Comparative Chart

Prescriptive grammar Descriptive grammar

What we are told we should not do How people use language in everyday
with language. speech.

Determined by some notion of How our language works.

authority
Must be explicitly learned. Part of our "natural" language.

A set of prescribed rules which tells How people do speak in actual

people how to speak/write. utterances.

Traditional Grammar and the Linguistic description of the structures

prescriptive approach: Grammar as of a language as they are observed to
linguistic etiquette, the identification of be used, with no evaluation (non-
the best/proper structures to be used. judgmental) of social correctness.

Prescriptive rules are: Descriptive rules are more general and

•not valid cross-linguistically more basic than prescriptive rules in
•are sometimes based on non- the sense that all sentences of a
linguistic rules language are formed in accordance
•can be attempts to model valid with them, not just the subset of
language rules from a different sentences that count as correct or
language socially acceptable.
• seldomly agreed upon by speakers of
the same language What native speakers know (tacitly)
about their language. We have to
Examples of Descriptive rules (in distinguish between different variants of
English) one language, versus things that are
•Subjects come before verbs impossible in all varieties.
•Form a regular past tense by adding
"-ed" Rules of English that you may have
•Adjectives come before nouns been taught in grammar school.
•No split infinitives
Following descriptive rules does not •No double negatives; they're "illogical"
always lead to good comprehension. •Use "who" and "whom" properly
A sentence can be descriptively fine, •Prepositions should not end sentences
but still be incomprehensible : •Use "I" instead of "me"
•The cat that the dog chased ran away. •Use "good" and "well" correctly
•The cat the dog chased ran away.
•The cat that the dog that mouse Split infinitives
frightened chased ran away. •To boldly go where no man has gone
•The cat the dog the mouse frightened before.
chased ran away. •To go boldly where no man has gone

"Center-embedded" sentences like the
ones above follow the descriptive rules
for relative clauses in English.
However, as is seen in the last two
sentences, they can be extremely
dificult to understand!
Some sentences are difficult because
they trick us into thinking that they
mean one thing, and they turn out to
mean something else. These are
"garden path" sentences:
•The horse raced past the barn fell.
•While the woman was mending the
sock fell off her lap
In the above sentences, we interpret
the sentence one way, and are then
forced to go back and reinterpret.
Overcoming the initial interpretation
can often be very hard to do.
The next sentence is impossible to
comprehend on the first reading.
Without any clues, we are unable to
assign different meanings to the four
"buffaloes". (Hint: one meaning of
"buffalo" is "to annoy")
•Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.
("Buffalo from Buffalo annoy other
buffalo")
Some Interim Conclusions
•Prescriptive grammars do not
accurately describe the form and
function of natural language
•Prescriptive rules must be learned;
they are not part of a native language
for a child
•Prescriptive rules are based on ideas
about what language should be, even
though some of the characteristics of
prescriptive grammars are not
generally true about many languages
of the world.
before.
•She need to carefully assemble that
model
•She needs carefully to assemble that
model.
Sentence-final prepositions
•What does that widget attach to?
•To what does that widget attach?
•Who did you go to the concert with?
•With who(m) did you go to the
concert?
"Who" vs. "Whom"
•Who did Sally punch?
•Whom did Sally punch?
•You gave your car to who?
•You gave your car to whom?
Double Negatives
•Are not "illogical"; in many languages
they are the normal way to express
negation.
Spanish
"No vi nada." = English: I didn't see
nothing.
French
"Il n'a jamais dit cela." = English: He
hasn't never said that.
•French and Spanish speakers use
multiple negation on a daily basis, and
they are not confused!
Split infinitives
•In Latin, Spanish, French, it is
impossible to split an infinitive (they are
one word)
English Latin French to eat
comere comer to be esse être to
sing cantare chancer
•English split-infinitive rules are
modelled on the otehr languages,
presumably because of prestige
Sentence-final prepositions
•This rule comes from an attempt to
•People often differ on what should
and should not be part of a prescriptive
grammar
•Descriptive grammars attempt to
describe the natural form and function
of a language through scientific
methods
•Judgments about descriptive rules are
generally uniform across speakers.
Why follow prescriptive rules?
•Symbol of status in society
•Can affect listener's judgment of a
speaker
•What we were taught
copy other languages (which were seen
as prestigious)
•In Latin, preposition stranding is
descriptively impossible
Don't use double negation
•Comes from logic, or mathematics
•Two negatives = a positive: (-1) x (-2)
= 2, not -2
•As seen before, plenty of languages
use mltiple negation; speakers of these
languages are not confused by the
logical ramifications of double negation.

Status of prescriptive grammar

•Decision to follow rules up to the
individual (as opposed to descriptive
rules, which are unconscious)
•No scientific basis for superiority of
prescriptive rules

What is "sloppy" speech?

•Reduced muscular control (due to
alcohol)
•Changes in sounds, not in structure:
s, ch -> sh yes -> yesh teach -> teash
church -> shursh
•These are not characteristics of so-
called "sloppy" speech or dialects.