Prescriptive (normative) E-sh Grammar

Prenormative EG

Gr is a ling science sonsisting of 2essential parts which are morphology & syntax. M-gy deals with the clas-n of words into PofSp, studies gram categories and word-changing. S-x studies the structures into which words are combined in speech, these’re sentences and phrases.

In every language there are 2 essential kinds of G: 1)normative (prescriptive) 2)theoretical. The aim of 1 is to explain how we should speak & what forms we should choose in order to express our thougts correctly. 2 has a dif aim – not to dictate the rules of correctness, but to explain & analyse ling phenomenon. History of EG began in 16c and roughly it can be subdivided into 2 unequal periods: 1)of pre-scientific G (16-18c) 2)of scientific G(19c).

Pre-scientific G: prenormative, normative.

Until the end of the 16c E G wasn’t taught at schools & the word G always meant Latin G. In the middle 16^th c there appeared William Lily’s “Latin G” though it was devoted to the description of Latin it was very important for the E l-ge because it introduced for the 1 time many EG terms.

The 1type of EG is known as pre-nominative G. Its remarkable feature was that it suffered considerable influence of Latin G, because Latin at that time was the official l-ge at church, school & science. Early grammarians tried to squeeze all the forms of EG into the ling system of Latin. In morphology they borrowed the system of Latin cases for the EN. Thomas Dilworth (6 cases) gave the following paradigm: The Nom: a book, Gen: of a book, Dative: to a book, Accus: a book, Ablative: with a book, Vocative: Oh, book!

William Bullohar described 5 cases excluding The Vocative. In the 17^th c. the grammarians noticed peculiar feature of the EN. Ben Jonson marked only 2 cases for the N: 1The Absolute (the Common now) 2) a kind of Gen. John Wallis denied existence of E cases and possessive adjectives.

Parts of Speech.In Latin 8 parts of speech: N, PrN, participle, V, Adv, Prep, Conj, Interjection. This clas-n was adopted by many pre-nominative G-ns who subdivided these PofSp into declinable & indeclinable. Ben Jonson introduced the 9part—the article. In 17c Brightland worked out his original system of the parts of speech: names (Ns), affirmatives (Vs), qualities (Adj), particles (all other PofSp).

Until 17c the auxiliary Vs (shall/will) were interchangeable wh means that each of them could be used in any person. In the 17c J. Wallis introduced the rules for the distribution of shall/will according to the persons. He fixed shall to the 1^st person & will to the 2^nd, 3^rd.

The Syntax. In LG-s the theory of sen-ce was not developed. There was described only 2 ways of word-connection which were: concord (agreement) and government. But in E they were not so imp because by the 17c E had lost its case system, gender & number distinctions in the Adj.

The theory of sentence in E-sh as well as in other Indo-European languages developed under the influence of Latin rhetoric. The main unit of rhetoric is called the period which expresses a complete thought.

The sentence began to be treated as an equivalent of the period & was detained as a combination of words expressing a complete thought. All the punctuation marks for the sentence were also borrowed from the period: comma, colon, semi-colon.

J. Brightland for the 1time gave his clas-n of sentences subdivided them into simple & compound (dichotomic division). In his approach a simple sent-ce was defined as a unit consisting of one name & 1 affirmation. A comp consists of 2or> simple sentences.

Parts of sentence were also described in pre-normative G-s. Under the influence of logic they got the names: subject, Predicate, Object.

The Subject was defined by J. Wilkins as the noun nominative case. The predicate is the main verb in the sentence. Brightland introduced the Object and said that it’s the N affected by the V. All these 3 parts at that time were treated as the principle parts of the sentence.

There were main ideas of pre-nominative G which lasted until the mid 18c. It wasn’t a creative G and it suffered influence of Latin. But there were made some contributions into EG. Johnson reduced the number of N cases from 6 to 2. The number of PofSp was increased from 8 in L to 10 in E (+art+adj). The imp-ce of word order for E syntax was also mentioned by Johnson. Brightland subdivided sent-ces into simple and comp. The influence of rhitoric was obvious in syntax.

Prescriptive (normative) E-sh Grammar

There were main ideas of pre-nominative G which lasted until the mid 18^th c. They are sprang up the 2^nd type of G—prescriptive or normative (pre-scientific) too but it proclaimed its aims explicitly.

Robert Lowth (1762) published the G “Short introduction to E-sh G”. There he wrote that the task of G to teach people to speak correctly & make them able to avoid false or wrong forms. Thus they said the 1^st task to prescribe correct forms & proscribe the wrong forms.

Prescriptivists refused to take the language of writers for an authority & instead they tried to solve all the disputable problems by applying to the laws of human reason. They believed that it is possible to work out the universal G which would be based on the laws of reason & logic. & these laws should be common to all languages. In reality in prescriptive G-s of language disguised Latin very often passed for this universal G. Those E forms which had no correspondence with Latin were abused & proscribed. E.g., the passive constructions with the detached preposition were abused. Double negations were abused by R. Lowth. Like in mathematics 2 minuses refer a positive result, in the same way 2 negatives produce an affirmative sentences. Double comparatives like: lesser, worser. They succeeded in expelling these forms from usage. The construction: “it’s me” was also abused & recommended form was: “it’s I”, “it’s he” etc.

In prescriptive G the aim is dictating. The use of the prepositions: among, between was interchangeable until the beginning of the 18^th c. But R. Lowth analysed the ethimology of the word ‘b/w’ and found the root two. The preposition can be used referred to 2 objects. “Among” should be used in all other cases.

In the history of prescriptive G there can be traced 2 unequal periods: 1) mid 18-mid19c. 2)mid 19-nowdays. During the 1period the most prominent works were: by R. Lowth “Short Introduction to EG” (London 1762); Lindly Murray “EG adopted to different classes of learners”.

The 2period is represented by a great number of famous scholars: Walter Mason “EG including grammatical analysis”; R. Fowler “EG”; Arthur Bain “A higher EG”; R. Close “A reference G for the students of E” (1979).

Achievements of prescriptive G in treating problems of theoretical G. In morphology: there are no innovations because they practically borrowed the ideas of pre-nominative G. In syntax:in prenominative G there were 3 principle parts of speech: subject, predicate, object. In prescriptive G the object was lead out of this number & began to be treated as the secondary part of the sentence because the object subordinated to the verb. Objects were classified: direct, indirect, prepositional. This classification though not very logical turned out to be popular & is in common use till nowdays.

Prescriptive G made a considerable contribution into the theory of the complex sentence. Until the mid 19^th c E-sh grammarians use dichotomic sentence division: simple, composite.

In the mid 19^th c grammarians turned to the trichotomic sentence division: simple, complex & compound(or composite). Also in the mid 19^th the term clause was to denote the structural part of complex sentences. And it was defined as a combination of the subject & predicate which however doesn’t produce a simple sentence. (clause—предикативная единица). Clauses were subdivided into: object, attributive, adverbial.

For the 1^st time in prescriptive G there appeared the notion of the phrase (словосочетание). R. Lowth defined it as a combination of any 2 words. The definition sounds ambiguous because a combination may be equal to a phrase.

Summary: Prenormative & prescriptive G made the 1^st type of E-sh G-s which is known as prescientific G-s. They were of a purely descriptive character, they were accumulating linguistic facts & quite often suffered from influence of Latin G. Their main contribution in the theory of E-sh G. It can be trusted in syntax, where they reduce the number of principle parts of the sentence from 3 to 2. They developed the trichotomic sentence division, introduced the concept of the clause & introduced the idea of the phrase. Thus they were preparing the grounds for the rise of scientific G-s of E.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1574