Transitional Grammar

 It is a term used to summarize the range of methods found in the pre-linguistic era of
grammatical study. The whole approach of this method emphasizes on correctness,
linguistic purism, literary excellence, the priority of the written mode of language and
the use of Latin models. Traditional grammarians considered Latin as their model
because English is a part of their Indo-European family of languages and to which
Latin and Greek also belong.

 It did had the same grammatical elements. Studying the form of traditional grammar,
the rules of classical languages were followed considering that English did not have
grammar of its own and English grammar followed Latin grammar.

 Besides the parts of speech, traditional grammar analysis also make use of numerous
other categories, just like 'number','gender', 'person', 'tense', and voice. Traditional
grammar also known as school grammar, is based on the principles of Latin grammar.

 These are the collection of prescriptive rules and concepts about the structure of
language commonly taught in schools. It is prescriptive because it focuses on the
distinction on what people do and ought to do with the language. Therefore, the
prescribe rules on how sentences were formed is the emphasis of TG. It is structure
focus rather than meaning.

Strength of Transitional Grammar

 Distinctions:

It distinguishes rational, emotional, and conventional types of discourse in theory, if

not in grammatical practice.

 Through It, ordinary students and scholars have mastered many languages
successfully for centuries.

 It is well understood, and applied by most of those who teach it and have studied it.

Weakness of Transitional Grammar

 Inconsistency

- Its rules are based frequently on illogical ground.

 Exclusion

-It excludes usage while are not applicable to it rules by referring to it as: “ungrammatical”,
“exceptions”, “idioms”

 Subjectivity

-Some language are more sophisticated and cultured than others.

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 Traditional Approach

 Isolated skill work absorbing huge amounts of curricular time.

 Emphasis on memorization, identification, and nomenclature

 Minimal units of analysis: parts of speech

Agreement

 Traditional grammatical analysis has provided us a number of other categories :

• number
• person
• tense
• voice
• gender
Ex: Joanna loves her cat.

The verb loves “ agree with ” the noun Joanna.

 Number : whether the noun is singular or plural

 Person : - 1st person (speaker) singular = I

-2nd person (hearer) singular = you

-3rd person (others) singular = he, she, it, Joanna

So, we have a noun Joanna, which is a 3rd person singular, and we use the verb loves to
agree with the noun.

 Tense : loves present tense

 Voice : active Joanna loves her cat

: passive Joanna is loved by her cat

 Gender : Joanna and Her

Grammatical Gender

 Grammatical gender ≠ Natural gender

 Natural gender is based on sex (male and female)

 Grammatical gender is based on the type of noun (masculine and feminine).

 Nouns are classified based on their gender class while articles and adjectives have
different forms to agree with the gender of the noun

The Prescriptive Approach

 Grammar as a set of rules for the proper use of language.

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  Its aim is to prescribe what is judge to be correct rather than to describe actual usage.

 Prescriptive grammarians (such as most editors and teachers) lay out rules about
what they believe to be the “correct” or “incorrect” use of language.

Prescriptive Rules:

• Don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.

• Don’t end sentence with a preposition.

ex : Who did you go with? X

With whom did you go? ✓

• Don’t use sentence fragments.

• Don’t use dangling particles.

• Don’t use plural pronouns to refer back to a singular noun.

ex: Over there is the guy who I went to the party with.

• You must not split an infinitive = Captain Kirk’s Infinitive

– In Star Trek, Captain Kirk, “To boldly go where no man has gone before.” (Split Infinitive)

– The infinitive form of any English verb almost always consists of two words : “to go”, “to
eat”, “to walk”, but can’t be used with and adverb such as boldly.

– If Captain Kirk had been a Roman, he would have said ire (to go) and audacter (boldly).

The Descriptive Approach

 Describes the language as it is used, not on how it should be used

 Grammar is a systematic description of the structure of the language.

 Specialists in descriptive grammar (called linguists) study the rules or patterns that
underlie our use of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences.

ex: Grammatically according to style register, dialect

• I didn’t see anybody

• I didn’t see anyone

• We don’t have any bananas today.

Ungrammatical

• I did anybodyn’t see

• See did nobody I not.

• We don’t have no bananas today.

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 • We doesn’t have no bananas today.
• Ain’t got none of them there bananas today.
• Has us doesn’t banana of today any.

Structural Analysis

 To investigate the distribution of forms in a language.

• Method used : test-frames that can be sentences with empty slots in them.

ex: The _______ gets wet when it rains. (field, child, road, etc)

The _____ make a lot of noise. (car, child, dog, radio)

• Since all this forms fit in the test-frame, they are likely to be examples of same grammatical
category. (i.e. nouns)

• Other forms that do not fit (Joanna, her cat)

• A different test-frame will be required:

ex: _______gets wet when it rains. (Joanna, her cat) ✓

____________________ makes a lot of noise.

I heard _______________ yesterday.

 It, the big dog, an old car, the professor with the Scottish accent.
Cathy, someone, the dog, a car

These forms are likely to be examples of the same category.

(i.e. noun phrase NP)

• Pronouns are words used in place of nouns.

• More accurately, pronouns are words used in place of noun phrases (not just nouns).