1. GRAMMAR
Prepared by :SYED SHAFQAT HUSSAIN
ZAIDI

2. ANGUAGE is the shared knowledge of
sounds, words, meanings and grammatical
rules that people use to send and receive
messages.
• Language is source of communication with the help of
which we can communicate.
• Along with our extreme reliance on the social learning of
culture, the ability to communicate complex and precise
information is the main mental capability that makes
humanity distinct from other animals

3. Definition of linguistics
 Linguistics can be defined as the scientific or systematic
study of language. It is a science in the sense that it
scientifically studies the rules, systems and principles of
human languages.

4. Scope of linguistics
 Micro linguistics includes
phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, seman
tics and pragmatics.
 Macro linguistics includes sociolinguistics,
Psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, stylistics, discou
rse analysis, computational linguistics, cognitive
linguistics, applied linguistics.

5. Macro linguistics
 Sociolinguistics studies the relations
between language and society: how social
factors influence the structure and use of
language.
 Psycholinguistics is the study of language
and mind: the mental structures and
processes which are involved in the
acquistion, comprehension and production of
language.
 Neurolingistics is the study of language
processing and language representation in
the brain. It typically studies the disturbances
of language comprehension and production

6. Microlinguistics
is the scientific study of speech
 Phonetics
sounds. It studies how speech sounds are
articulated, transmitted, and received.
 Phonology is the study of how speech sounds
function in a language, it studies the ways
speech sounds are organized. It can be seen
as the functional phonetics of a particular
language.
 Morphology is the study of the formation of
words. It is a branch of linguistics which
breaks words into morphemes. It can be
considered as the grammar of words as
syntax is the grammar of sentences.

7. Microlinguistics
 Grammar deals with sentence
construction .Syntax and Morphology are two
major components.
 Semantics is a branch of linguistics which is
concerned with the study of meaning in all its
formal aspects. Words have several types of
meaning.
 Pragmatics can be defined as the study of
language in use. It deals with how speakers
use language in ways which cannot be
predicted from lingistic knowledge alone, and
how hearers arrive at the intended meaningof
speakers. PRAGMATICS =MEANING-

8. Definition of Grammar
 The systematic study and description of
language is called Grammar.
 A set of rules dealing with Syntax and word
structure of language.
 In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural
rules that govern the composition of
clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural
language.
 the study of such rules, and this field includes
morphology, syntax, and phonology, often
complemented by phonetics, semantics, and
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pragmatics.

9. Noam Chomsky
 One of the most influential linguists of
the 20th century
 Interested in grammaticality: how
humans use a finite set of structures
and rules to produce an infinite
number of grammatically correct
sentences
 “It takes a big ego to withstand the fact
that you‟re saying something different
from everyone else.” Chomsky (qt in
Smith, 2004).

10. Innatism
 Limitations of Behaviorist view of language acquisition
led in 1960‟s to the alternative „generative‟ account of
language.
 Main Argument: Children must be born with an innate
capacity for language development.
 Main Figure: Noam Chomsky
 Children are born with an innate propensity for language
acquisition, and that this ability makes the task of
learning a first language easier than it would otherwise
be.

11. Innatism: LAD & UG
 Chomsky theorized that children were born with
a hard-wired language acquisition device (LAD) in
their brains.
 LAD is a set of language learning tools, intuitive at birth in all
children.
 He later expanded this idea into that of universal grammar, a
set of innate principles and adjustable parameters that are
common to all human languages.
 The child exploits its LAD to make sense of the utterances
heard around it, deriving from this „primary linguistic data‟ –
the grammar of the language

12. THE “LAD” (Chomsky, 1965)
 The language
acquisition Device
(LAD) is a postulated
organ of the brain that
is supposed to function
as a congenital device
for learning symbolic
language
(i.e., language
acquisition).

13. LAD (Language acquisition Device)
 The L.A.D is a pre programmed box.
 L.A.D is a function of the brain that is specifically for learning
language. It is an innate biological function of human beings just like
learning to walk.
 LAD explain human acquisition of the syntactic structure of language.
 It encodes the major principles of a language and its grammatical
structures into the child‟s brain.
 It enables the children to analyze language and extract the basic rules.

14. Mechanism of Innate Theory
 According to Noam Chomsky, the mechanism of
language acquisition formulates from innate processes.

15. Innatism: Universal grammar or
generative grammar.
 we are born with set of rules about language in our
brains.
 “Children are equipped with an innate template or
blueprint for language and this blueprint aids the child
in the task of constructing a grammar for their
language.”
 This is known as “Innateness Hypothesis.”

16. All children share the same innateness
 Chomsky thus proposes that "all children share the
same internal constraints which characterize
narrowly the grammar they are going to construct."
(Chomsky, 1977, p.98)

17. Universal grammar…
Chomsky says:
 The UG does not have the actual rules of each
language but it has PRINCIPLES &
PARAMETERS.
 The rules of language are derived from the
Principles & parameters.

18. Principles & Parameters:
 Principles: universal basic features of Grammar e.g..
Nouns, Verbs & Structure Dependency etc.
 Parameters: the variation across language that
determines one or more aspects of Grammar e.g.
Pro, Drop and Head Direction.
 The Parameters are set during Language Acquisition.

19. Competence and Performance
• “competence is knowledge of language. That part
of our knowledge which is exclusively linguistic. It
includes knowledge of the vocabulary, of
phonology, of syntax, and of semantics. The part of
such knowledge which is different from language to
language is learnt; the part which is universal is
innate.”
• “Performance is the use of language in speaking
and understanding utterances is linguistic
performance. Performance is dependent on one‟s
linguistic knowledge (competence) and in part on
non-linguistic knowledge of an encyclopedia or
cultural kind, as well as on extraneous factors as
mood, tiredness and so on”

20. • The distinction between performance and
competence (grammaticality and acceptability)
is distinction between sentence and utterance.
a. Sentences are abstract objects which not
tied to a particular context, speaker or time of
utterance. They are tied to a particular grammar.
b. Utterances are datable events, tied to a
particular speaker, occasions, and context.

21. Competence and Performance
• There are some utterances which could never be a
grammatical sentence, but still they are acceptable.
• e.g. John‟s being a real idiot-I suppose cela va sans
dire.
• On the other hand, there some grammatical
sentences which can never be realized as fully
acceptable utterances because their
semantic, syntactic or phonological content.
• e.g.:
1.we finally sent Edinburgh man, for for four Forfar
men to go would have seemed like favoritism.
2. If because when Mary came in John left Harry
cried, I‟d be surprised.

22. II. Types of Grammar
A. Mental Grammar: Internal linguistic knowledge
B. Developmental Grammar: a learner‟s grammar
C. Prescriptive Grammar: a set of prescribed rules which
tells people how to speak/write
D. Descriptive Grammar: how people do speak in actual
utterances.
E. Pedagogical Grammar: teaching grammar widely used in
schools
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23. A. Mental Grammar: Internal
linguistic knowledge
Grammar
Phonology (Morphology) Syntax
Semantics
 Linguistic knowledge in the mind
 Here, we‟ll just consider grammatical knowledge
as structural knowledge; but NOTE you also
must know how to USE the structural
knowledge.
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24. B. Developmental Grammar: a
learner’s grammar
 The mental grammar in the developmental
stage
 Type of lang. produced by learners who are
in the process of learning a language.
 In the language use of a L1 or L2 learner;
which is the result of a normal pattern of
development, and is common among
language learners.
e.g. “comed,” “goed,” “breaked”
 Because of overgeneralizations; a natural or
Yun-Pi Yuan 24
developmental stage in lang. learning.

25. C. Descriptive Grammar: how people
do speak in actual utterances
 Linguistic description of the structures of
a language as they are observed to be
used, with no evaluation (non-
judgmental) of social correctness.
 Descriptive rules are more general and
more basic than prescriptive rules in the
sense that all sentences of a language
are formed in accordance with them, not
just the subset of sentences that count
as correct or socially acceptable.
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26. Descriptive Grammar
 What native speakers know (tacitly) about their
language. We have to distinguish between different
variants of one language, versus things that are
impossible in all varieties
 Example:
 Grammatical according to style/register, dialect
 I didn‟t see anybody.
 I didn‟t see nobody.
 Ungrammatical
 *I did anybodyn‟t see.
 *See did nobody I not.

27. D: Prescriptive Grammar: a set of prescribed
rules which tells people how to speak/write
 Traditional Grammar and the prescriptive
approach: Grammar as „linguistic etiquette‟, i.e.
the identification of the best/proper structures to
be used;
 A set of “rules” about how you SHOULD speak or
write; gives judgments on which structures are
CORRECT and which are INCORRECT
 Their influence lives on in the handbook of usage
widely found today.
e.g. double negative(=affirmative), *ain‟t
*it‟s me, ending sentences with
preposition (*Who are you talking to?)
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28.  Prescriptive grammar is taught in
primary school (elementary school). The
term "grammar school" historically refers
to a school teaching Latin grammar to
future Roman
citizens, orators, and, later, Catholic
priests.
 In its earliest form, "grammar school"
referred to a school that taught students
to read, scan, interpret, and declaim
Greek and Latin poets

29. Prescriptive Grammar
 Rules of “good” or “proper” usage, which dictate what is “good
grammar” and what is “bad grammar”
Example:
(1) She doesn‟t know him.
(2) She don‟t know him.
Example (1) is supposed to be “good”, while (2) is supposed to be “bad”
 Is there a logic to this judgment? Technically, what the example shows
is the absence of 3rd person singular agreement -s
 Agreement morphemes on a verb mark who the subject of the verb is
(in some languages…)
 Is the absence of agreement somehow bad or illogical?

30. Dubious appeals to „Logic‟
 Is the standard always „more logical‟? Consider reflexive pronouns like
„myself‟:
Reflexive Possessive
St. myself my car
yourself your car
himself his car
herself her car
Non-St. myself my car
yourself your car
hisself his car
herself her car
--> In the non-standard variety, the reflexive form is always the same as
the possessive; this is more systematic than the standard, where this is
true in only three of the four cases above.

31. Prescriptive vs. Descriptive
 Rules of etiquette or laws of
society
 Rules of scientific
 Rules about correct or observations
socially accepted sentences  Rules about all sentences of
 Rules explicitly taught a language
 Based on the more favored  Rules followed effortlessly
and consistently
variants
 Document all variants without
discrimination
 There‟s some boxes left on the porch
 There are some boxes left on the porch
© BTexact Technologies 2001

32. E. Pedagogical Grammar: teaching
grammars widely used in schools
 A “teaching grammar”—designed for
developing students‟ awareness of their
mother tongue, or for teaching a
language as a foreign language.
 Often a combination of descriptive &
prescriptive grammars; more
contemporary pedagogical grammars
moving away from prescriptive.
e.g. M. Swam. Practical English Usage or
a
Yun-Pi Yuan 32 textbook ; a grammar book.

33. Elements of Grammar
Grammar
Syntax Morphology
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34. Definition of Syntax (1)
 “syntaxis” (Greek) = “arrangement”
 The rules of sentence formation; the study of
the structure of sentences.
Syntax: the study of the structure of sentences and the
grammatical rules governing the way words are
combined to form sentences.
Language Structure
Phonology Grammar Semantics
morphology syntax
(the specific sense; more traditional)
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35. • Morph (form) + ology (science of)
• -- > Morphology (the science of word forms)
• The study of the internal structure of words, and the
rules by
which words are formed.

36.  The study of the internal structure and
form of words in language.
 Morphology is the study of systematic
formation of meaningful words.
 Morphology is the study of the
combination of morphemes to yield
words.
 The study of words and the rules for
word formation in (a) language.

37.  To know a word means to know aspects of a word:
sound, meaning, spelling, grammatical
properties, collocations, connotations, context, etym
ology, etc.
 But what is crucial is to segment from a string of
sounds a basic unit of meaning, like
Isleptfortenhoursyesterday.
☞ To know a word thus means the ability to map a
string of sounds with a particular meaning and
specific grammatical properties.

38.  Phonological word (Deer is dear but dear)
 Lexical item Lexeme (take,took,taken…)
 Grammatical word form Morphosyntactic word
(ball, balls)
 Semantic words (table, table)

39.  Lexicography

40. • Content words denote concepts such
as subjects, actions, and ideas
noun, verb, adjective, adverb
• Content words are open class words
new words can be added
• Example of new words :
Steganography the art of hiding
information in electronic text

41. • Function words express Grammatical
Functions
e.g., preposition, article, conjunctions, pron
ouns
• Function words connect the content
words to the larger grammatical context.
• Functions words are also called ‘closed
class’ words no new words assed to this
class.