Step 3 - The Nature of Grammar

Tutor: Viviana Andrea Ospina Giraldo

Estudent: Noel Eduardo Peñaranda Torrado

Code: 1007670350

Group: 18

Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia UNAD

Escuela de Ciencias de la Educación.

Licenciatura en lenguas extranjeras con énfasis en inglés

Course: Introduction to linguistics 518017

Ábrego, April 2020

 Step 3 - The Nature of Grammar

Study questions

1. Identify all the parts of speech used in the following sentence (e.g. woman =
noun):

“The woman kept a large snake in a cage, but it escaped recently”.

Articles: The, A.
Noun: Woman, Snake, Cage.
Verb: kept, Escaped.
Adjective: Large.
Preposition: In.
Conjunction: But.
Pronoun: It.
Adverb: Recently.

And respond to following analysis:

According to the author, what is an important wrong linguistic view at establishing a

proper English grammar model in eighteenth-century (this conceptual error is even
today present when considering “a good English use”).
Adopt grammatical labels to classify the words of the sentences and that the structures of
the sentences should be like the structures of sentences in Latin.

2. What prescriptive rules for the “proper” use of English are not obeyed in the
following sentences and how would they be “corrected”?

The old theory consistently failed to fully explain all the data.
It does not comply with the rule "You must not divide an infinitive" and it is corrected thus:
the old theory could not fully explain all the data.

I can’t remember the name of the person I gave the book to

Does not comply with the rule of "You must not end a sentence with a preposition" and
corrects it as follows: I don't remember the name of the person to whom I gave the book.

3. Another term used in the description of the parts of speech is “determiner.”

What are determiners? How many examples were included in this chapter?

A "determinant" are the words that can be used before the English nouns and these are to
specify, determine and provide information about the noun. In this we find: articles (a, an,
the), demonstratives (this, that, these, those) and possessives (my, his, her, its, our, their),
quantifiers (all, both, each, many, much, some), including numbers (one, two, three, five,
nine) and they were repeated on different occasions.

4. In this chapter, we discussed “correction” in grammar. What is

hypercorrection?

Hypercorrection is the inappropriate correction of spelling, pronunciation or grammar,

which is made by people thinking that this is perhaps because it sounds better or looks
better, this occurs in words, phrases or sentences.
Linguistic hypercorrection occurs when a real or imaginary grammar rule is applied in an
appropriate context, such that an attempt to be "correct" leads to an incorrect result.
 5. The structural analysis of a Basic English sentence (NP + V + NP) is often
described as “Subject Verb. Object” or SVO. The basic sentence order in a
Gaelic sentence (V + NP + NP) is described as “Verb. Subject Object” or VSO.

After looking at the examples below (based on Inoue, 1979), would you describe the
basic sentence order in these Japanese sentences as SVO or VSO or something else?

Jakku-ga gakkoo-e ikimasu

Jack school to go
S O V
(“Jack goes to school”)

Kazuko-ga gakkoo- de eigo-o naratte imasu

Kazuko school at English learn be
S O V
(“Kazuko is learning English at school”)
 6. Divergence in the syntactic patterns of languages is responsible for the patterns
of errors made by English-language learners. Given that English-language
learners from Korea produce sentences such as *I ice-cream like and *I book
read, what can you say about word order in Korean? (Taken from Gordon T.
2012).

Korean is a SOV (Subject-Object-Verb) language, unlike English and most other European
languages, which are SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) languages and uses postpositions which
consists of putting a word before or after another, in a certain order. Although the Korean
structure is SOV, the verb is the only immovable element.

Let's take a fairly easy example, the following sentence:

The cat eats the mouse.

"The cat" is the subject, "eat" is the verb and "the mouse" is the object.

In Korean this sentence will be:

고양이 가 쥐 를 먹어요.

Cat + s.p. mouse + o.p. eat

The cat eats the mouse.

고양이 = cat

가 = subject particle

쥐 = mouse
를 = object particle
먹어요= eat

The subject of particles is very curious, depending on which one can change the meaning of
the sentence given the context.

7. Based on the second text please answer: In the text we can see that in the
history of linguistics we have two forms to understand grammar: a
Prescriptive form and a Descriptive one; why the second comprehension it is
considered a breakthrough in Linguistics?

Because unlike the prescription that tells them everything, from right to wrong, the
descriptive helps them to find the answer themselves to continue advancing in the
understanding of the language and gradually master it.
References
Bauer, L. (2007). THE LINGUISTICS STUDENT’S HANDBOOK. Obtenido de
https://books.google.com.co/books?
hl=es&lr=&id=TZgkDQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR4&dq=THE+LINGUISTICS+STUDENT
%E2%80%99S+HANDBOOK&ots=R7Q7RFFQFd&sig=lOwP3L0u3AqezSh2AAPm_zEbcyM#v=
onepage&q&f=false

Myeong. (2012). Introduction to Korean. Obtenido de http://www.korean-

course.com/index.en.php?page=introduction01

Wikipedia. (s.f.). Idioma coreano. Obtenido de https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idioma_coreano

YULE, G. (2010). The Study of Language Fourth edition. Obtenido de

https://fac.ksu.edu.sa/sites/default/files/cambridge.the_.study_.of_.language.4th.edition.
apr_.2010.ebook-elohim.pdf