Introduction to Linguistic

The Nature of grammar

Step 3

Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia UNAD.

CEAD Valledupar
 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 woman kept a large

article noun verb article adjective

Snake in a cage, but

Noun preposition article noun conjunction

it escaped recently.
pronoun verb 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”).

There are some conceptual errors mentioned by the author of the book,
some of them are: don’t split the infinitive, never start a sentence with
and, the prepositions shouldn’t go at the end of the sentences and the
use of subject and object pronouns. This “errors” are considered social
judgment as “poorly educated”. To avoid this, we should use the
prescriptive approach and apply the proper rules for English 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.
Not obeyed rule: not to split the infinitive
Correction: The old theory consistently failed to explain fully all the
data.

(ii) I can’t remember the name of the person I gave the

book to
Not obeyed rule: You must not end a sentence with a preposition.
Correction: 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?

Figure 1: Types of determiners. Source: https://eslgrammar.org/determiner/

In English grammar, a determiner is a word or a group of words that

specifies, identifies, or quantifies the noun or noun phrase that follows
it. Determiners come at the start of a noun phrase and tell more about
what comes after it1.

How many examples were included in this chapter?

In this chapter were used all types of determiners as seen below:

Articles: “A young girl is biologically “female,”…” “The sentence is also

in the active voice”
Cardinal numbers: “Spanish, for example, has two grammatical
genders, masculine and feminine”
Distributives: “Each of the Latin verb forms is different,” “but neither
we nor the French people…”
Difference words: “in terms of another category called tense”
Defining words: “which can be used to describe what happens to Cath”
Possessive: “Cathy is loved by her dog or just Cathy is loved”
Quantifiers: “she couldn’t do much when she was pregnant”
Demonstratives: “This agreement is partially based on the category of
number”

Determiners were used in many of the examples and in the explanation

of each concept from the chapter “GRAMMAR”.

All the examples given were taken from the chapter “Grammar”

2.3.2 In this chapter, we discussed “correction” in grammar.

What is hypercorrection?
Hypercorrection is to use correct rules in incorrect forms. It results from
the over-application of a perceived rule. Sometimes speakers or writers
use rules in inappropriate context. Example: “Thanks to all whom
helped me”

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?
1
Nordquist, Richard. "Definition and Examples of Determiners in English." ThoughtCo, Feb. 11, 2020,
thoughtco.com/determiner-in-grammar-1690442.
2.3.3.1 Jakku-ga gakkoo-e ikimasu
Jack school to go SOV
(“Jack goes to school”)

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

Kazuko school at English learn be SOV
(“Kazuko is learning English at school”)

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)

In different languages the word order is different. Reading the examples

given I can say that in Korean the order of basic sentences is SOV and
in English it’s SVO. That’s why when we learn and L2 generally we make
some culture interference.

3. 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?

Descriptive grammar is considered a breakthrough in linguistics because

it describes language structure in order to show what should be said
instead of force the use of a set of fixed rules. It also describes a
particular language or a set of languages, and explains why they should
be the way they are.
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

https://eslgrammar.org/determiner/

Nordquist, Richard. "Definition and Examples of Determiners in English."

ThoughtCo, Feb. 11, 2020, thoughtco.com/determiner-in-grammar-
1690442.

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.4th.edition.apr_.2010.ebook-elohim.pdf