UNIVERSITY OF CARABOBOSCHOOL OF EDUCATIONMODERN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENTENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND GRAMMARPEDAGOGICAL GRAMMAR

Barbula, January 21st, 2012

Traditional

Grammar

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR

All the languages comes from Romans and Greeks.

The Traditional Grammar has a long tradition with it.

There are ideas about: • New genders (Protagoras)

• Sentence structure ( Aristotle and Plato)

• The parts of speech ( The Stoic grammarians)

• Scholastic study of Latin Grammar (Middle Ages)

• Discovery of Sanskrit grammar (XVIII Century)

• Inner and outer form (Humboldt)

MAIN REPRESENTATIVES

PROTAGORAS (fifth-century)It is credited with the distinction of the three genders in Greek. (Masculine, feminine and things).

PLATO (c.429-437 B.C.)His contribution was the distinction between nouns and verbs.

Onoma: noun, it can mean subject, nominal name.

Rhema: verb, it can mean verb, predicate. This includes verbs and also adjectives, but Plato did not call it adjectives.

Onoma and Rhema are the constituents of the logos (sentence)

ARISTOTLE (322-384)His contributions were :

He kept the Platonic distinction between nouns and verbs. He added a further distinctic class ( The conjunctions)

Recognition of the category of tense in the Greek verb. ( The systematic variations in forms of the verb could be correlated with such temporal notions (present and past).

Stoics gave the most attention to the language.

Stoics: distinction between form and meaning.

They contributed with four parts of speech: •Noun•Verb•Conjunction•Article

DIONYSIUS THRAX (late second century B.C)

To Dionysius deal with the language of the previous era was something that he thought was important.

His method has two steps:

•Phonology•Morphology (no syntax)

He contributed with four more parts of speech to the list of four of the Stoic:

•Adverbs•Participle•Pronoun•Preposition

STUDY OF THE LATIN GRAMMAR

The first Latin Grammar was written by VARRO (1166- 27 B.C.)

His distinctions between derivation and inflection.

Varro set up the following system of our inflectionally contrasting classes: • Those with case inflection (nouns including adjectives)• Those with tense inflection (verbs)• Those with case and tense inflection (participles)• Those with neither (adverb)

PRISCIAN (C. A.D.500)His contribution was to transfer as far as he could the grammatical system of Thrax’s grammar, as well as the writings of Apollonius, to Latin.

The omission of the article and the inclusion of the interjection.

DISCOVERY OF SANSKRIT GRAMMAR (XVIII CENTURY)

Sanskrit is the ancient sacred language of India. It is believed to be the oldest language of the world.

William Jones, a British judge and Orientals, noted that Sanskrit possessed vocabulary and grammatical structures very similar to many other languages, including Greek, Latin, and even English.

Sanskrit is a member of the Indo-European language family.

A Hindu Indian grammarian by the name of Pāṇini recorded rules of Sanskrit grammar.

INNER AND OUTER FORM

(HUMBOLT 1767-1835)

Inner form: The inner form of a word would be more precisely defined as the semantic or structural correlation of the lexical or grammatical morpheme of a word with other morphemes of the particular language that may occur in the mind of a speaker when analyzing the structure of that word.

Outer form: (“the expression that language creates for thinking”)

Taken together, the inner and outer forms constitute the form of language.

OBJECTIVES

To establish for the language a position

To establish rules

To devise methods

To organize

To perpetuate a historical model

CONCEPTION OF LANGUAGE

Based on theoretical and Philosophical issues

Traditional grammar is prescriptive

The study is for pedagogical purposes

BASIC PRINCIPLES

Aristotelian logic

Formal based

dealing

relations

form

propositions

The syllogistic

theory

inferences

premise premise

Categorical sentence

Categoricalsentence

One term conclusion

middleterm

major premise

All  menMajorterm

 

are  mortalsminorterm 

minor premise

and all  Greeks

are  menmiddleterm

conclusion

then all Greeks are mortals.

ARISTOTELIAN LOGIC Propositions. The square of opposition. Conversion.

LITERARY WOKS OF THE TIME (MASTER PIECES OF LITERATURE)

The divine comedy. The Arabian nights. Poetics. The Iliad. The Odyssey.

• THE ILIAD Epic poem During the Trojan

War quarrel between king Agamemnon and The warrior Achiles The siege

• THE ODDYSSEY Major ancient Greek a sequel of the Iliad

The Hero Oddysseus

Journey

Penelope and son The Mnesteres or

Proci

AUTHORITY CRITERION (Reflected in presciptive feature)

Prescription

Judgmnent

Speechcommunity

Witter or proffessor

Dictionary makers

Prescriptive authority

Community

Large

Clasical Fallacy

Idea

languages

Golden period

evolve

degenerate

grammarians

speech

Arresting

• Written language was purer than spoken one.

Derives from philosophical speculations.

The task of interpreting written texts.

PARTS OF SPEECH Reflect ancient and medieval attempts.

Grammar, logic and metaphysics.

Eight categories.

MAJOR PARTS

Nouns

ProperCommon CountNon-count

Verbs

TransitiveDitransitiveIntransitive

Adjectives

DescriptiveDemontrativesPossesives

AdverbPlace Time Manner

MINOR PARTS

Articles

PrepositionConjuction

IndefiniteDefinite

Spatial relationsSyntactic functiosSemantic roles

Conects:Two wordsSentences PhrasesClauses

One syllable WordExclamation

GRAMMATICAL ORGANIZATION• Morphology (art of cambining)

• Sintax ( art of ordening)

• Prosody ( art of pronouncing)

• Orthography ( art of writing)

SYNTAX Subject

Grammatical Sentence

Predicate

Simple

Sentences Compound

Complex

Clauses Independent

Subordinate

ANALYSIS OF A SENTENCE

THE BOOK THAT JOHN LENT ME IS INTERESTING.

1.- Grammatical Analysis

2.- Logical Analysis

Based on rules & principles.

Inductive approach (example rule exercise).

Written language prior to spoken language.

Synchronic (the study of language at a given

point in time).

CHARACTERISTICS

CONTRIBUTIONS

The parts of speech (verb, noun, pronoun, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection).

Description of grammatical rules.

Historical linguistics (how language changes).

Metalanguage (use of italics, symbols; !” &¿?, words in bold in order to describe or analyze language).

Prescriptivism (what is socially & politically correct).

Classical fallacy (error in reasoning, vagueness).

Exercises out of context.

Focus on written language, not the spoken one.

focus on orthography, not in sentence constructions.

Predominance of morphology rather than syntax.

LIMITATIONS

ANALYSIS OF A SENTENCE

Mary who is my sister is a teacher•Grammatical Analysis:Mary: proper noun, feminine, subject of the verb “be”Who: relative pronounIs: verb to be, 3rd person singularMy: possessive, 1st personSister: common noun, singularIs: verb to be, 3rd personA: indefinite articleTeacher: common noun, singular

•Logical analysis:Mary is a teacher: main clauseWho is my sister: subordinate clause

THANK YOU!!!