1. Getting Started

        Language is an essential part of what it means to be human. As individuals, many of us are naturally curious about languages – we like to study them, think about them, research them, and play games (pig Latin, jokes, Scrabble, rhymes, and so on). We use language to communicate, listen, read, and write. Language helps us build communities and relationships, allows us to bond and grow, and define ourselves within a larger community. As speakers of language, we might have many questions or strong feelings about it. We place value on some ways of speaking, develop preferences and have pet peeves about how others use language. Select a media platform of your choice (newspapers, grammar websites, YouTube, or radio), and you will find numerous publications on language facts, critiques, and responses to “bad” grammar or language “deterioration”.

Consider some of the following questions:

• Is sign language a language? Is it different from body language?

• Why do some people say “cahr-mel” (like “car”) and not “ca-ra-mel” (similar to “ca” in “cat”) for caramel?

• Do my pets really understand what I am saying?

       We have a set of ideas about what language should sound like, how we learn it, the correct ways of using it, and what we think language says about people’s identity, intelligence, and education. Many language “facts” we see around us (e.g., using slang in speech is lazy English) are likely myths, however, they show us what kinds of thoughts are deeply ingrained into our linguistic cultures. Just like fashion, our linguistic practices – the way we speak and interact with languages – influence the ways in which we see ourselves and others. Thus, the goal of linguists is to understand all things related to language: how humans speak, the underlying structure of language, how children acquire it, how it changes over time, and why we have such strong opinions about certain language forms.

Linguist John McWhorter discusses language used in text messages and its perceived influence on Standard language practices.

1.1 So, what is Language?

        Thus far, we have discussed a small number of language-related questions and facts, but one important question remains: what is language, anyway? We use language in every aspect of our lives – you are using it right now to read this passage! – however, our attempts to define language present a rather tough challenge.

        The word language represents several different concepts that are interconnected with each other. We use the word to talk about individual languages: Canadian English, American Sign Language (ASL), Nishnaabemwin, Mandarin Chinese, and Afrikaans, among many others. In fact, there are approximately 7,168 languages currently known to linguists [1]. The word language is also used to refer to related concepts such as computer languages. You may be familiar with languages like C++, Python, or Perl. While computer languages are not likely to attract the interest of linguists, many linguists use them to analyze linguistic data. There are other uses of the word language, such as body language or love languages, however, these concepts are outside the scope of linguistics.

        As you can see, we may not be able to provide a clear, dictionary-worthy answer to the question “What is language?”. Yet unconsciously all of us are already experts in the languages we grew up with! Have you ever had to stop to think about how to pronounce words, form sentences, or how to talk about your plans or hopes for the future? Outside of isolated cases where speakers may encounter new words or phrases, we are extremely good at performing language without instruction. Nonetheless, while languaging might appear as easy as breathing, language is an incredibly complex set of functions.

A note on sign languages:

Sign Languages differ quite extensively from body language. Body language is what we refer to when we describe gestures such as shrugging, smiling, waving, crossing our arms or showing a thumbs up. These motions can convey meaning and can be arbitrary, however, we cannot combine these gestures to form new utterances. Body language has no grammar!

On the other hand, sign languages are linguistic systems with grammars of their own. Although sign languages are different from spoken languages in their modality, they share the same universal principles that distinguish human languages from animal communication. Sign languages such as ASL have complex morphology, syntax, and a type of phonological inventory (hand shapes, positions, and motion) that is similar to speech sounds. Children can acquire sign languages at the same rate as spoken ones, as long as they are exposed to input early in their life.

1.2 What do we know about Language?

        While it may prove difficult to answer what language is, our innate ability to use language in all kinds of settings (writing, speaking, listening, among other domains) provides us with an excellent opportunity to ask, “what do we know about language?” How are we able to understand each other’s ideas through language? Is there an underlying, shared system that allows us to seamlessly process spoken and written language? This idea of a shared linguistic system is what linguistics sometimes call mental grammar or linguistic competence. One of the many goals of linguistics is to understand what this shared system does and how it is organized.

        Let us start with a language we all share – English. What does a speaker of English know about the English language in order to speak and understand others’ Englishes? Consider the sentences below:

(1) Seen man the has dog the.
(2) In Ontario the largest city Toronto is. 
(3) *Seems happy Yunyi.

Every speaker of English usually knows that the sentences above are not acceptable sentences in English. When we discuss unacceptable utterances in a language, we mean that they are not “normal” - no speaker of English would consider “seen man the has dog the” possible.

Although the sentences provided above are ungrammatical, speakers of English also know that it is possible to rearrange the sentences to create new, grammatical sentences.

(4) The man has seen the dog.
(5) Toronto is the largest city in Ontario.
(6) Yunyi seems happy.

        Recall our brief encounter with the term mental grammar. Mental grammar - an unconscious system of grammatical rules - allows us to create all kinds of grammatical utterances in languages we know. As English speakers, we know what a possible utterance in English is and what is not. This fact suggests that we have an internalized knowledge of the rules of English word order (among many other rules), even if we are not able to explicitly define said rules. We simply know how our languages work! In fact, we do not explicitly learn language rules from the people around us, yet we master them by the time we begin elementary school.

So, when you are a (native) speaker of a language,

1. You know the sounds of that language. You know which sounds do and do not exist in that language. You also know which sound combinations are possible in your language. 

2. Moreover, you are aware of words and word combinations and whether certain combinations of words are or are not possible. 

3. Additionally, you know which strings of words are meaningful constructions, and which are not. 

        Finally, let’s address an important distinction between language acquisition and learning. At a glance, the two terms might invoke a sense of similarity, however, the two processes refer to two rather different phenomena! When linguists discuss children’s language, we often refer to the process of acquisition – it is an unconscious process that is, for the most part, not influenced by explicit instruction or conditioning. Humans acquire languages at an early age and are not restricted in the number of languages they can master. Children acquire languages by being exposed to various linguistic input from their caretakers. This process is similar to birds’ ability to fly – no one teaches birds how to fly, young birds simply do it when they reach a certain stage of development. On the other hand, language learning is a conscious and often very challenging process. If you've ever had the experience of studying a second or subsequent language in school, you may have experienced the challenge of becoming proficient in that language. However, even language acquisition is often supplemented with some language instruction. After all, we learn language rules, spelling and writing conventions, and become exposed to standard language practices in schools, through friends and family. You may have learned to say, “Nisha and I drew a picture” instead of “Me and Nisha drew a picture”. These language rules are certainly part of our language practices, but they are not subconscious.

1.3 Human Language and Communication Systems

        Now that we have an understanding of what it means to know a language, we might ask ourselves whether animal communication systems are classified as language as well. Let’s consider some animal communication systems to understand how they differ from human languages:

        Charles Hockett, an American linguist, developed a list of design features that distinguish human language from the communication of other animals and systems (traffic and directional signals, etc.). While the list has been updated and even contested over the past few decades, there is a number of features that remain on many linguists' lists:

1. Semanticity: Specific language signals (such as words and phrases) are associated with very specific meanings. In simpler terms, words and phrases have meaning. For example, ‘cat’ refers to a domesticated feline, and can be used to refer to your pet or an idea of an animal that is not there.

2. Arbitrariness: There is no connection between the form of a signal and its meaning. For instance, the word ‘cat’ can be expressed as ‘chat’ in French, ‘neko’ in Japanese, and ‘kot’ in Russian. There is nothing about the word ‘cat’ or the sounds <c a t> that invoke the meaning ‘domesticated feline’ or 🐱.
   
   There are instances of words that “break” this feature, called onomatopoeic words. Onomatopoeia refers to words whose pronunciation or sounds resemble their meaning, for example, ‘meow’, ‘woof’, ‘crash’, and ‘tick’. However, these words are not universally the same and may differ in form (e.g., the barking of a dog: ‘woof’ or 'bark' sounds like ‘gav’ in Russian and ‘wan’ in Japanese).

3. Discreteness: Language signals are made up of smaller, basic units that can be combined in varying order to represent a new meaning. For example, the word ‘cat’ is comprised of ‘c’, ‘a’ and ‘t’, and if the sounds were to be rearranged (note: sounds, not letters), we might get a new word like ‘tack’ (comprised of ‘t’, ‘a’, and ‘c(k)’).

4. Displacement: Language enables speakers to talk about things that are not immediately present (including lies). We are able to produce utterances that refer to the past, present, and future.

5. Productivity: Language speakers can produce and understand an infinite number of new utterances (that follow language structure).

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        As we have seen in the TED video above, many animals have communicative systems. However, these systems tend to lack a number of Hockett’s design features. For instance, Karl von Frisch (1967), a German-Austrian ethologist, found that bees perform a “dance” which allows them to communicate some displacement. By performing a waggle dance, bees can relay information about the location of pollinating flowers to other bees. While these communication systems are extremely complex, they lack some of the features of human language: the bee dance, for instance, lacks productivity as bees are not able to combine elements of their dance to convey an infinite number of ideas. Nonetheless, while a linguist may not consider this system a form of language, the bee dance is still a unique and sophisticated form of communication.

2. Grammar

        In the previous section, Hockett’s design features showed us that human languages consist of discrete units (sounds, words, etc.) that can be combined to form larger units. This aspect of human languages is the founding block of what linguists call grammar. Let us begin by considering the ways in which we define the term:

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Grammar has various distinct meanings. If we look up the definition of grammar in a dictionary (Dictionary.com: https://www.dictionary.com/) we find the following entries:

1. the study of the way the sentences of a language are constructed; morphology and syntax.

2. an account of these features; a set of rules accounting for these constructions.

3. Generative Grammar. a device, as a body of rules, whose output is all of the sentences that are permissible in a given language, while excluding all those that are not permissible.

4. prescriptive grammar.

5. knowledge or usage of the preferred or prescribed forms in speaking or writing.

Here, we will consider the definition of grammar listed under point 3. Generative Grammar. For linguists, grammar is a complex mental system of “rules” that exists in the head of native speakers. This system allows native speakers of a language to produce and understand sounds or signs, then organize them into words and sentences that have never been produced or heard before. As we have seen previously, animal communication systems lack this crucial component of language.

        Furthermore, our mental grammar can be broken up into five main components. Each element of grammar interacts with the others, but can be looked at separately:

1. Phonetics - deals with the perception and articulation of speech sounds

2. Phonology - deals with sound combinations, particularly which sound combinations are possible

3. Morphology - deals with the structure of words

4. Syntax - deals with sentence structure

5. Semantics - deals with meaning and the interpretation of sentences

2.1 What is Grammatical?

        So, what can we do with all this knowledge of a language’s grammar? If we know a set of abstract rules for a particular language, we should know how to produce and understand sentences (or words, sounds) in that language. Thus, a grammatical utterance is a possible utterance in a language. An ungrammatical utterance is, by association, impossible. That is, a native (or proficient) speaker of that language would never produce an ungrammatical sentence naturally. Recall that in Section 1.2 we established that an ungrammatical sentence is marked by an asterisk, *. Let’s look at the following example:

(7) Aleemah watched Mariam sing on stage.
(8) *Aleemah seems Mariam sing on stage.

According to the linguistic notion of grammaticality, the sentence in (8) is ungrammatical because a speaker of Canadian English would not find it natural or possible.

Let’s try a few more examples:

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        Notice that a linguist’s definition of grammaticality is very different from the notion of grammaticality we are familiar with. For instance, consider the following sentence:

(9) Aleemah don’t see nothing.

You might have been taught that a sentence with double negatives (don’t … nothing) is ungrammatical or “bad” English. Yet many of us might consider the sentence above natural and perfectly grammatical in our own dialects. While the double negative construction is considered inappropriate in some dialects, it is most certainly grammatical (acceptable and widely used) in many other varieties of English.  

        Finally, while discussing grammaticality it is important to note that a speaker of a language also has the knowledge of real-world usage and appropriateness. Specifically, speakers of a language might make a distinction between familiarity and formality. For example, as a speaker of English, you are probably aware that the first sentence below is used in an informal context while the second sentence is used in a formal one: 

(10) What y’all watchin'?
(11) What are all of you watching? 

The above sentences are examples of register (also known as style). What y’all watchin’? indicates an informal register while What are all of you watching? is an example of formal register. Thus, register refers to varieties of language that are used in very particular social settings. 

Note that the sentences presented in the question above are grammatical but differ in their formality. It’s not just the informal register that is restricted to certain situations; it can be equally inappropriate to use a formal register in casual situations. For example, a question like Might I trouble you to wipe the table, if you don’t mind? would be a really strange thing to say if you were asking your best friend to help you wipe the table. It may even be perceived as sarcasm in an informal situation! Remember: register is not about grammaticality, but about appropriateness.

Let's try a few more examples of formal and informal language in English:

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2.1 Prescriptive Grammar

Now that we understand what linguists mean by grammar and grammaticality, let’s take a look at two different approaches to studying grammar: a descriptivist and a prescriptivist approach. 

        Prescriptive Grammar (also known as traditional grammar) aims to prescribe how language should be spoken. Prescriptive grammarians believe in an absolute standard of correctness. This approach to grammar governs the version of English considered appropriate for use by educated speakers or other individuals with authority. The authority could be parents, siblings, teachers, or grammar handbooks.  Here, we are dealing with should(s) and shouldn’t(s) - how you should speak and how you shouldn’t speak.

In prescriptive grammar:

1. One form is more logical than another.

2. There is an appeal to classical forms.

3. There is a preference for older forms of the language.

4. There is an injunction against the use of foreign words (words borrowed from other languages)

According to this view, language is either correct or incorrect. Prescriptive rules, then, have positive value and any utterances that do not conform to these rules are stigmatized or viewed negatively. Any educated person should be able to understand and faithfully follow the norms of correctness which are thought to be preserved in reference works such as dictionaries and grammar handbooks.

Below are some examples of prescriptive rules: 

(a) Don’t end a sentence with a preposition!

(12) At what are you looking? not What are you looking at?
(13) To whom are you talking? not Who are you talking to? 

(b) Don’t split an infinitive (to + base form)! 

(14) To understand gradually the facts. not To gradually understand the facts
(15) He seems to like it. not He seems to really like it

(c) Don’t use double negatives. Two negatives make a positive!

(16) I saw somebody. not I didn’t see nobody
(17) I have something. not I haven’t got nothing 

        According to prescriptive grammar, examples in (12-17) have a preferred, grammatical form that conforms to the outlined prescriptive rules, even if a native speaker of English would not naturally produce this kind of speech. Consider, for instance, examples (12) and (13). Prescriptive grammar assigns a higher value to sentences that do not end with a preposition; however, most English speakers would agree that What are you looking at sounds much more natural than At what are you looking. Thus, prescriptive grammar does not concern itself with natural speech or speaker preferences. It functions only to assign a binary judgment. 

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In this course, we are not concerned with prescriptive grammar. Instead, we make an appeal to the concept of descriptive grammar.

2.2 Descriptive Grammar

        Descriptive Grammar is an approach that studies and characterizes the actual language use of specific groups of people in a range of situations. It does not bring any preconceived notions of correctness to the discussion of grammatical forms, nor does it favour the language of one social group over others. Descriptive grammar simply describes how grammatical rules operate. Descriptive rules or statements aim to describe how people speak a language in its entirety and, generally speaking, linguists consider themselves descriptive grammarians. When linguists tackle a grammar of a language, they attempt to describe all aspects of the rules that speakers use to speak that language. Because descriptive statements aim to record speakers’ mental grammar, as a speaker you probably wouldn’t be able to consciously describe them!

Descriptive linguists counter the prescriptivist claims with the following:

1. All varieties of a language are valid systems with their own logic and conventions.

2. There is no scientific reason to expect one language to match the mold of another.

3. Languages are continually changing in subtle ways without reducing their usefulness, preciseness, or aesthetic value.

4. All languages have adopted words from other sources.

Note that both approaches to language studies involve rules, but prescriptive rules are about mandating language and descriptive rules are about describing it (i.e. descriptive rules tell us what speakers do and don’t do, while prescriptive rules tell us what speakers should and shouldn’t do). Descriptive rules form the basis for grammaticality judgments (i.e. the opinion of a native speaker as to whether a given construction is well-formed or not), which are always made relative to a particular dialect (e.g. something that is grammatical in Standard British English is not necessarily grammatical in Standard Canadian English or African-American Vernacular English, and so on). 

Here are a few descriptive rules (of the English language): 

(a) Articles like the and a precede nouns in English. 
(b) In English, adjectives come before nouns to modify them.
(c) The word order in English is Subject + Verb + Object (SVO). 

Question 1.9

Review

Consider the sentences below. Do you feel that the sentences are grammatical?
Which sentence violates prescriptive rules? Which sentence violates descriptive rules? Explain your reasoning. 

(a) This is the bus stop I wait at. 
(b) Curt saw myself at the mall. 

Your Answer

Sentence (a) is not grammatical as it violates prescriptive rules. That is because this sentence ends with an "at", a preposition. One of the prescriptive rules is to not end sentences with prepositions so it is ungrammatical regarding prescriptive rules. Sentence (b) is also prescriptively wrong because the use of "myself". It is the grammatically incorrect verb. Sentence (b) also violates descriptive rules because a native speaker would not say "myself" as well.

        There are, of course, situations where prescriptive and descriptive rules overlap. If you are a speaker of a language variety (or dialect) that is considered prestigious, prescriptive, and descriptive rules might be one and the same. Let’s return to the double negation example we have seen in Section 2.1. As a speaker of Standard Canadian English, you may be aware of the fact that double negation is considered ungrammatical. Speakers of this variety of English prefer to form negative statements by combining negation (don’t know, don’t see, etc.) with an ‘any-’ word (anything, anyone, and anywhere). In this case, speakers of Standard Canadian English conform to the prescriptive rule. Any dialect of English which uses negation with a ‘no-’ word (nothing, no one, nowhere) would be considered prescriptively ungrammatical, and ultimately stigmatized.        

        As we have seen above, there are many varieties of English, and each variety follows a slightly different subset of rules by which language operates. Standard language is the variety of any given language spoken by the most powerful group in a community. As speakers of various Canadian Englishes, we might refer to the most prestigious form of Canadian English as Standard. This variety is generally held to be correct by prescriptive grammarians. Standard or prestige varieties are usually based on the speech of the rich, powerful, and highly educated members of a society (political elite or upper-class). People are considered standard speakers as long as they do not use strongly stigmatized language forms in their communication. A few examples from English include I seen it instead of I have seen it, I ain’t got nothing instead of I do not have anything, or I have went instead of I have gone.

Keep in mind that non-standard language does not mean ungrammatical language! Just as an utterance can be informal, a sentence can be non-standard and still be grammatical. A sentence that is judged as ungrammatical in one dialect can be acceptable in another variety. It may even be the case that something that is deemed grammatical in one standard variety (such as Standard Australian English) will not be grammatical in other standard varieties (like Standard British English or Standard American English).

2.3. Characteristics of Grammar

        As we have seen throughout this chapter, speakers of a language have the capacity to produce and understand an infinite number of utterances. Within this capacity for productivity, speakers are able to make judge the grammaticality of sentences they have never heard before. That is, speakers unconsciously know whether an utterance is acceptable or not. Recall that our knowledge of a language forms our mental grammar (a set of abstract, subconscious rules). At times, linguists also refer to mental grammar as linguistic competence. Linguistics performance, on the other hand, is the actual language used in any given situation.

Now, to explain why linguists draw distinctions between prescriptive and descriptive approaches to grammar, it is worthwhile to consider the following five simple characteristics of grammar:

1. Generality: all languages and dialects (as well as speakers/signers) have a grammar. If a language can be spoken, it must have a system of rules governing its speech sounds, word formation, sentence formation, and so on.
However, individual grammatical systems differ in the use of structure formation rules. In Warlpiri (an indigenous language of Australia) a sentence like The two dogs now see several kangaroos could be translated by the equivalent of any of the following sentences:

• Dogs two now see kangaroos several.

• See now dogs two kangaroos several.

• See now kangaroos several dogs two.

• Kangaroos several now dogs two see.

• Kangaroos several now see dogs two.

        It is important to note that it’s not uncommon to hear that languages without written systems, or languages without much political power (non-standard dialects, indigenous languages, languages of minority communities) are grammar-less. However, even in cases of languages like Warlpiri, there are grammatical structures and requirements that govern the language. So even if a language displays rules that are wildly different from those of English, there is no evidence that the language is unbound in its structure.

2. Parity: all grammars are equal. There is no such thing as a “primitive” language, even if it comes from a place without technology or modern science! In fact, many languages spoken by peoples we might consider “primitive” show incredibly complex linguistic phenomena. In the same way, there is no such thing as a “good grammar” or “bad grammar”. All grammars perform the same function, which is to (unconsciously) instruct people on how to form and interpret words and sentences of their language to successfully communicate with others in their communities.

3. Mutability: grammars change over time. Small changes (such as new additions to the vocabulary) happen all the time and do so quickly. Think about all the new words that have been added to the English language in the last few years: terraform, yeet, booster dose, etc.

Moreover, when grammars change, they do so within strict limits. It cannot be the case that the older variety of a language is better than the new one since drastic language changes happen over a long period of time. As such, there are no grounds to accept the hypothesis that “languages attain a state of perfection at some point in their history, and that subsequent changes lead to deterioration and corruption”.

4. Inaccessibility: grammatical knowledge is unconscious. When we discuss our knowledge of language systems, we describe it as competence or mental grammar. As a speaker of a language (or multiple languages), you will have an intuition that certain forms can be joined together, such as certain sound clusters or sets of words, however, you might not be able to readily describe how these patterns work. Because language rules cannot always be figured out just by thinking about them, we consider linguistic knowledge to be inaccessible or subconscious.

5. Universality: all grammars are alike in basic ways.  Despite apparent distinctions, all languages share an inventory of principles and properties (including the so-called universals). If we consider everything we know about languages, we come to notice patterns in how our grammars are organized. One example includes:

• All languages use a small set of contrastive sounds to help distinguish words from each other. For instance, the ‘s’ and ‘z’ sounds in English are contrastive because we can use them to create words with distinct meanings: ‘sap’ and ‘zap’.