Introduction To Grammar/ Types Of Grammar

 

INTRODUCTION TO GRAMMAR

Grammar is the set of rules that guide us to learn a language. These rules are derived from a refined or established language. A native speaker does not need to learn these rules rather he gets command over the rules) unconsciously o rather spontaneously during the early months of his/her childhood: The word grammar that you have been listening since the time unknown, comes from Greek meaning "craft of letters".

Definition:

 "The systematic study and description of a language is Grammar". Hence Grammar is the science of language. is a set of rules and examples dealing with the word structures (morphology) and sentence structures (syntax) of a language. Usually a grammar consists of word classes, tenses, sentence structure, punctuation, etc.

USES OF GRAMMAR

There are several applications of grammatical study:

(1) A recognition of grammatical structures is often essential for punctuation;

(2) A study of one's native grammar is helpful when one studies the grammar of a foreign language;

(3) A knowledge of grammar is a help in the interpretation of literary as well as non-literary texts, since the interpretation of a passage sometimes depends crucially on grammatical analysis;

(4) A study of the grammatical resources of English is useful in composition: in particular, it can help you to evaluate the choices available to you when you come to revise an earlier written draft.

 1.Comparative Grammar:

The analysis and comparison of the grammatical structures of related languages. Contemporary work in comparative grammar is concerned with "a faculty of language that provides an explanatory basis for how a human being can acquire a first language. In this way, the theory of grammar is a theory of human language and hence establishes the relationship among all languages."

2.Generative Grammar:

The rules determining the structure and interpretation of sentences that speakers accept as belonging to the language. Simply put, a generative grammar is a theory of competence: a model of the psychological system of unconscious knowledge that underlies a speaker's ability to produce and interpret utterances in a language.

 3.Mental Grammar:

The generative grammar stored in the brain that allows a speaker to produce language that other speakers can understand. All humans are born with the capacity for constructing a Mental Grammar, given linguistic experience; this capacity for language is called the Language Faculty (Chomsky, 1965). A grammar formulated by a linguist is an idealized description of this Mental Grammar.

 4.Pedagogical Grammar:

Grammatical analysis and instruction designed for second-language students. Pedagogical grammar is rather a broad concept. The term is commonly used to denote

(1) pedagogical process--the explicit treatment of elements of the target language systems as (part of) language teaching methodology;

(2) pedagogical content-reference sources of one kind or another that present information about the target language system;

 (3) combinations of process, and content.

 5.Performance Grammar:

A description of the syntax of English as it is actually used by speakers in dialogues. Performance grammar centers attention on language production; it is a belief of many that the problem of production must be dealt with before problems of reception and then comprehension can properly be investigated.

 6.Reference Grammar:

A reference grammar is a description of the grammar of a language, with explanations of the principles governing the construction of words, phrases, clauses, and sentence. It is designed to teach someone about the language and to give readers a reference tool for looking up specific details of the language. It is organized according to universal structural categories.

6.Traditional Grammar:

Traditional grammar is the collection of prescriptive rules and concepts about the structure of the language. It is said that traditional grammar is prescriptive because it focuses on the distinction between what some people do with language and what they ought to do with it, according to a pre-established standard. The chief goal of traditional grammar, therefore, is perpetuating a historical model of what supposedly constitutes proper language.

7.Transformational Grammar:

A theory of grammar that accounts for the constructions of a language by linguistic transformations and phrase structures. In transformational grammar, the term 'rule' is used not for a precept set down by an external authority but for a principle that is unconsciously yet regularly followed in the production and interpretation of sentences. A rule is a direction for forming a sentence or a part of a sentence, which has been internalized by the native speaker.

8.Universal Grammar:

Universal grammar is the system of categories, operations, and principles shared by all human languages and considered to be innate. Taken together, the linguistic principles of Universal Grammar constitute a theory of the organization of the initial state of the mind/brain of the language learner--that is, a theory of the human faculty for language.