Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
grammar [Grk grámma ‘letter’]
Originally, grammar designated the ancient study of the letters of the alphabet and in the middle ages of the entirety of Latin language, stylistics, and rhetoric. The term ‘grammar’ is presently used to refer to various areas of study.
1 Grammar as the knowledge and study of the morphological and syntactic regularities of a natural language. In this traditional sense, grammar caters to the formal aspects of language, excluding phonetics, phonology and semantics as specialized areas of linguistics.
2 Grammar as a system of structural rules (in the sense of de Saussure’s langue (
langue vs parole) fundamental to all processes of linguistic production and comprehension.
3 Grammar as language theory, and in transformational grammar as a model representing linguistic competence ( competence vs performance).
4 Systematic description of the formal regularities of a natural language in the form of a reference work or textbook. Due to the numerous interpretations of the term grammar, scientific criteria for its classification overlap. The following aspects of grammar are relevant for the typological classification of the concept of grammar: (a) Object of study: depending on the particular focus of study, one can cite competence grammar, belonging to the notion of grammar as a language theory whereby a model provides an explanation of the sub- (or non-)conscious linguistic rule apparatus. This can be distinguished from a corpus grammar, which seeks a comprehensive description of observed regularities of a language or of a representative sample of that language. (b) Depending upon theoretical precepts, one can distinguish between grammatical descriptions of individual languages and those seeking to describe linguistic universals upon which individual language-specific properties are based. (c) According to methodological premises, one can distinguish between descriptive grammars which objectively elucidate synchronically observed properties of a language and normative grammars. The latter seek to teach ‘proper’ or standardized language ( descriptive linguistics, prescriptive grammar). Distributional grammars serve to classify surface structure elements according to distributional criteria ( distributionalism) whereas operational grammars concentrate on the process of devising rules ( operational procedures). (d) Language view or philosophy: depending on linguistic theories expounded by researchers, other grammars exist, in part opposing one another, such as general grammar, dependency grammar, functional grammar, content-based grammar, case grammar, structural grammar ( structuralism), generative transformational grammar, and valence grammar. (e) The distinction is made between scientific and pedagogical grammars in view of the various uses to which each is put, e.g. reference use by native speakers vs language learners ( contrastive analysis). Grammars are currently evaluated on the basis of applica-bility, simplicity, completeness, explicitness, coherence, and lack of contradiction. ( also levels of adequacy)
References
Chomsky, N. 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA.
Covington, M.A. 1984. Syntactic theory in the high middle ages. Cambridge.
Droste, F.G. and J.E.Joseph (eds) 1991. Linguistic theory and grammatical description: nine current approaches. Amsterdam and Philadelphia.
Newmeyer, F.H. 1986. Linguistic theory in America, 2nd edn. Orlando, FL.
Padley, G.A. 1985. Grammatical theory in Western Europe, 1500–1700. Cambridge.
Riemsdijk, H.van and E.Williams. 1985. Introduc-tion to the theory of grammar. Cambridge, MA.
Swiggers, P. 1984. Les conceptions linguistiques des encyclopédistes. Heidelberg.
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