Microsoft Word Theoretical Course of English Grammar

Nino Kirvalidze
4
understand, and to make judgments about the well-formedness of sentences, reveals our 
knowledge of the grammar of our language. About two thousand years ago the Greek gramma-
rian Dionysius Thrax (
დიონისე
თრაკიელი
) defined grammar as that which permits us either 
to speak a language or to speak about it.
Grammars are of different kinds
. A fully explicit grammar exhaustively describing the 
grammatical constructions of a language is called a descriptive grammar. It does not teach the 
rules of the language; it describes the rules that are already known. In other words, a descrip-
tive grammar of language does not tell you how you should speak; it only describes your 
unconscious linguistic knowledge. Such a grammar is a model of the mental grammar every 
speaker of the language knows.
A grammar that attempts to legislate what your grammar should be is called a prescriptive 
grammar. From ancient times until the present, “purists” have believed that language change is 
corruption, and that there are certain “correct” forms that all educated people should use in 
speaking and writing. 
So, if the descriptive grammar only describes your unconscious linguistic 
knowledge, the prescriptive grammar tells what rules you should know to speak the standard 
language.
Prescriptivists blame television, schools and even the National Council of Teachers 
of English for failing to preserve the standard language and they attack those college and 
university professors who suggest that African American English (AAE) and other dialects are 
viable, living languages. Yet, the majority of linguists think that language is vigorous, dynamic 
and constantly changing. All languages and dialects are expressive, complete and logical. They 
are all rule governed and what is grammatical in one language may be ungrammatical in 
another equally prestigious language. These scholars admit that the grammar and usage of 
standard English may be dominant for social and political reasons, but other dialects are 
linguistically equally complex, logical and capable of producing an infinite set of sentences to 
express any thought. If sentences are muddled, it is not because of the language but because of 
the speakers. No grammar, therefore no language, is either superior or inferior to any other. 
Languages of technologically undeveloped cultures are not grammatically primitive or ill-
formed in any way (Fromkin et al. 2003: 15).

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Theoretical Course of English Grammar 
Script by prof.