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المرجع الالكتروني للمعلوماتية

Grammar

Tenses

Present

Present Simple

Present Continuous

Present Perfect

Present Perfect Continuous

Past

Past Continuous

Past Perfect

Past Perfect Continuous

Past Simple

Future

Future Simple

Future Continuous

Future Perfect

Future Perfect Continuous

Passive and Active

Parts Of Speech

Nouns

Countable and uncountable nouns

Verbal nouns

Singular and Plural nouns

Proper nouns

Nouns gender

Nouns definition

Concrete nouns

Abstract nouns

Common nouns

Collective nouns

Definition Of Nouns

Verbs

Stative and dynamic verbs

Finite and nonfinite verbs

To be verbs

Transitive and intransitive verbs

Auxiliary verbs

Modal verbs

Regular and irregular verbs

Action verbs

Adverbs

Relative adverbs

Interrogative adverbs

Adverbs of time

Adverbs of place

Adverbs of reason

Adverbs of quantity

Adverbs of manner

Adverbs of frequency

Adverbs of affirmation

Adjectives

Quantitative adjective

Proper adjective

Possessive adjective

Numeral adjective

Interrogative adjective

Distributive adjective

Descriptive adjective

Demonstrative adjective

Pronouns

Subject pronoun

Relative pronoun

Reflexive pronoun

Reciprocal pronoun

Possessive pronoun

Personal pronoun

Interrogative pronoun

Indefinite pronoun

Emphatic pronoun

Distributive pronoun

Demonstrative pronoun

Pre Position

Preposition by function

Time preposition

Reason preposition

Possession preposition

Place preposition

Phrases preposition

Origin preposition

Measure preposition

Direction preposition

Contrast preposition

Agent preposition

Preposition by construction

Simple preposition

Phrase preposition

Double preposition

Compound preposition

Conjunctions

Subordinating conjunction

Correlative conjunction

Coordinating conjunction

Conjunctive adverbs

Interjections

Express calling interjection

Grammar Rules

Preference

Requests and offers

wishes

Be used to

Some and any

Could have done

Describing people

Giving advices

Possession

Comparative and superlative

Giving Reason

Making Suggestions

Apologizing

Forming questions

Since and for

Directions

Obligation

Adverbials

invitation

Articles

Imaginary condition

Zero conditional

First conditional

Second conditional

Third conditional

Reported speech

Linguistics

Phonetics

Phonology

Semantics

Pragmatics

Linguistics fields

Syntax

Morphology

Semantics

pragmatics

History

Writing

Grammar

Phonetics and Phonology

Reading Comprehension

Elementary

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Advanced

English Language : Linguistics : History :

The prescriptive tradition

المؤلف:  David Hornsby

المصدر:  Linguistics A complete introduction

الجزء والصفحة:  32-2

2023-12-11

536

The prescriptive tradition

As new standard languages began to replace Latin in the nations of Europe, a flourishing market emerged for manuals of ‘good’ speech and writing. This prescriptive tradition, over which Latin cast a long shadow, was especially strong in France and Great Britain. In France, battle lines were drawn from the sixteenth century between those who equated good usage with that of a social elite (the Royal Court) and members of an intellectual elite, trained in Classical languages, who saw themselves as the proper arbiters of linguistic correctness. The interests of the former largely prevailed, and Vaugelas’ Remarks on the French Language (Remarques sur la langue française), published in 1647, became a veritable bible for social climbers anxious to learn the secrets of the ‘good’ courtly speech.

 

The book’s preface is very revealing of the nature of prescriptivism. The usage of even a narrow social elite is found to be heterogeneous: not all courtly usage is acceptable, and Vaugelas is interested only in the ‘healthiest part’ (la plus saine partie) of the Court, which he does not define. His prescriptions are therefore based on circularity (good speech is to be found in the healthiest part of the Court, which itself is recognized by…good speech) and are both arbitrary and idiosyncratic. In a country hungry for prescriptive rules, this mattered little, and many of Vaugelas’ strictures have been accepted as ‘correct’ French ever since.

 

The Latin model

As nation states emerged in Europe, the need to develop national standard languages became keenly felt. Prescriptive linguistic works condemned all but the usage of a narrow social elite. Grammars of European languages generally followed the Latin model of Priscian, for which in many cases they were unsuited. Many modern prescriptive rules of English derive ultimately from Latin grammar.

 

From the sixteenth century onwards, prescriptive works in Britain largely follow Priscian’s Latin model. Bullokar’s Bref Grammar for English (1586), for example, takes the eight Priscianic word classes set out in William Lily’s Grammar of Latin in English (c.1540) and applies them to English; the prescriptions of Robert Lowth’s Introduction to English Grammar (1762) are likewise informed by Latin, and even by 1795, Lindley Murray’s English Grammar was arguing for three nominal cases (nominative, genitive, accusative), justified on the model of Latin, in spite of the fact that English – then as now – only regularly distinguishes nominative and accusative in pronouns (he saw me vs. I saw him). While prescriptive grammarians of English are no longer as in thrall to Latin as they once were, many complaints about ‘bad’ English, as we saw, start from assumptions about Latin grammar. Simon Heffer’s Strictly English: The correct way to write… and why it matters, published in 2011, still condemns the use of split infinitives, though its author seems more relaxed than his predecessors about ending sentences with prepositions (p. 89).

EN

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