Step 3 - The nature of Grammar

Tutor: Óscar Javier Bohórquez

Student: Romario García Urbina

Code: 1051744389

Group: 518017_50

Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia UNAD

School of Education Sciences

Degree Program in Foreign Languages with an emphasis in English

Course: Introduction To Linguistics (518017A_761)

Cartagena de Indias - April 2020

Activities to Develop
1. Read the document “Grammar” Chapter 7, pages 80-95, in ‘Yule, G. (2010). The
Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press’; found in the Course
Contents, UNIT 1, in the Knowledge Environment; and also read the text “Grammar”
Chapter 4, pages 19-24, in ‘Bauer, Laurie.; The Linguistic Student's Handbook’

2. Based on the first text, you need to post the following analysis:

Study questions
2.1. Identify all the parts of speech used in the following sentence (e.g. woman = noun):
“The woman kept a large snake in a cage, but it escaped recently”.

The=Article
Woman=Noun
Kept=Verb
A=Article
Large=Adjective
Snake=Noun
In=Preposition
A=Article
Cage=Noun
But=Conjunction
It=Pronoun
Escaped=Verb
Recently=Adverb

and respond to following analysis:

According to the author, what is an important wrong linguistic view at establishing a proper
English grammar model in eighteenth-century (this conceptual error is even today present
when considering “a good English use”).

An incorrect linguistic point of view is the prescriptive approach, which highlights that: It
is one thing to adopt the grammatical labels (e.g. “noun,” “verb”) to categorize words in
English sentences; it is quite another thing to go on to claim that the structure
of English sentences should be like the structure of sentences in Latin. This point of
grammar is known as the set of rules for the "proper" use of a language.

2.2. What prescriptive rules for the “proper” use of English are not obeyed in the following
sentences and how would they be “corrected”?

(i) The old theory consistently failed to fully explain all the data.
(ii) I can’t remember the name of the person I gave the book to
In the first sentence, the rule that is not obeyed is the following:
You must not split an infinitive.
Its correct form would be: The old theory consistently failed to explain fully all the data.

In the second sentence, the rule that is not obeyed is the following:
You must not end a sentence with a preposition.
Its correct form would be: I can’t remember the name of the person to whom I gave the
book.
2.3. Tasks

2.3.1. Another term used in the description of the parts of speech is “determiner.”
What are determiners? How many examples were included in this chapter?

A determinant is a word that determines or limits the meaning of a noun, that is, they
express a reference of the name or noun within a context. A special feature of determinants
is that they are placed in front of a noun to make clear which noun they refer to.
Determiners are closely associated with nouns and express notions such as quantity,
definiteness and possession. The phrases the house, this house, my house, every house,
Kim’s house contain the noun house and determiners of different kinds. Note that although
the word this is a determiner in this construction, it is not always a determiner.

Some examples of determinants in this chapter are:

The makes a lot of noise.
I heard a yesterday.
An old man brought a shotgun to the wedding.
Gwen took Kingston with her.
The dog loved the girl.
The lucky boys found a backpack in the park and they opened it carefully.
The woman kept a large snake in a cage, but it escaped recently.

2.3.2 In this chapter, we discussed “correction” in grammar. What is hypercorrection?

It is a term used in linguistics that refers to some type of error or mispronunciation in the
language that is generally due to a desire to be too formal or too correct. Usually, those who
make the hypercorrection mistake take a linguistic rule and apply it where it should not be
applied. In English, these errors are often grammatical, and some forms of hypercorrection
in this language involve personal pronouns and the use of prepositions at the end of a
sentence. Hypercorrection can also occur in pronunciation, usually in the cases of people
who are studying a new language.

An example is the use of "whom" when "who" is the correct form, as in 'Whom do you
think will be invited to the party this weekend?'
2.3.3. The structural analysis of a basic English sentence (NP + V + NP) is often described
as “Subject Verb Object” or SVO. The basic sentence order in a Gaelic sentence (V + NP +
NP) is described as “Verb Subject Object” or VSO.
After looking at the examples below (based on Inoue, 1979), would you describe the basic
sentence order in these Japanese sentences as SVO or VSO or something else?

2.3.3.1 Jakku-ga gakkoo-e ikimasu

Jack school to go
(“Jack goes to school”)
This sentence is described as Subject Object Verb (SOV).

2.3.3.2 Kazuko-ga gakkoo-de eigo-o naratte imasu

Kazuko school at English learn be
(“Kazuko is learning English at school”)
This sentence is described as Subject Object Verb (SOV).

2.3.3.3 Divergence in the syntactic patterns of languages is responsible for the patterns of
errors made by English-language learners. Given that English-language learners from
Korea produce sentences such as *I ice-cream like and *I book read, what can you say
about word order in Korean? (Taken from Gordon T. 2012)

Error analysis is too often ignored when learning English in Korea. The focus here is on the
L2 errors produced due to the primary differences in the sentence surface structures of
English (L2) and Korean (L1), as well as the relationship of Korean thought and Korean
culture and syntax in the production of mistakes in English. These include the word order
SVO versus SOV.
Basic Korean sentences comprise of the order of subject-object-verb. It is different from
English sentences organized in the order of subject-verb-object.

4. Based on the second text please answer: In the text we can see that in the history of
linguistics we have two forms to understand grammar: A Prescriptive form and a
Descriptive one; why the second comprehension it is considered a breakthrough in
Linguistics?
It is considered a breakthrough in linguistics because, descriptive grammar is based on a set
of rules about language and how to actually use it, there is no right or wrong language here,
instead it focuses on the way people use really a language; So this systematically studies
the description of a language and its structure as used by speakers and writers.
 References

Bauer, L. (2007). The Linguistic Student’s Handbook. Edinburgh: Edinburgh

University Press. Retrieved from http://bibliotecavirtual.unad.edu.co/login?
url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=194155&lang=es&site=eds-live&scope=site

Yule, G. (2010). The Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Retrieved
from https://fac.ksu.edu.sa/sites/default/files/cambridge.the_.study_.of_.language.4t
h.edition.apr_.2010.ebook-elohim.pdf