What does it mean for something to be grammatical?
It depends on who(m) you ask!
What kind of
grammar?
What is
included?
What are some
sample
grammatical
rules?
What kind of
language has
grammar?
What would
language without
grammar be like?
What kind of
grammar do
‘nonstandard’
dialects have?
Overall:
non-linguists
prescriptive (prescribes what
people ought to do)
rules about what is ‘proper’
Never use a preposition to
end a sentence with.
linguists (us)
descriptive (describes what they
actually do)
rules about how to put sounds,
words, and sentences together
Rules on how to put a sentence
together. (e.g. rules that tell you that
“the cats ate cold spaghetti” is a
sentence of English and “ate
spaghetti cats cold the” is not.)
To ignorantly split an
infinitive is wrong
‘good’ language
Rules on how to make a yes-no
question
all language
‘bad’, ‘ignorant’,
‘uneducated’
incomprehensible, impossible to
interpret, “word salad”
an incorrect/ corrupted
version of Standard
English
their own grammar! internally
consistent rules which may differ
from ‘standard’ English
a set of rules your English
teacher had to beat into
you to get you to talk
‘right’
a set of rules you picked up without
being aware of it that lets you put
words, phrases, and sentences
together in a way that other speakers
of your dialect can easily interpret
Two examples of (descriptive) grammar from African-American English
(also known as Ebonics)
As descriptive rules of grammar, these two rules are followed by native speakers of
African-American English (AAE) automatically. Native speakers of AAE have never
had to be taught these rules and aren’t even necessarily aware that they exist, but they
follow these rules and know when they are broken.
(1)
habitual be
My cat (is) hungry. = My cat is hungry right now.
My cat be hungry. = My cat is always hungry.
So, a speaker of this dialect wouldn’t say “My cat be hungry now.” But people
who are making fun of it try this, because they assume that you just randomly add
“be” to some sentences—they don’t know that the use of “be” is rule-governed.
(2)
zero copula: Forms of “to be” are optional in AAE in cases where they are
optionally contracted in other dialects of English. They cannot be omitted where they
cannot be contracted in other dialects.
Examples of zero copula
• She is nice would be contracted in many dialects as She’s nice; in AAE it can be
contracted as She nice.
• The tag question (in part in red) in She isn’t nice, is she? cannot be contracted:
*She isn’t nice, she’s? sounds downright goofy. (* means a sentence is descriptively
ungrammatical: no speaker of this dialect would say it.)
• So this tag question cannot be contracted in AAE either: *She isn’t/ain’t nice, she?
sounds just as goofy to AAE speakers as it does to speakers of other English
dialects.
• How beautiful it is! cannot be contracted in these dialects either: *How beautiful it’s!
and *How beautiful it! are both ungrammatical in AAE or any other dialect.
• Other languages that have zero copula include Russian and Arabic.
So, what is grammar?
• For non-linguists, “grammar” typically refers to a set of rules your English
teacher had to beat into you to get you to “talk right”
• For linguists—in other words, for our purposes in this class—“grammar” is a
set of rules that you picked up without being aware of it that lets you put
words, phrases, and sentences together in a way that other speakers of your
dialect can easily interpret
Who speaks a dialect?
Common usage of dialect:
 The way those other people speak
 Talking ‘funny’ or even talking ‘wrong’. (Saying someone speaks a dialect
usually implies that they do not speak ‘standard’ English)
Linguists’ usage:
 The particular form of a language shared by a group. You can’t speak a
language without speaking some form of the language, so everyone speaks a
dialect, whether their dialect is considered ‘standard’ or not.
What’s included in dialect?
 grammar
 vocabulary
 pronunciation
Accent is parallel to dialect, but refers only to pronunciation.
So what is ‘Standard’ English?
 common usage: the single correct way to speak English, which we all learn
in school
 linguists’ usage: a native dialect (or set of dialects) of some people that is
favored (usually because the speakers of the dialect are also ‘favored’, i.e.,
have greater power).
 ‘nonstandard,’ to the extent linguists use this term, refers to dialects that are
socially disfavored—not coincidentally, those spoken by oppressed groups.
How do we decide if two different varieties* are two different languages or two
dialects of the same language?
Based on the language itself?
mutual intelligibility: speakers of the two varieties can understand each other.
When the varieties are mutually intelligible—in other words, when speakers of
the two varieties can understand each other—we tend to think of them as
speaking the same language. We discussed in class why this very useful
definition doesn’t always give us the answers we expect. For example, speakers
of different dialects of English cannot always understand each other. Also,
some dialects of Chinese are not mutually intelligible, but Chinese speakers still
tend to count them as dialects rather than as different languages. Meanwhile
speakers of Spanish and Portuguese may understand each other (especially if
they are accustomed to interacting with each other), but these are considered
different languages.
Or based on social and political factors?
“A language is a dialect with an army.” In the exceptions to the “mutual
intelligibility” rule mentioned above, social and political similarities or
differences between the groups influence whether the varieties they speak are
considered different languages or just different dialects. If there is a country
(and thus, generally an army) associated with a variety, it is more likely to be
considered a separate language.
*Note that “variety” is a handy cover term to cover either “dialect” or “language”, so
you don’t have to say which one. When the phenomenon you are trying to describe
(in this case, the distinction between “dialect” and “language”) is fuzzy, it helps to
have a fuzzy term to refer to it!