byRichard Nordquist 

Updated April 26, 2018

So you think you know grammar? All well and good, but which type of grammar do you know?

Linguists are quick to remind us that there are different varieties of grammar--that is, different ways
of describing and analyzing the structures and functions of language.

One basic distinction worth making is that between descriptive grammar and prescriptive

grammar (also called usage). Both are concerned with rules--but in different ways. Specialists in
descriptive grammar examine the rules or patterns that underlie our use of words, phrases,
clauses, and sentences. In contrast, prescriptive grammarians (such as most editors and teachers)
try to enforce rules about what they believe to be the correct uses of language.

But that's just the beginning. Consider these varieties of grammar and take your pick. (For more
information about a particular type, click on the highlighted term.)

Comparative Grammar
The analysis and comparison of the grammatical structures of related languages is known
as comparative grammar. Contemporary work in comparative grammar is concerned with "a faculty
of language that provides an explanatory basis for how a human being can acquire a first language
. . .. In this way, the theory of grammar is a theory of human language and hence establishes the
relationship among all languages" (R. Freidin, Principles and Parameters in Comparative
Grammar. MIT Press, 1991).

Generative Grammar
Generative grammar includes the rules determining the structure and interpretation of sentences
that speakers accept as belonging to the language. "Simply put, a generative grammar is a theory
of competence: a model of the psychological system of unconscious knowledge that underlies a
speaker's ability to produce and interpret utterances in a language" (F. Parker and K.
Riley, Linguistics for Non-Linguists. Allyn and Bacon, 1994).

Mental Grammar
The generative grammar stored in the brain that allows a speaker to produce language that other
speakers can understand is mental grammar. "All humans are born with the capacity for
constructing a Mental Grammar, given linguistic experience; this capacity for language is called the
Language Faculty (Chomsky, 1965). A grammar formulated by a linguist is an idealized description
of this Mental Grammar" (P. W. Culicover and A. Nowak, Dynamical Grammar: Foundations of
Syntax II. Oxford University Press, 2003).

Pedagogical Grammar
Grammatical analysis and instruction designed for second-language students. "Pedagogical
grammar is a slippery concept. The term is commonly used to denote (1) pedagogical process--the
explicit treatment of elements of the target language systems as (part of) language teaching
methodology; (2) pedagogical content--reference sources of one kind or another that present
information about the target language system; and (3) combinations of process and content" (D.
Little, "Words and Their Properties: Arguments for a Lexical Approach to Pedagogical
Grammar." Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar, ed. by T. Odlin. Cambridge University Press,
1994).

Performance Grammar
A description of the syntax of English as it is actually used by speakers in dialogues.
"[P]erformance grammar . . . centers attention on language production; it is my belief that the
problem of production must be dealt with before problems of reception and comprehension can
properly be investigated" (John Carroll, "Promoting Language Skills." Perspectives on School
Learning: Selected Writings of John B. Carroll, ed. by L. W. Anderson. Erlbaum, 1985).
Reference Grammar
A description of the grammar of a language, with explanations of the principles governing the
construction of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. Examples of contemporary reference
grammars in English include A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, by Randolph
Quirk et al. (1985), the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (1999), and The
Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (2002).

Theoretical Grammar
The study of the essential components of any human language. "Theoretical grammar or syntax is
concerned with making completely explicit the formalisms of grammar, and in providing scientific
arguments or explanations in favour of one account of grammar rather than another, in terms of a
general theory of human language" (A. Renouf and A. Kehoe, The Changing Face of Corpus
Linguistics. Rodopi, 2003).

Traditional Grammar
The collection of prescriptive rules and concepts about the structure of the language. "We say
that traditional grammar is prescriptive because it focuses on the distinction between what some
people do with language and what they ought to do with it, according to a pre-established
standard. . . . The chief goal of traditional grammar, therefore, is perpetuating a historical model of
what supposedly constitutes proper language" (J. D. Williams, The Teacher's Grammar Book.
Routledge, 2005).

Transformational Grammar
A theory of grammar that accounts for the constructions of a language by linguistic transformations
and phrase structures. "In transformational grammar, the term 'rule' is used not for a precept set
down by an external authority but for a principle that is unconsciously yet regularly followed in the
production and interpretation of sentences. A rule is a direction for forming a sentence or a part of
a sentence, which has been internalized by the native speaker" (D. Bornstein, An Introduction to
Transformational Grammar. University Press of America, 1984)

Universal Grammar
The system of categories, operations, and principles shared by all human languages and
considered to be innate. "Taken together, the linguistic principles of Universal Grammar constitute
a theory of the organization of the initial state of the mind/brain of the language learner--that is, a
theory of the human faculty for language" (S. Crain and R. Thornton, Investigations in Universal
Grammar. MIT Press, 2000).

If 10 varieties of grammar aren't enough for you, rest assured that new grammars are emerging all
the time. There's word grammar, for instance. And relational grammar. Not to mention case
grammar, cognitive grammar, construction grammar, lexical functional
grammar, lexicogrammar, head-driven phrase structure grammar and many more.

LANGUAGE FACULTY
LINGUISTICS

 Sound
o Phonetics
o Phonology
 Form
o Word form
 Morphology
o Sentence structure
 Syntax
 Meaning
 o Semantics
o Pragmatics

SCIENTIFIC METHOD

 Observe data
 Make generalizations
 Develop a hypothesis
 Test again using more data
SYNTAX

 Pronouns
 R-Expressions
o Nouns
 Common
 Proper
 Anaphors
o Reflexive pronouns

GRAMMAR

 Observationally adequate
 Descriptively adequate
o Observations + acceptability judgements
 Generalizations
 Explanatory adequate
o Observations, acceptability, generalizations + lg acquisition

Parts of speech

 Semantic (classical)
 Distributional
o Morphological
o Syntactic
 Open class
o Content words
 Closed class
o Function words

STRUCTURE CONSTITUENT

[ John [is nice] ]

1 + 2 = sentence

CONSTITUENCY TEST

 Replacement
 Movement (we need to use more than 1 test to check if it is a constituency)
o Passive
o Clefting
o Preposing
 “I like half pound steaks” “half pound steaks is what I like”
 Modification
 Ellipsis (for verbs) / deletion *
 Stand-alone
 Co-ordination / conjunction

Ellipsis only for verb phrases*

PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES

TREES
PSR
1. What must occur?
2. What is optional? ( )
3. What can be repeated? +
4. What relative order exists?

NP (D) (Adj P+) N (PP+) (CP)

VP (Adv P+) V (NP) ( {NP / CP} ) (Adv P) (PP+) (Adv P+)

TENSE PHRASE

(TP ) SENTENCE

 MODAL
 AUX

TP

VP

NP T V NP
Mary will eat apples

 TP {NP / CP } (T) VP
Structural relations

o Mother
o Daughter
o Sisters
 Nodes
o Root node
 Has no mother (1)
o Non- terminal node (branching node)
 Has branches (1-3)
o Terminal node (non-branching node)
 Has no daughters

Domination

 General domination
o A dominates everything under it
 Immediate domination
o B immediately dominates D , E , F
 Interveners block domination
 Exhaustive domination
o Node X exhaustively dominates a set of terminal nodes if
 all members of the set are dominates
 No terminal node is dominated by X is not part of the set
 B exhaustively dominates D, E ,F
 H exhaustively dominates J, K

Precedence

 In English we read left to right

 Sister precedence
o J & K are sisters. J precedes K. they share the same mother and J is to the left.
o Mothers also points to precedence.
o D sister precede E & F
o F precedes G but doesn’t sister precede G bc. They don’t share a mother
 Immediate precedence
o F immediate precedes G bc. There isn’t anything intervening.

C-Command

 General c-command
o Relation where we go up once and down as much as we want.
o B c-commands C. B c-commands H.
o C c-commands B.
 Symmetric c-command
o When 2 nodes mutually c—command each other.
o They are sisters
 Asymmetric c-command
o When 1 node c-commands another but not the other way around
o B c-commands D, but D doesn’t c-command B

 Subject
o Is the daughter of TP
o It can be a CP or an NP
 Objects
o Direct
 Given to the benefit of another
 o Indirect
 Beneficiary
 “To Mary” is an IO
o O/P
 Mary is an O/P
 Oblique
o Any NP / PP that isn’t a subject or an object

Binding

o Describing the conditions in the structural relations bt nouns

o NOUNS
o R-expressions
 Proper nouns
 Common nouns
 Refers to an entity in the world
o Pronouns
 Refers to sth in the sentence / context
o Anaphors
 Reflexive pronouns
 Refers to sth within the same sentence (an r-expression or a pronoun)
 Has to match the number / gender
o An antecedent (NP) gives its meaning to an anaphor or a pronoun.
o Indexation
o Process of identifying the NP with a code.
o Helps to identify references within the sentence / antecedent

Binding Principles

 Co-indexation and C-command

 PRINCIPLE A: An anaphor must be BOUND in its BINDING DOMAIN
o John hit himself
o John and himself are BOUND: They are co-indexed and John C-commands himself
 PRINCIPLE B: A pronoun must be FREE in its BINDING DOMAIN
o John hates him (Bob). John c-commands him but they are not co-indexed
 PRINCIPLE C: R-expression must be FREE in all BINDING DOMAINS (everywhere)
o He (Bob) likes John

The binding domain

 Same clause as its antecedent

From Flat Structure to X-bar Theory

X-Bar notation

The DP hypothesis

Clauses

The CP in X-bar

The TP in X-bar

Constraining X-bar