Navigating English Grammar

A Guide to Analyzing Real Language

Anne Lobeck, Kristin Denham

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781118340233
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

An engaging and fresh take on the rules and politics of English grammar, written in lively prose. It goes a step further than most books on grammar by providing an overview of the field, with a discussion of historical and current debates about grammar, and how we define, discuss, and approach it.

• Presents a novel, inquiry-based approach to understanding speakers' unconscious knowledge of English grammar
• Makes lucid connections, when relevant, with current linguistic theory
• Integrates language change and variation into the study of grammar
• Examines historical sources of socially evaluative perceptions of grammar, as 'good' or 'bad', and notions of language authority
• Provides syntactic explanations for many modern punctuation rules
• Explores some of the current controversies about grammar teaching in school and the role of Standard English in testing and assessment

1

What is Grammar and How Do We Study It?

Introduction

What is English? Language Change and Variation

What is Grammar? Prescriptive and Descriptive Grammar

Origins of Prescriptive Grammar

The Components of Grammar

Syntax

Morphology

Semantics

Phonetics and phonology

The Scientific Study of Language

Exercises

Introduction

Humans have always been fascinated by language, and the study of language has always been a fundamental part of intellectual inquiry. In fact, the study of language forms the core of the social and behavioral sciences as well as the humanities, and is unique in crossing such interdisciplinary boun daries; we can study the psychology of language, how children acquire language and how speakers and signers process it and understand it; we can study the biology and neurology of language, and what it tells us about the organization of the brain; we can study language as a social tool, how we use it to express our identities as members of different social groups; we can study the language of literature and artistic expression.

We can also study the internal structure, or grammar, of language, which is what we will focus on in this book. Our goal is to help you discover some of the organizing principles of grammar, by studying how English works. This book is not a “how-to” book on “good English,” nor is it a comprehensive or precise description of English grammar. In fact, we use the term “English” broadly here; what we call a single language is more accurately described as a (vast) collection of different varieties spoken by both native and non-native speakers around the globe. We will provide you with some tools to help you explore the structure of whatever variety of English you speak; you will become familiar with syntactic categories (parts of speech), heads and phrases, subordination, coordination, modification, and complementation. Our approach to grammatical structure is descriptive; we will explore and describe language data, data that reveals your intuitive knowledge of grammar. This scientific approach to the study of grammar will be different from the more familiar “school” approach, in which you learn grammar and usage rules with the goal of learning to speak and write “correctly.” Rather, what you learn here will provide you with important tools of critical analysis to make your own informed decisions about grammar and usage.

Along with our study of the structure of English, we will explore how language changes over time, and varies from place to place. We will explore public perceptions of grammar, including what constitutes a grammatical “error;” attitudes about “good” and “bad” language; notions of “standard” versus “non-standard” English, and more. This book will not only introduce you to the fundamentals of English sentence structure, but will also provide you with an important context for the study of grammar, its influence on other areas of modern thought, and the study of language more generally. In the course of navigating English grammar, we also think that you will find that the study of language is fascinating and often really fun.¹

What is English? Language Change and Variation

Before we tackle what we mean by grammar in more detail, we need to explore what we mean by English. It’s actually quite difficult to explain what English is once you think about it; English (like other languages) is a continuum of (many) different language varieties or dialects. According to recent surveys, English is the native language of 322 million people, and the second language of 120 million more (Weber, 1997; Comrie, 1998; Ethnologue, 2005). With upwards of 440 million speakers of English around the world, it’s no surprise that there may be varieties of English that sound familiar to you, and others that you have never heard before.

Here are a few examples of sentences from different varieties of English from both inside and outside the United States.

That’s me away. (“I’m going now.”) (Scots English)
That house looks a nice one. (Varieties of British English)
They went a-hunting yesterday. (Appalachian English)
We might should do that. (Varieties of Southern US English)
I asked him where does he work. (Indian English)
She’ll be right. (“Everything will be all right.”) (Australian English)

Complicating the notion of what we think of as “English” is that languages change, sometimes quite dramatically, over time. Any of you who have studied Old English (spoken around 445–1000 CE) for example, know that Old English looks very little like modern, or Present Day English. Yet, we still call Old English “English.” Consider this passage from the Old English poem Beowulf, written in about 700.

Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
Listen! We of the Spear-Danes in days of yore,

þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
Of those folk-kings, the glory have heard,

hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
How those noblemen brave-things did.

Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
Often Scyld, son of Scef, from enemy hosts,

monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,
from many people, mead-benches took,

egsode eorlas.
terrorized warriors.

Middle English (spoken around 1100–1400) looks more like Present Day English, but is still clearly not what we would consider contemporary. Here is an excerpt from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Tale, from his famous Canterbury Tales written at the end of the fourteenth century.

Experience, though noon auctoritee
Experience, though no authority

Were in this world, is right ynogh for me
Were in this world, were good enough for me

To speke of wo that is in mariage;
To speak of woe that is in marriage;

For, lordynges, sith I twelve yeer was of age,
For, masters, since I was twelve years of age,

Thonked be God that is eterne on lyve,
Thanks be to God Who is for ever alive,

Housbondes at chirche dore I have had fyve –
Of husbands at church door have I had five –

If I so ofte myghte have ywedded bee –
If I could have been married so many times –

And alle were worthy men in hir degree.
And all were worthy men in their degree.

And Early Modern English (1500–1700), though much more familiar, is still a little different. Here is an excerpt from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. We may not need a translation anymore, but this 400-year-old version of English is still quite different from English spoken today.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to? ’Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;

We learn from studying language change and variation that not all of us speak the same variety or dialect of English, and whatever variety we do speak continues to change. As we will see as we progress through this book, all varieties, or dialects of English are worthy of investigation and can be explored using the tools of analysis we will introduce to you here. This is something of a departure from what you may have learned in school, namely that studying English grammar means learning a single set of rules in order to avoid errors. In fact, there is no such single set of hard and fast rules of English grammar, and languages are actually dynamic systems, constantly in flux. So an approach to English as a set of rules to memorize doesn’t tell you anything about how English actually works, nor do such rules accurately describe the grammar of the language.

What is Grammar? Prescriptive andDescriptive Grammar

When you hear the word grammar, what comes to mind? Over the years, we have asked countless students this question, and most agree that in school, the study of grammar is connected (often exclusively) to the study of writing. For them, grammar covers a broad range of rules, including punctuation rules (where to put commas and apostrophes, for example), vocabulary rules (use active verbs rather than be verbs; avoid “slang;” use “academic” vocabulary), spelling rules (don’t mix up they’re, their, and there or you’re and your), as well as other injunctions such as “Never start a sentence with because;” “Never end a sentence with a preposition;” “Don’t use first person;” “Don’t use passive voice;” “Avoid fragments;” “Use I instead of me and who instead of whom,” and so on.

You have also probably heard certain words or phrases labeled as “correct” or “incorrect” grammar, or as “proper...