Grammar

In theoretical grammar.

Fluent speakers of a language variety or lect work effectively internalized these constraints, the vast majority of which – at least in the issue of one's native languages – are acquired not by conscious inspect or instruction but by hearing other speakers. Much of this internalization occurs during early childhood; learning a language later in life normally involves more explicit instruction. In this view, grammar is understood as the cognitive information underlying a specific representative of Linguistic communication production.

The term "grammar" can also describe the linguistic behavior of groups of speakers and writers, rather than individuals. Differences in scales are important to this sense of the word: for example, the term "English grammar" could refer to the whole of English grammar that is, to the grammars of all the speakers of the language, in which issue the term encompasses a great deal of variation. At a smaller scale, it may refer only to what is dual-lane up among the grammars of all or most English speakers such(a) as subject–verb–object word design in simple declarative sentences. At the smallest scale, this sense of "grammar" can describe the conventions of just one relatively well-defined make-up of English such(a) as standard English for a region.

A description, study, or analysis of such(a) rules may also be quoted to as grammar. A reference book describing the grammar of a language is called a "reference grammar" or simply "a grammar" see History of English grammars. A fully explicit grammar which exhaustively describes the grammatical constructions of a particular speech race is called descriptive grammar. This set of linguistic description contrasts with linguistic prescription, an effort to actively discourage or suppress some grammatical constructions, while codifying in addition to promoting others, either in an absolute sense or approximately a standard variety. For example, some prescriptivists manages that sentences in English should non end with prepositions, a prohibition that has been traced to John Dryden 13 April 1668 – January 1688 whose unexplained objection to the practice perhaps led other English speakers to avoid the construction and discourage its use. Yet preposition stranding has a long history in Germanic languages like English, where it is so widespread as to be a standards usage.

Outside linguistics, the term grammar is often used in a rather different sense. It may be used more broadly to include conventions of spelling and punctuation, which linguists would not typically consider as component of grammar but rather as component of orthography, the conventions used for writing a language. It may also be used more narrowly to refer to a set of prescriptive norms only, excluding those aspects of a language's grammar which are not spoke to variation or debate on their normative acceptability. Jeremy Butterfield claimed that, for non-linguists, "Grammar is often a generic way of referring to any aspect of English that people object to."

Development of grammars

Grammars evolve through usage. Historically, with the advent of written representations, formal rules about language usage tend toalso, although such rules tend to describe writing conventions more accurately than conventions of speech. Formal grammars are codifications of usage which are developed by repeated documentation and observation over time. As rules are develop and developed, the prescriptive concept of grammatical correctness can arise. This often produces a discrepancy between contemporary ownership and that which has been accepted, over time, as being requirements or "correct". Linguists tend to impression prescriptive grammars as having little justification beyond their authors' aesthetic tastes, although style guides may manage useful a body or process by which energy or a particular component enters a system. about standard language employment, based on descriptions of usage in contemporary writings of the same language. Linguistic prescriptions also form part of the relation for variation in speech, particularly variation in the speech of an individual speaker for example, why some speakers say "I didn't do nothing", some say "I didn't do anything", and some say one or the other depending on social context.

The formal inspect of grammar is an important part of children's schooling from a young age through modern learning, though the rules taught in schools are not a "grammar" in the sense that near linguists use, especially as they are prescriptive in intent rather than descriptive.

Constructed languages also called planned languages or conlangs are more common in the modern-day, although still extremely uncommon compared to natural languages. numerous have been intentional to aid human communication for example, naturalistic Interlingua, schematic Esperanto, and the highly logic-compatible artificial language Lojban. each of these languages has its own grammar.

intonation, which is the domain of phonology. Morphology, by contrast, refers to the grouping at and below the word level for example, how compound words are formed, but above the level of individual sounds, which, like intonation, are in the domain of phonology. However, no clear line can be drawn between syntax and morphology. Analytic languages use syntax toinformation which is encoded by inflection in synthetic languages. In other words, word order is not significant and morphology is highly significant in a purely synthetic language, whereas morphology is not significant and syntax is highly significant in an analytic language. For example, Chinese and Afrikaans are highly analytic, thus meaning is very context-dependent. Both have some inflections, and both have had more in the past; thus, they are becoming even less synthetic and more "purely" analytic over time. Latin, which is highly synthetic, uses affixes and inflections tothe same information that Chinese does with syntax. Because Latin words are quite though not completely self-contained, an intelligible Latin sentence can be present from elements that are arranged almost arbitrarily. Latin has a complex affixation and simple syntax, whereas Chinese has the opposite.