after Latin in classifying words into word classes and establishing grammatical categories; 2) Reliance on meaning and function in definitions; 3) Approach to correctness: the standards of correctness are logic, which was identified with Latin, and the past. 4) Emphasis on writing rather than speech.

8. Prescriptive Approach Attitudes toward language based on what is held to be “correct” by socially prestigious elements and by teachers This attitude evinces complete disregard for the way a community actually speaks

9. Prescriptive Grammar Rules of “good” or “proper” usage, which dictate what is “good grammar” and what is “bad grammar” Example: (1)She doesn’t know him. (2)She don’t know him. Example (1) is supposed to be “good”, while (2) is supposed to be “bad”

10. Why? The basic problem with She don’t know him: it is not part of standard English. But it is part of some varieties/dialects of English Is there a logic to this judgment? Technically, what the example shows is the absence of 3rd person singular agreement -s Agreement morphemes on a verb mark who the subject of the verb is (in some languages…) Is the absence of agreement somehow bad or illogical?

11. Agreement… Consider modal verbs like can, would, etc. in standard English: Yes:No: 1)I canI can 2)You canYou can 3)He/she/it can*He/she/it cans So absence of agreement is not inherently “bad”. English has very little agreement compared to some languages, but more than e.g. Swedish or Chinese, which have no agreement on the verb. There’s nothing inherently better or worse about the “standard” variant

12. Varieties of Prescriptive Grammar The rules set out by prescriptive grammar have kind of a mixed character: Standard (written) style: Use 3rd person -s No double negatives; etc. “I didn’t go nowhere.” Cases in which people differ: Who/whom did you see at the park? The data are/is interesting.

13. Varieties of Prescriptive Grammar, cont. –Changes that are resisted by some speakers: Between you and I Me and John saw that. –Inventions of so-called experts, or grammarians Don’t split infinitives “…to boldly go where no one has gone before.” Don’t strand prepositions “Who did you give the candy bar to?” Use I shall and you will

14. Where did These Rules Come From? People thought Latin was the most elegant, logical, well- structured language. They tried to make English behave like Latin.

15. Rules for Latin don’t Work Well for English. English and Latin are very different kinds of languages. Latin is a language that relies on case endings (inflections). – Latin has case ending, not prepositions. – You can’t split infinitive in Latin because they are a single word. English is a language that relies on word order to express roles that words play.

16. 16Yun-Pi Yuan Their influence lives on in the handbook of usage widely found today. e.g. double negative(=affirmative), *ain’t *it’s me, ending sentences with preposition (*Who are you talking to?)

18. © BTexact Technologies 2001 Prescriptive vs. Descriptive Rules of etiquette or laws of society Rules about correct or socially accepted sentences Rules explicitly taught Based on the more favored variants Rules of scientific observations Rules about all sentences of a language Rules followed effortlessly and consistently Document all variants without discrimination