The Similarities and Differences Between Prescriptive and Descriptive Grammars.

Today
What is Linguistics? Descriptive vs. Prescriptive rules/grammars Linguistic competence vs. performance

Readings: 1.2-1.3
LING 200 -- McGarrity 1

What is Linguistics?
The scientific study and analysis of human language.

LING 200 -- McGarrity

2

Core Subfields
Phonetics: the study of the physical properties of speech sounds (acoustic phonetics) and how they are made (articulatory phonetics) e.g., Park the car in Harvard yard. [p k k n h v d j d] [p a k d k a n ha v d ja d ]
LING 200 -- McGarrity 3

Core Subfields
Phonology: the study of how speech sounds pattern and how they are organized (i.e., the sound system)
e.g., brick is a real Eng word blick isn’t an Eng word, but could be bnick isn’t an Eng word and couldn’t be
LING 200 -- McGarrity 4

Core Subfields
Morphology: the study of the formation of words.

e.g., unlockable

un-lock-able

LING 200 -- McGarrity

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Core Subfields
Syntax: the study of the structure of sentences.

e.g., She hit the man with a hammer.

LING 200 -- McGarrity

6

Core Subfields
Semantics: the study of meaning in language.
“Inconceivable!”

-- Vizzini,
The Princess Bride

Pragmatics: the study of how linguistic meaning depends on context.
LING 200 -- McGarrity 7

Linguistics is NOT…
… the study of writing …the study of how to speak properly

LING 200 -- McGarrity

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Grammar
Prescriptive grammar
Prescribes rules governing what people should/shouldn’t say

Descriptive grammar
Describes the rules that govern what people do or can say

LING 200 -- McGarrity

9

Prescriptive rules
“Don’t end a sentence w/ a preposition!” “Don’t split infinitives!” “Don’t use double negatives!”

Clip: “The State of American” http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/correct/ LING 200 -- McGarrity 10

Descriptive rules
Phonological: In English, the sounds [rt] can end a word, but not begin it
e.g., art, *rta (‘*’ = ungrammatical)

Syntactic: In English, adjectives precede the nouns they modify.
e.g., That is a big, red balloon. *That is a balloon big, red.
LING 200 -- McGarrity 11

Descriptive rules are natural, known intuitively, need not be taught Prescriptive rules are not natural, must be taught/learned in school, often reflect value judgments

LING 200 -- McGarrity

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Linguistic competence
Knowledge of the (descriptive) rules that govern sounds, words, sentences in your language (what is possible vs. impossible) What we know when we ‘know’ a language. This knowledge is largely hidden, unconscious
LING 200 -- McGarrity 13

How do we study linguistic competence?

By observing a speaker’s linguistic performance.

LING 200 -- McGarrity

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Linguists observe our linguistic performance, make and test hypotheses, and draw conclusions about what our linguistic competence must be like.
Linguistic Competence

Linguistic Performance

LING 200 -- McGarrity

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Why study language?
Language is a uniquely human characteristic It is a means of understanding what it is to be human.

LING 200 -- McGarrity

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