LING 1010 STUDY GUIDE+ QUESTIONS
WITH DETAILED VERIFIED CORRECT
ANSWERS
What are the justifications of prescriptive grammar?
It established convention, some ideal that some person subscribes to. Some say the old way
was better, let's not change. It comes from another, better, language, people think our
language should be modeled after Greek or Latin language. These rules exist because it
makes people feel better than, if you could study Latin you were considered
wealthy/intelligent Keeps people who don't know it on the outside of society, made fun of
Any advantage to having prescriptive grammar?
Preservation: keeps old language alive
Clarity and standardization: for clear communication it is helpful to have some
standard, though we should acknowledge that any could serve just as well
truth about prescriptive rules in linguistics
-They are not useful in the scientific study of
language -As linguists you want descriptive grammar
-No variety of language is inherently superior to any other
-Are based in opinion and preference not in objective fact (and are often based on false
claims about language)
Native speaker definition
a person who has grown up speaking that language from early childhood on
Grammatical sentence of a language
a sentence that expresses an idea in a natural, well-formed way according to native speakers of
that language
what is the goal of linguistics?
, discover a set of rules that can predict whether a sentence of a language is grammatical
or ungrammatical according to native speakers
CLASS 2 MAIN POINTS
-Prescriptive grammar: The attempt to tell others how to speak or write, it is about power
and how one person thinks another should speak
-Descriptive grammar: Linguists engage in the study of this, interested in language as it
is spoken
-Native speakers: Linguists look for evidence that these speakers consider a sentence
grammatical or ungrammatical
-Grammatical: Correct
-Ungrammatical: Not correct
-Rule-governed
Linguistic competence
the knowledge they have in their minds that allows them to generate grammatical expressions
of their language
Linguistic performance
The actual language behavior they display. Often distorted by memory, false starts, fatigue,
drunkenness, etc.
Speech errors
-Transpositions- switching words in a sentence
-Anticipations- reading list=leading list
-Agreement errors- "Is our children learning?"
-Negation- "They misunderestimated me"
-While we attempt to identity the rules of descriptive grammar, we do not want to
include these kinds of errors
-They would lead us to the wrong generalization about people's knowledge of language
WITH DETAILED VERIFIED CORRECT
ANSWERS
What are the justifications of prescriptive grammar?
It established convention, some ideal that some person subscribes to. Some say the old way
was better, let's not change. It comes from another, better, language, people think our
language should be modeled after Greek or Latin language. These rules exist because it
makes people feel better than, if you could study Latin you were considered
wealthy/intelligent Keeps people who don't know it on the outside of society, made fun of
Any advantage to having prescriptive grammar?
Preservation: keeps old language alive
Clarity and standardization: for clear communication it is helpful to have some
standard, though we should acknowledge that any could serve just as well
truth about prescriptive rules in linguistics
-They are not useful in the scientific study of
language -As linguists you want descriptive grammar
-No variety of language is inherently superior to any other
-Are based in opinion and preference not in objective fact (and are often based on false
claims about language)
Native speaker definition
a person who has grown up speaking that language from early childhood on
Grammatical sentence of a language
a sentence that expresses an idea in a natural, well-formed way according to native speakers of
that language
what is the goal of linguistics?
, discover a set of rules that can predict whether a sentence of a language is grammatical
or ungrammatical according to native speakers
CLASS 2 MAIN POINTS
-Prescriptive grammar: The attempt to tell others how to speak or write, it is about power
and how one person thinks another should speak
-Descriptive grammar: Linguists engage in the study of this, interested in language as it
is spoken
-Native speakers: Linguists look for evidence that these speakers consider a sentence
grammatical or ungrammatical
-Grammatical: Correct
-Ungrammatical: Not correct
-Rule-governed
Linguistic competence
the knowledge they have in their minds that allows them to generate grammatical expressions
of their language
Linguistic performance
The actual language behavior they display. Often distorted by memory, false starts, fatigue,
drunkenness, etc.
Speech errors
-Transpositions- switching words in a sentence
-Anticipations- reading list=leading list
-Agreement errors- "Is our children learning?"
-Negation- "They misunderestimated me"
-While we attempt to identity the rules of descriptive grammar, we do not want to
include these kinds of errors
-They would lead us to the wrong generalization about people's knowledge of language
