Ferdinand de Saussure

(26 Nov. 1857 - 22 Feb. 1913) He was born in Geneva. Saussure’s father was scholar
scientist. At the age of 14, he showed considerable talent and intellectual abilities. He studied
Sanskrit and comparative linguistics in Geneva and Leipzig. In 1878, he published a paper
titled, “Note on the Primitive System of the Indo-European Vowels”. This paper showed his
insight into the importance of the linguistic system and how it is central to understand human
knowledge and behaviour. Saussure’s ideas were similar to the ideas of Claude Levi-Strauss
and Emile Durkheim in the field of sociology. Saussure’s ideas influenced social sciences in
the first and mid-twentieth century. Then it spread over to literary theory and modern cultural
studies. Saussure’s influence was far reaching, through his students at the University of
Geneva and through his ideas as collected and spread after his death by his two students
Charles Bally and Albert Sechaye. They put together course notes from their and another
student’s notebooks to produce the Course de Linguistique. It was published immediately
after Saussure’s death. This book was widely read in France and other European countries. In
1959, it was translated into English by Wade baskin. Another translation by Roy Harris was
published in 1986.In 1876 he went to the university of Leipzig. He received a degree of
doctorate in 1880 from that university. His thesis was on morpho syntactic topic, The Genetic
Absolute in Sanskrit. He was an instructor in ‘School of Advanced Studies in Paris from 1880
to 1891. There he was also a lecturer in Gothic and Old High German. He published many
papers in the Society of Linguistics in Paris. In 1891, he returned to Geneva where he was
offered a Chair in Sanskrit and comparative Indo-European philology. He studied various
types like legends of the Germanic people settled in the area, anagrams in Greek and Latin
poetry. In 1907 he gave a lecture series on general linguistics. Three times he gave lecture
theories, everytime he restructured it. Here he brought in his sign theory. Saussure’s book
revolutionised the approach towards study of language. It gave way to synchronic study of
language. He introduced concepts like sign, signified, signifier, langue and parole. He laid the
foundation of structuralism.

Langue and Parole. The Swiss-linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) introduced these
two concepts in his lecture series on Language. The compiled notes of these lecture series
were published in 1916 which is a major turning point in the study of modern Linguistics
(Course de-Linguistique Generale). In the 20th century linguistics tried to find ways in which
languages could be described, identified and classified. They were trying to arrive at a
general method of analysing language which can be applied to any language. At this point of
time Saussure proposed his famous pairs of concepts : langue vs parole, signifier vs signified,
diachrony vs synchrony, syntagmatic vs paradigmatic relationship. Saussure first introduced
the concept that language is a system of systems. It means that every element in a system
derives its significance from its relationship with the other elements of the systems. Let us
first understand the notion of Langue and Parole. La Langue is indicative of the ability to
produce speech, a kind of institutionalised element of the community’s collective
consciousness. In other words the language system resides in the mind of the speaker. Every
member of the community shares it and therefore they are in position to understand each
other. Langue comprises rules and conventions phonology, morphology, syntax and meaning.
Through Langue members of the speech community share the properties of speech. Langue is
stable and systematic. It is a storehouse. Speech community / society conveys the regularities
of Langue to the child so that he becomes able to function as a member of the speech
community. In other words langue is a product of social agreement. Langue means a language
viewed as an abstract system used by a speech community in contrast to the actual linguistic
behaviour of individuals. It encompasses the abstract, systematic rules and conventions of
sign system; it is independent and pre-exists individual users. Langue involves the principles
of language without which no meaningful utterance (Parole) would be possible. Langue is
passive and exists in the brains of the group of individuals. It exists in a collective pattern
which is a sum of impressions deposited in the brain of each individual of the speech
community / society. Though it exists in each individual, it is common to all. It is a set of
conventions, received by us already made from the community. La Parole. La Parole is
opposite of La Langue Parole and is active; it is the actual speech act of the individual. It is a
dynamic social activity. La Parole is unique because it reflects the unstable, changeable
relationship between the language; the precise contextual elements triggering particular
utterances and personal factors. Thus each particular speech act is characterised by the
personality, nature and several other external forces governing both the production and
reception of a speech act. In Parole there is a great deal which is particular, individual,
personal and idiosyncratic. On the contrary langue emphasises speech as the common act of
behaviour. Parole is not so and cannot be stable and systematic. It is not collective, it is
individual, momentary and heterogeneous. Parole gives data from which statements about
langue can be made. Parole is concrete and physical. It is individual performance of language
in speech and writing. When we hear the parole of another community (speech), we perceive
it as the noises made but not the social fact of language, as we do not have langue of that
language. Summary : Though Langue and Parol seem to be in opposition they are
complementary to each other as they are part and parcel of entity of a particular language.
Langue maintains the social order and homogeneity of the language, it does not change with
each individual whereas Parole uses the conventions of the langue for its individual end.

Signifier and Signified : Ferdinand de Saussure’s thinking about language revolutionised the
study of language and gave rise to structuralism. Earlier linguists of the 19th century had a
historical approach to the study of language as they were trying to formulate the rules or laws
that govern the linguistic changes that occurred through the passage of time. e.g. How ‘way’
derives from old English ‘weg’ How ‘day’ derives from old English deag or dutch dag. How
yard derives from old English gerd (gaard (duch)) How yarn derives from old English gearn
(garen dutch). But Saussure adopted a historical approach to the study of language. His focus
was ‘actual working to formulate valid general insights for all language use and for all
languages’. He saw the language as a system of sign. Signs have specific forms and they are
different from other signs. The ‘signs’ are words that we use. According to Saussure the
origin of the form of words (Linguistic sign) lies in the principle of differentiation. For him
language is a system of systems and the whole system is based on minimal differences e.g.
pat bat, cat rat. This principle of differentiation distinguishes words from each other and
simultaneously meanings from each other. To him Linguistic sign i.e. word is both form and
meaning. He uses the term ‘Signifier’ to form i.e. the word as it is spoken or written e.g.
/dog/ and dog, both pronunciation /d g/ or written word dog are signifier. The meaning which
comes out of form, he calls signified (an animal having four legs, barking sound etc.) Further
he explains that a sign is not only a sound or graphic image, it is also a concept. Therefore he
divides sign into signifier and the signified (concept in language) The word or sign dog
signifies the concept that exists in our mind. For Saussure the signifier and signified are
purely psychological associative bonds. Signifier (sound image) Sign Signified (meaning)

Both terms signifier and signified are important elements of semantics. Saussure sees
language as a system of signs - these signs are at first arbitrary - then they become
conventions. In all languages signs are arbitrary as there are different words (signs) for the
(same) objects they refer to. The relation between the sign ‘cat’ and what it refers to is
fundamentally arbitrary, because in Hindi the sign ‘Billi’ and in Maratha _m§Oa (Manjar) are
in use. It means there is no inherent logical relationship between signifier and signified. The
arbitrariness of course only applies to the fundamental relationship between words and what
they refer to. In actual practice those relationships turn into social convention. In other words
Saussure was of the opinion that language is a sign system which is self-referential.
Signs create meaning because they are different from each other. However signified is not
an object in the real world. What word does not directly refer to is not an object in the real
world. e.g. ‘tree’. Definition of tree goes like this : a plant having trunk, branches, leaves,
fruits, flowers etc. Here ‘tree’ can refer to any tree like banyana, mango, peeple, oak, deodar,
chestnut, dwarf ashoka, pine etc. It shows that signified (meaning is a concept which is
typical of a human category. All signs refer to concepts i.e. product of generalisation and
abstraction. Those concepts refer to concrete referents to the real world. Saussure thinks
that our reality is constituted by our language. The language we inherit is an autonomous
system that governs our worldviews. It is linguistic determinism. As language is a system of
signs, out of signs the meaning that arises is signified. Signified are first arbitrary in their
relationship to the real world and secondly the product of difference, in the sense that
difference has a crucial, enabling function. Without difference there would be no language
and meaning at all. Meaning is impossible without the whole system of differences : the
structure within which differences operate. Signs differ from other signs. Though meaning is
first produced by difference, at a more basic level it is produced by structure : by the
relations between the signs that make up a language.

Synchromic and Diachronic Linguistics:Diachronic Linguistics studies a ‘language’ from

historical perspective. How a language is developed through the passage of time and what
changes have occured in the language. e.g. we study how French, Italian language have
grown from Latin language. If we study how Bengali, Marathi, Hindi have grown out of
Sanskrit then it is diachronic study. It is also called as historical Linguistics. The 19th century
Linguistics is historical in nature/character. It was part of the general historical investigations
into origins and development of cultures and communities especially of West Asia, Egypt
and India. It tries to understand relations among different languages e.g. how French and
Italian developed out of Latin and how English, Dutch and German developed out of the
West-Germanic language that the ancestors of the English, the Dutch and the Germans
shared nearly 1500 years ago. They studied the origin of individual words and tried to
formulate the laws that govern processes of linguistic change. From old English word ‘weg’
modern English word ‘way’ was developed. (In Dutch and in German it is still weg or Weg)
‘daeg’ becomes ‘day’ (‘dag’ in Dutch, ‘Tag’ in German) etc. In comparing new and old forms
of a language and using related languages to support their findings historical linguists were
able to discover the rules that govern such transformations as from ‘g’ to ‘y’ and to construct
how the various European languages had developed over historical time. Language families
were discovered and genetic closeness were identified. In short, this branch of linguistics
studies phonological, grammatical and sematic changes occured through time. Written
records clearly show that 15th century. English is quite different from the 21st century
English.

Synchronic Linguistics : The Synchronic Linguistics studies language at a given period of

time. Synchronic means contemporary. Synchronic linguistics studies how a language works
at a given time, regardless of its past history or future blueprint. It can also be called
descriptive linguistics. If a linguist studies present day Marathi used by villagers in West
Maharashtra or IT engineers in Pune city, it will be a synchronic study of Marathi at present
time. The outcomes and theories of the synchronic studies offer particularly accurate
information about a language in its current usage. Some Linguists do not see the two
approaches apart. In fact they are complementary to each other. A good synchronic study is
valid for diachronic postulations.Synchronic is linear and static whereas Diachronic is vertical
and moving. Diachronic study is openededed. Synchronic study of language is closed one. It
means between two points of period in time. These two terms were first coined by Ferdinand
de Saussure. He established this distinctions in the study of language. The discoveries and
theories of the synchronic studies offer particularly accurate information about a language in
its current usage. These terms clearly differentiates between descriptions of the language in
its contemporary form and descriptions of its historical development. According to Saussure,
all languages are constantly changing. He gives an example of game of Chess to explain
that historical considerations are irrelevant to study a particular temporal states of a
language. One can describe the state of the Chess board at some particular time without
reference to the past history of game. In the similar way, one can describe successive states
of a language independently of each other. Synchronic study of a language and its
descriptions are often thought of as descriptions of the language as it exists at the present
day. Such study help to check the validity of our statements by studying the ulterances of
living speakers. However, one can make synchronic description of a language as it existed
at any point in the past, if a sufficient written record is there. For example, if we study
Marathi as existed during the period of Dnyaneshwara, it will be synchronic study. If we
study Marathi from its beginning, its historical development through the passage of time,
then it will be diachronic study of Marathi. However we cannot have clear cut distinction or
watertight compartments between Synchronic and Diachronic study of language. While
teaching a second or foreign language, language which is used at the present time should
be used. It is necessary to observe the distinction between the synchronic and diachronic
aspects of language. Synchronic study of language is complimentary to the diachronic study
of language. Summary : Saussure identified these two temporal dimensions of language
study in his book Course in General Linguistics (1916). The term diachrony refers to an
evolutionary (gradual change) phase of language and the term Synchrony refers to a
language state (at certain time, may be in the past or at present time). Syntagmatic
Paradigmatic Relations : We have seen that Saussure established distinction between
signifier and signified langue and Parole, Diachronic study of language and Synchronic study
of language. Now let us see how he establishes distinction between Syntagmatic and
Paradigmatic relations. As Saussure sees the linguistic sign static and dynamic, he focuses
as two other dominant properties of a linguistic sign - one linear (horizontal) and other
vertical (arbitrary). He sees Syntagmatic relations as associative relations. It is a
combination of descrete successive units minimum (at the least) two and maximum with no
limits. e.g. phonemes to sentence. When there is meaningful combination of phenemes, it is
called as morpheme. When one or more morphemes come together it becomes phrase and
when one or more phrases come together it becomes a clause and when one or more
clauses come together, it becomes a sentence. e.g. the word good is combination of
phonemes /g/, /u/ and /d/. This book is good. This sentence is combination three units (1)
This book, (2) is, (3) good Saussure sees sentence as a combination of linguistic units.
These units have chain relationship. The unit acquires its significance by its preceding or
following elements. e.g. Smita will call tomorrow. The elements occured in a linear order in
the above sentence are : proper noun + auxiliary + main verb + adverb : NP + VP + AVP
(SPA). This construction or order is rigid, and cannot be changed. The associative relations
(syntagmatic) emphasize relational criteria a linguist uses in identifying or defining Linguistic
categories or units. Syntagmatic relations function on horizontal axis. It underlines the
structural potential of any item which is being examined. Linguistic units can also be
considered as a vertical axis. Ferdinand de Saussure postulates the concept of associative
relations according to which any link in the chain of speech will suggest other language units
to us because the units either resemble or differ from each other in form and meaning. When
we construct sentence or when we speak an item is this construction (spoken or written) is
capable of triggering other items. e.g. when we utter / or write the word ‘school’ it triggers
other related words like notebooks, books, teachers, ground, classmate, friend, reward,
study, subjects, punishment, noise, class homework, game function learning etc. These
words are connected with each other by paradigmatic relations. These words are part of
inner reservoir, storehouse (which is in individual brain) that makes up language of each
speaker. These associative relations are also called relations in absentia. we can see a word
as triggering other words, but these relations are unpredictable, because each speakers
association may differ from each other. e.g. for some the word ‘school’, may trigger the other
words like ‘fear’, punishment or for some ‘enjoyment’ curiosity etc. It is psychological so it
varies from individual to individual. It is governed by specific factors governing the individuals
speech behaviour. Therefore paradigmatic relations are unpredictable, free, dynamic and
idiosyncratic. Danish linguist Lois Hjelmslev suggested the term ‘paradigmatic’ for
‘associative relations’.
Syntagmatic Relations These relations are complementary. The syntagmatic relations are
how linguistic signs / elements can be sequences in phonology, morphology and syntax. The
paradigmatic relations are that linguistic elements trigger other linguistic elements / signs.
e.g. lexicon. Elements from paradigmatic axis can replace the element on syntagmatic axis,
as it is shown in the above diagram. A syntag is an orderly combination of interacting
signifiers (words) which forms a meaningful whole within a text / chain. Such combinations
are made within a framework of syntactic rules and conventions. A sentence is a syntagm of
words. Text is syntagm of sentences. There are always larger units, composed of smaller
units, with a relation of interdependence holding between both : syntagm can contain other
syntagm. A printed advertisement is a syntagm of visual signifiers. Syntagmatic relations are
the various ways in which elements within the same text may be related to each other.
Syntagms are created by the linking of signifiers from paradigm sets which are chosen on
the basis of whether they are conventionally regarded as appropriate or may be required by
grammar. Syntagmatic relations highlight the significance of partwhole relationship.
Saussure stressed that the whole depends on the parts and the parts depend on the whole
(Saussure 1974, 128).
To explain these relations, we can have a example of dress e.g. shoes will not go with sari. If
a girl decides to wear a sari, she will choose blouse, and sandals. Blouse will not go with
pant or T-shirts will not go with sari. Another example will explain it is relation to language.
e.g. Soldiers were marching in the street. In this sentence instead of ‘marching’ of ‘walking’
is used, it will not be appropriate though not completely wrong. The Thief was lurking in the
dark. Here if we use walking instead of lurking, again it will not be appropriate. Lurking goes
with some hidden intentions. A set of synonyms is a paradigmatic set, Paradigmatic relations
operate on the levels of the signifier, the signified or both. A paradigm is a set of associated
signifiers or signified which are all members of some defining category but in which each is
significantly different. In all languages there are grammatical paradigm set of nouns and
verbs. Paradigmatic relations are those which belong to the same set by virtue function they
share. A sign enters into paradigmatic relations with all the signs which can also occur in the
same context but not at the same time. In a given context one member of the paradigm set
is structurally replacable with another . The use of one signifier (word) rather than the
another from the same paradigm set shapes the preferred meaning of a text. In a way
paradigmatic relations can thus be seen as ‘contrastive’ (Paradigmatic relations are of
substitution, syntagmatic relations are of addition or deletion). Sumamry : Every item of
language has a paradigmatic relationship with everyother item which can be substituted for it
and a syntagmatic relationship with items which occurs within the same construction.
Syntagm and paradigm govern how linguistic signs relate to each other.
 Structural linguistics as the term designates denotes those trends of linguistic thought in the
20th century especially in the middle decades, which deliberately and explicitly tried to gain insight into
the systematic and structural character of language. In this it is sometimes equated with descriptive
linguistics.
The beginning of 20th century was marked by the new approaches suggested by Ferdinand
de Saussure (Geneva School) and the Prague School of Linguists in Europe, the Anthropological
Linguists and the emergence of Leonard Bloomfield in America, and the advances then being made in
behavioural psychology and natural sciences.
Ferdinand de Saussure is the originator of the 20th century reappearance of structuralism,
specifically in his 1916 book Course in General Linguistics, where he focused not on the use of language
(parole, or talk), but rather on the underlying system of language (langue) and called his theory semiotics.
This approach focused on examining how the elements of language related to each other in the present,
that is, 'synchronically' rather than 'diachronically'. Finally, he argued that linguistic signs were composed
of two parts, a signifier (the sound pattern of a word) and a signified (the concept or meaning of the
word). This was quite different from previous approaches which focused on the relationship between
words on the one hand and things in the world that they designate, on the other. This new approach
regards language as an interwoven structure in which every linguistic item has a role to play in the
general system. The identity and validity of each item is defined in terms of its relationships with other
items in the system. An item’s role in a structure can be discovered by examining those items, which
occurs alongside it, and those items that can be substituted for it. To show this, Saussure, compared
language to the game of chess and pointed out that in chess any piece in isolation has no value and that
a move by any one piece affects all other pieces. The novelty of Saussure's method was its resolute
adherence to internal questions in contrast to comparative and other earlier methods. (Saussure
distinguishes between “external” and “internal” linguistics with the very same example of the game of
chess: In chess, what is external can be separated relatively easily from what is internal. The fact that the
game passed from Persia to Europe is external; against that, everything having to do with its system and
rules is internal. If ivory chessmen are used instead of wooden ones, the change has no effect on the
system; but if the number of chessmen decrease or increase, this change has a profound effect on the
“grammar” of the game. One must always distinguish between what is internal and what is external...
everything that changes the system in any way is internal.)
Ferdinand de Saussure, believed in language as a systematic structure serving as a link
between thought and sound; he thought of language sounds as a series of linguistic signs that are purely
arbitrary, as can be seen in the linguistic signs or words for horse: German pferd, Turkish at, French
cheval, and Russian loshad'.
Saussure's Course influenced many linguists in the period between WW I and WW II. In
America, the structural approach was continued through the efforts of Franz Boas and Edward Sapir,
who worked primarily with Native American languages, and Leonard Bloomfield, whose methodology
required that non-linguistic criteria must not enter a structural description. Rigorous procedures for
determining language structure were developed by Kenneth Pike, Bernard Bloch, Charles Hockett, and
others. Bloomfield developed his own version of structural linguistics, as did Louis Hjelmslev in Denmark.
In France Antoine Meillet and Émile Benveniste would continue Saussure's program. Most importantly,
however, members of the Prague School of Linguistics such as Roman Jakobson and Nikolai Trubetzkoy
conducted research that would be greatly influential.
Structuralism is characterised by the reaction against traditional grammars. Because of the
discovery of new languages, a large number of them being quite different from the languages in the
Indo-European family of languages the European linguists of this period were familiar with, they aimed
at describing each language in its own terms. In the words of John Lyons structuralism “means that each
language is regarded as a system of relations, the elements of which - sounds words etc.- have no
validity independently of the relations of equivalence and contrast that hold between them. Structuralism
is a theory or method, which assumes that the elements of a field of study make up a structure in which
their interrelationship is more important than any element considered in isolation.
The main tenets of structural or descriptive linguistics can be summed up as follows: -
1. Spoken language is primary and writing is secondary: - Structuralists maintained that the spoken
form of a language is prior to its written language and that speech must be the proper sphere of
 linguistic study. They believe that spoken language is primary and that writing is essentially a means
of representing speech in another medium. Speech is primary because speech is older and more
widespread than writing in the history of an individual as well as a linguistic community. Ideas
regarding the superiority of the classical languages, and of the written form, were rejected.
2. Linguistics is a descriptive and not a prescriptive science: - The traditional grammarians held that
the literary language (of the best authors) was inherently ‘purer’ and more ‘correct’ than all other
forms of language, both written and spoken. They believed that it was their duty to ‘preserve’ this
form of the language from ‘corruption’. So they treated grammar as a set of normative, prescriptive
rules. But the structuralists gave up such notions and treated linguistics as a descriptive science.
3. Objective treatment of all languages: - All languages are structurally complex and completely
adequate to the needs of their speech community. So a structural linguist treats each language as
an equal manifestation of the structure of human languages. At the same time, he studies each
language separately, not assuming that languages had common universal properties. Each
language is treated with respect, the idea of forcing the grammatical framework of one language on
to another having been rejected. Language variety, dialects and registers are treated as part of
language.
4. The synchronic study of language should take precedence over its diachronic study: - The
traditional as well as historical Grammarians gave importance to diachronic studies while the
structuralists found it important to conduct synchronic studies. This implies a study of usage of the
day and of such varieties as exists at the time of study.
5. Language is a system of systems: - Language emerges through combinations of sounds. Sounds
are combined in a particular systematic order to make meaningful units called words. Words are put
together in a certain manner to form meaningful utterances called sentences. Language is thus
organised at the levels of sound and structure in a systematic manner. At the sound level, certain
conventions are followed. Sounds of a language appear only in some fixed combinations. No word,
for example, begins with bz, lr or zl combination in English. No word in English begins with a /  /
sound nor does any word end in a / h / sound. At the structural level too, words combine to form
sentences according to certain patterns or conventions. The boy walked ten miles at a stretch, is
an acceptable utterance; but the construction, At walked a stretch boy miles the ten, is unacceptable.
Thus language is a system of systems. It is so called because language operates at the two levels
of sound and structure in a systematic pattern. This systematic pattern making at the level of
sounds and words is one of the most prominent features of human language.
6. The distinction between langue and parole: - Langue and parole are terms introduced by
Saussure. Langue denotes all the elements of a language including the rules and conventions of
their combination. It refers to the totality of language shared by the ‘collective consciousness’. In
other words, we find a similarity of sounds, words and meaning among the users of a particular
language. They have the same images and signs in their minds. To quote Saussure, “language
exists perfectly only within a collectivity”. Hence langue is abstract. Langue is a collective linguistic
pattern, which exists as a sum of impressions deposited in the brain of each individual. It exists in
each individual, yet it is common to all. Parole is the actual use of the language by an individual in
speech or writing. It is the concrete physical manifestation of the abstract langue that exists in his
mind. Parole gives the data from witch statements about the language are made. Parole is not
collective but individual; it is momentary and heterogeneous. Parole cannot be stable and
systematic. It is flexible and personal. Langue is what people use when thinking and conceptualising
(abstract) while parole is what they use in speaking or writing (concrete). As Wilkins points out, “if
one took away what was idiosyncratic or innovational, langue would remain.”
7. The concept of immediate constituents: - Unlike traditional grammar, structural grammar is
characterized by a top-down process of analysis. A sentence is seen as a constituent structure which
form a construction. All the components of the sentence are its constituents. A sentence can be cut
into binary sections. Each section is its immediate constituent. Then each section can be further cut
into constituents. This on-going binary segmentation is termed immediate constituent analysis. This
way of syntactic analysis adds a new dimension to the analysis of sentence structure because
sentence structure is analysed not only horizontally but also vertically. In other words, immediate
constituent analysis can account for the linearity and the hierarchy of sentence structure.
8. The idea of form class, which is a wider concept than part of speech. Linguistic units which can
appear in the same slot are said to be in the same form class. For example, a(n), the, my, that,
every, etc, can be placed before nouns in English sentences. These words fall into one form class.
 To put it technically, these linguistic units are observed to have the same distribution. This formal
approach to syntactic categories is more practicable in observing and analysing unknown
languages.
9. Meaning occurs through difference. Meaning is not identification of the sign with object in the real
world or with some pre-existent concept or essential reality; rather it is generated by difference
among signs in a signifying system. For instance, the meaning of the words "woman" and "lady" are
established by their relations to one another in a meaning-field. They both refer to a human female,
but what constitutes "human" and what constitutes "female" are themselves established through
difference, not identity with any essence, or ideal truth, or the like.
10. Language is a social behaviour and the subject matter of linguistics is the study of the total sets of
habits and patterns. It is an arbitrary system of articulated sounds used by human beings as their
chief means of communication.
11. There is no such thing as ‘natural language’ in the sense that it is dictated by ‘nature’. The nature of
every language is adapted to the social requirements of the society that uses it.
12. A limited stock of utterances chosen at random is the corpus. The corpus is to be used as a ample
to make generalisations.
13. A linguist is a person trained in the technique of analysing languages.
14. The analysis of language proceeds from the smallest unit, the phoneme, to the largest unit, the
sentence.
Chomsky comments, “the major contributions of structural linguistics are methodological rather
than substantive.” It made the study of language scientific, precise verifiable and objective. Structural
linguistics is empirical, makes exactness a methodological requirement and insists that all definitions be
publicly verifiable or reliable. It examines all languages in terms of their phonological and grammatical
systems. It recognises the uniqueness of each language at the same facilitating the comparison between
languages.
Critique of Structural linguistics.
Structuralism ignores meaning, linguistic universals, native speaker’s intuition and his competence
of generating infinite number of sentences from a finite set of items. To a structuralist, grammar is merely
a catalogue of elements classified with restrictions enumerated and relations made physically manifest.
But language is not merely an inventory or catalogue of items as the structuralists imagined and they fail
to capture the total corpus that we call language. With the help of their discovery procedures a computer
and a linguist would come up with the same analysis and identical conclusions because they would not
take into account the linguistic faculty of the human mind. For them the mind was a blank slate – a tabula
rasa – as far as language-learning capabilities were concerned.
Structuralism fails to clear many ambiguities regarding language use. It does not include the idea
of creativity nor can it stop ungrammatical sentences. It cannot adequately explain the interrelatedness
of sentences. The structuralist grammar is not a whole but a part of a whole - an inventory of units such
as phonemes, morphemes, words, lexical categories, phrases etc. But grammar should not merely be a
record of data. It should establish the general and innate properties of language based on the intrinsic
properties of the human mind. Structuralism speaks nothing about the nature of language. A grammar
should also account for deep structures, and should be concerned with the task of giving a factually
accurate formulation for the rules that generate deep and surface structures and the generative property
of language.
Chomsky criticized the structuralists for being corpus-bound and for neglecting meaning. It is
interested in data more for the sake of data than in capturing the creative power that generates an infinite
set of sentences. Structuralism ignores mainly the psychological and in certain instances the sociological
side of language.
While structural grammar represents a departure from traditional grammar and an attempt to
describe all languages objectively, it has its limitations. Practically it is not comparable to traditional
grammar in achievement in that no pedagogic grammar of a language has been written following this
approach. Theoretically, not much of a breakthrough has been made in understanding the nature of
language. Methodologically, immediate constituent analysis, with all its merits, has met challenges from
new linguistic data which it fails to account for.
A regionally or socially distinctive variety of language, identified
by a particular set of words and grammatical structures. Spoken dialects
are usually also associated with a distinctive pronunciation, or accent. Any
language with a reasonably large number of speakers will develop dialects,
especially if there are geographical barriers separating groups of people from
each other, or if there are divisions of social class. One dialect may predominate
as the official or standard form of the language, and this is the variety which
may come to be written down.
The distinction between ‘dialect’ and ‘language’ seems obvious: dialects are
subdivisions of languages. What linguistics (and especially sociolinguistics)
has done is to point to the complexity of the relationship between these notions.
It is usually said that people speak different languages when they do not under-
stand each other. But the so-called ‘dialects’ of Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese,
etc.) are mutually unintelligible in their spoken form. (They do, however, share
the same written language, which is the main reason why one talks of them as
‘dialects of Chinese’.) And the opposite situation occurs: Swedes, Norwegians
and Danes are generally able to understand each other, but their separate histories,
cultures, literatures and political structures warrant Swedish, Norwegian and Danish
being referred to as different languages.

The systematic study of all forms of dialect, but especially regional dialect, is
called dialectology, also ‘linguistic geography’ or dialect geography. Traditional
dialectology studies commenced in the late nineteenth century, and have taken
the form of detailed surveys using questionnaires and (more recently) tape-
recorded interviews. Regionally distinctive words (distinct in form, sense or
pronunciation) were the centre of attention, and collections of such words were
plotted on maps and compiled in a dialect atlas (or ‘linguistic atlas’). If a
number of distinctive items all emerged as belonging to a particular area,
then this would be the evidence for saying that a dialect existed. It was often
possible to show where one dialect ended and the next began by plotting the use
of such items, drawing lines around their limits of use (isoglosses), and, where
a ‘bundle’ of such isoglosses fell together, postulating the existence of a dialect
boundary. On one side of the bundle of isoglosses, a large number of word
forms, senses and pronunciations would be used which were systematically
different from the equivalent items used on the other side. Dialect boundaries
are not usually so clear-cut, but the principle works well enough.
Traditional dialectological methods of this kind have more recently been
supplemented by the methods of structural dialectology, which tries to show
the patterns of relationship which link sets of forms from different dialects.
The systems of structural correspondence published by this approach are
known as ‘diasystems’. Dialectometry is a statistical method of dialect analysis,
developed in the 1970s, which measures the linguistic ‘distance’ between local-
ities in a dialect region by counting the number of contrasts in a large sample of
linguistic features.
Perceptual dialectology studies the way dialects, and individual dialect features,
are perceived by speakers within a speech community. Real and imaginary
linguistic differences, stereotypes of popular culture, local strategies of identi-
fication, and other factors combine to generate a conception of individual
dialects, whose perceptual identities and boundaries may differ significantly from
those defined by objective dialect methods. Dialects which identify where a
person is from are called regional dialects, though other terms are used, e.g.
‘local’, ‘territorial’, ‘geographical’. Rural dialects are often distinguished from
urban dialects, the unique complexities of the latter prompting the growth of
urban dialectology.
Dialects which identify where a person is in terms of social scale are called social
dialects or class dialects. More recently, the term sociolect has been used.
Some languages are highly stratified in terms of social divisions, such as class,
professional status, age and sex, and here major differences in social dialect are
apparent. In English, the differences are not so basic, but it is possible to point
to usages in vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation which are socially based,
Social dialectology is the application of dialectological methods
to the study of social structure, focusing on group membership as a determinant
of dialectal competence.
‘Dialect’ is also sometimes applied to the linguistically distinct historical stages
through which a language has passed, and here the term historical or temporal
dialect might be used, e.g. Elizabethan English, seventeenth-century British
English. ‘Dialect’ has further been used to refer to the distinctive language of a
particular professional group (occupational dialect), but more recent terms have
come to be used to refer to social variations of this kind (e.g. register,
diatype,variety). The popular application of the term to the unwritten languages of
developing countries (cf. ‘there are many dialects in Africa’, and the like) is not a
usage recommended in linguistics.

Idiolects
An individual speaker of a given dialect is said to have his own speech habits. The
totality of the speech habits of an individual at a given time is called an idiolect. A
dialect may be regarded as a collection of similar idiolect.

Important: Regional Dialect, Sociolects, Class Dialect, Caste Dialect,

Dialectology, Isoglosses, Dialect Boundary, Idiolect
 PHRASE STRUCTURE GRAMMAR
There are three distinct periods of development in the theory of constituent structure. Bloomfield
only introduced the notion and explained it with examples. His followers, notably Eugene Nida, Roulon
Wells, Zellig Harris etc., formulated the principles of constituent analysis in greater detail. Finally, the theory
of constituent structure has been formalized and subjected to mathematical rigour by Chomsky and other
scholars and has been called Phrase Structure Grammar. In fact, Chomsky, in his seminal work Syntactic
Structures (1957), proposed three new models for linguistic analysis: 1) Finite State Grammar, 2) Phrase
Structure Grammar and 3) Transformational Generative Grammar.
As Cattel has pointed out Chomsky did not reject the whole notion of using immediate constituents.
He merely showed that this method was not powerful enough by itself to account for the whole of sentence
structure. Instead of merely segmenting the constituents he proposed to identify them in grammatical
terms. It marks a clear-cut shift in emphasis of the linguistic analysis.
The procedure is to name or label the elements that emerge each time a sentence is segmented.
Consider the sentence, The man opened a box. In this sentence, the and a can be identified as
determiners, man and box as nouns and followed as a verb in the past tense. Moreover, the man and a
box are also constituents of the same but larger type: noun phrases. With the use of symbols N for noun, V
for verb, DET for determiner, NP for noun phrase, VP for verb phrase, and S for sentence a tree diagram of
the sentence can be displayed as shown here. This representation
of the phrase structure of a sentence is called its Phrase Marker
(P-marker). The points that are joined by lines (branches) are
called nodes. The nodes at the bottom lines are called terminal
nodes. Except for the bottom line each node is given a label that
represents the grammatically definable constituent such as NP, VP,
N etc. A node dominates anything connected by line below it. The
phrase structure of the sentence can also be shown using the
method of Labelled Bracketing, as follows:
[S[NP [DET the] [N man]] [VP [V opened] [NP [DETa] [N girl]]]]
Grammars that generate phrase structures in this way have come to be known as Phrase
Structure Grammars. These grammars have a set of rules called Phrase Structure Rules (PS Rules).
These rules are called phrase structure rules because they tell us how sentences are structured out of
phrases and phrases out of words. The rules of a phrase structure grammar are not to be identified with the
prescriptive ‘rules’ that formed part of the traditional grammar. A prescriptive grammatical rule is a
statement that tells us whether we are right or wrong to use a particular construction, e.g., we should say
It’s I and not It’s me. PS Rules have no such implication of social correctness. They are objective
descriptions of the grammatical patterns that occur. They give us an idea about both the hierarchical and
linear organisation of sentences.
A PS grammar is an alternative way of expressing the information found in a tree diagram by means
of rewrite rules or Phrase Structure Rules. PS Rules are represented by the following general form of
rule-schema; x⭢ y. This means that the symbol x is to be written as symbol y. Thus the PS Rules are sets
of rewrite rules where the symbols on the left of the arrow can be replaced (rewritten) by those on the right.
The symbol that is used to initiate the rewriting operations is called the initial symbol. For example, inS ⭢
NP + VP, S is the initial symbol, and the ‘rule’ given above simply says that a sentence consists of a noun
phrase and a verb phrase. The plus sign is used to indicate concatenation (chaining together). Now to
illustrate this, the utterance, The man opened a box, has the following set of PS Rules:
S ⭢ NP + VP

VP ⭢ V + NP

NP ⭢ DET + N

V ⭢ opened

DET ⭢ The, a

N ⭢ man, box
Page 1 of 5
The labels such as NP, VP etc. are nodes that can further be expanded or rewritten. For example,
NP ⭢ Determiner + Noun is a rule that rewrites the node NP. [A determiner is an article (a/an or the) or an
article-like word (this, that, these, those, my, your, our, his, her, their, its] A node is a point in a tree diagram
from which one or more branches emanate. The VP node may be rewritten as follows:
VP ⭢Auxiliary + Verb + NP +PP
The node Prepositional Phrase can be rewritten as
PP⭢ Preposition + NP
The rules given so far can be represented in the
form of a tree diagram to form the verb phrase; say
for example, killed the tiger with a knife. A tree
may have one or more branches (i.e., solid lines)
or no branches at all. Every point in a tree where
there is a branch is called a branching node and
there is a label representing the category at every node.
For example the branching node is represented as
shown here. There are also non-branching nodes as the
one given here.
The labelled node that is placed over or that dominates a phrase is a non-terminal node
because it can be further rewritten. NP, VP and PP are all non-terminal nodes. Any node that can be
further rewritten into another is a non-terminal node. A node that has nothing beneath it except lexical items
is called a terminal node. The sequence of lexical items beneath the non-terminal nodes is called a
terminal string. The sequence of morpheme constituents is called the ultimate constituents of a sentence.
Although tree diagrams and phrase structure rules represent the structure of a sentence, one
important difference between the two is that a tree diagram usually gives us the structure of one particular
sentence. But phrase structure rules usually give us the structure of a large number of sentences. As a
matter of fact, it is possible to formulate a set of phrase structure rules,
which can give us the structure of all the sentences in a language. For
example take the sentences
1. Ravi is a fan of ManishaKoirala
2. He has seen all her films
3. He writes to her every week
The Phrase Structure rules for the three above sentences will be
as follows: -
S ⭢ NP + VP

NP ⭢ (Pre-Det) + (Det) + N + (PP)

VP ⭢ Aux + V +NP

Aux ⭢ Tense + (Perf)

PP ⭢ P + NP
Here we say that S goes to NP and VP because in all the three
sentences the S consists of an NP and VP. When we look at the NPs in
the 3 sentences we find that all of them have an N, some of them have a Det and an N, one of them (all her
films) has a Pre-Determiner, a determiner and an N and another (a fan of
ManishaKoirala) has a Det, an N and a PP. As not all the NPs have a
Pre-det, a Det and a PP we consider them to be optional constituents of
the NP. Now coming to the VPs in the three sentences we find that all of
them have an Aux and a V. in the VPs in sentences (1) and (2), the VP is
followed by an NP; but in sentence (3) it is followed by a PP and an NP.
Since the V can either be followed by an NP or by a PP and an NP they
are only optional categories. The Aux in (1) and (3) consists of only
Tense but in (2) it consists of Tense and Perf(ective). So Perf is an optional category. The PPs in all the
Page 2 of 5
sentences consist of a P and an NP. So the rule says that PP goes to P and NP. Thus categories are
labelled into two types – obligatory and optional. In a noun phrase in English, for example, the ‘determiner’
is obligatory before a singular countable noun, but ‘adjective’ is optional. This distinction is shown formally
with the use of parentheses. Braces are used to indicate options or choices in the selection of categories.
Using these notations a set of phrase structure rules for a fragment of English grammar can be
formulated as follows: -
1. S ⭢ NP + VP

2. VP ⭢ Aux + V+

3. Aux ⭢ can, will, shall, may, must

4. V ⭢ kill, see, put, come, go NP) + (Prep Ph)

5. NP ⭢ DET + (Adj) + N

6. DET ⭢ a/an, the, this, that

7. Adj ⭢ old, young

8. Prep Ph (PP) ⭢ Preposition + NP

9. Preposition ⭢ near, on, under

The above sample phrase structure grammar can produce many English sentences like,
The boy can kill a snake (NP + Aux + V + NP)
The old man will see the tree (NP + Aux + V + NP)
The young girl can come near the table (NP + Aux + V + Prep Ph)

A group of words or sequence of words that can replace one another in a sentence of a given language
without affecting grammaticality is called a syntactic category. It may affect acceptability. For example, a
sequence of words with a noun as its head (the sequence called the NP) can replace one another in
any sentence.
The young girl saw the tree.
The tree saw the young girl.
If a category consists of single words – Nouns (N), Verbs (V), Auxiliary (Aux), Adjectives (Adj),
Adverbs (Adv), Prepositions (Prep), Conjunctions (Conj) – it is called a Lexical Category. If a category
consists of a sequence of words (a group of words) it is called a Phrase category – Noun Phrase (NP)
as in the old man, Verb Phrase (VP) as in may have seen, Prepositional Phrase (Prep Ph) as in near
the garden, Adjective Phrase (AdjPh) as in very small etc.
A lexical category can be
subcategorised. For example,
nouns can be subcategorised into
countables and uncountables or
proper and common. Verbs can be categorised into transitive and intransitive. In subcategorisation, the
convention is to use the sign + or –. For example the word boy is marked [+Count]
[+Common] to show the subcategories.
Word Category Subcategory
boy N [+Count] [+Common]
Rober [– Common]
N
t [+Human]
select V [+Transitive]
Page 3 of 5
 walk V [+Intransitive] A simple binary type of sub categorisation is not
sufficient to capture the inherent features of nouns. It
can easily be seen that the count-non-count distinction cuts across distinctions between ‘abstract’ &
‘concrete’ and ‘animate’ & ‘inanimate’. So we have to cross-language and use a multi-dimensional sub
categorisation system.
If the inherent features of the categories are specified, it is possible to specify the syntactic contexts
in which a word that belongs to a particular category may appear. This means that the categories must
not only be subcategorised but the syntactic environments in which they can be used are to be stated.
For example, we have to show that the verb look must be used with a preposition as in look at the
picture. These rules are called Lexical Insertion Rules.
The formation of the Phrase Structure Grammars make explicit the notion of rule, generation and
explicitness of the IC Analysis, but they too do not succeed in the kinds of task in which constituent
analysis failed. The chief defect of PS Grammars is that they are not context sensitive. That is, on the
basis of these Grammars one may construct unacceptable sentences like the following: -
The tree saw the girl. The bachelor delivered a child.
That is why it is necessary to impose contextual restrictions upon the operation of the rules. A
grammar that includes one or more context-sensitive rules is called a context-sensitive phrase
structure grammar. These rules can be formulated in various ways. For instance, the rule,
Z+X+W⭢ Z+Y+W or Y/Z(–) ⭢ W
says that, X is to written as Y in the environment of Z to the left and W to the right. This system can
easily show the phenomenon of ‘concord’ or ‘agreement’ in grammar. For example,
V+s/ in the context NPsing + ……
Verb-V+0 in the context NPplural + …..
Context-sensitive grammars are more precise and powerful than context-free grammars.
Limitations of PS Grammars
1) Though PS Grammars gives a structural description of a language it cannot account for all the types
of sentences in a language. It runs into difficulties in describing syntactic structures of Interrogatives,
Negatives, Passives, etc.
2) It fails to account for the intuitive capacity of the native speakers.
3) A PS Grammar fails to account for intra-sentence constituent relations like, active-passive,
declarative-interrogative, interrogative-affirmative etc., that is, it cannot reveal the relationship
between sentence types. Thus the PS rules are incapable of accounting for the multiplicity of
relations existing either between elements in the same sentence, or between different sentences.
For example, take the following sentences:
The PS rules for the above sentences fail to show
the relationship that connects the sentences (a)
and (b). The phrase by the police will be shown as
a Prepositional Phrase consisting of a preposition,
a determiner and a noun and in sentence (c) the phrase by a country road will too be shown as a
Prepositional Phrase (Prep +NP). Thus semantic considerations and case relations would be
ignored.
4) A PS Grammar may provide misleading multiple
descriptions. In the following sentences,
the word barking is an adjective in (i) a noun in (ii) and a
verb in (iii). We would require three different stets of PS
Rules to provide this information. But, there ought to be a
simpler way to describe barking in all these sentences.
5) A PS Grammar runs into difficulty while dealing with discontinuous elements, e.g., Is he coming?
Thus a PS Grammar fails to capture various grammatical relations and functions in more complex
sentences.
6) PS Rules fail to solve certain ambiguities. For example, a sentence like, Visiting relatives can be a
nuisance, can be explained only very clumsily by using PS Rules because in such cases the
ambiguity does not stem from a difference in immediate constituency.

Page 4 of 5
7) PS Grammars cannot account for stylistic variations. For example, there are a number of adverbials
that can be placed in different positions in a sentence. No PS Rule can account for these variations.
Take the following sentences: John often goes there
Often John goes there
John goes there often. For each of these we have to write a
PS Rule without showing that they are just stylistic variations of the same sentence.
8) A taxonomic theory can only set up classes, define them in terms of patterns, name the classes and
show the hierarchy of inclusion. A Phrase Structure Grammar is a taxonomic grammar – a grammar
of segmentation and categorisation, a grammar of lists, an inventory of elements – and so it cannot
relate units other than by class membership.
9) There are many dependencies like number agreement, tense agreement etc., which are to be stated
in the rules. The PS Rules being classificatory in nature will become too complex if they are used to
account for all dependencies.

Page 5 of 5
 TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR
The term traditional grammar is used to mean a set of attitudes, procedures and perceptions,
which are characteristic of the pre-linguistic era in language study. This approach was characterized by
grammatical correctness, linguistic purism, literary excellence and the priority given to the written form
over the spoken form. Traditional grammar is seen as a collection of prescriptive rules and concepts about
the structure of language. James D. William (The Teacher's Grammar Book. Routledge, 2005) says, "We
say that traditional grammar is prescriptive because it focuses on the distinction between what some
people do with language and what they ought to do with it, according to a pre-established standard. . . .
The chief goal of traditional grammar, therefore, is perpetuating a historical model of what supposedly
constitutes proper language." Prescriptive grammarians thus tried to restore the purity of the language.
They wanted to improve and fix the language forever and language change was seen as a sign of
corruption. Traditional grammar is not a unified theory that attempts to explain the structure of all
languages with a unique set of concepts. Traditional grammars are called traditional primarily because
they generally assume that grammatical ‘facts’ are established by tradition, by previous usage. And with
them, a grammatical ‘fact’ takes on the force of an imperative. In other words, if this is the way things were
done in the past, this is the way we ‘ought’ to do them in the present.
Traditional grammar has a long tradition behind it. It spans the entire range of discussions on
language from Aristotle through the speculative work of the medievals ending in the prescriptive approach
of the 18th Century grammarians. Many of the traditional notions on language originated from Greek
thought. The Greeks were primarily interested in the written form of a language. They thought that only
the language of the great writers was ‘pure’ and ‘correct’ and any deviation from it was seen as a corrupt
and decayed form of language. Later the Latin Grammarians simply followed the Greek model for the
description of Latin. Scholars during this period took meaning into account while describing grammatical
categories; and they seemed to believe that syntax, i.e., the way words are put together in sentences,
followed ‘logically’ from meaning. The traditionalists were also interested in language as a tool for
analysing reality. They believed that the structure of a language was a product of reason.
During the 16th and 17th centuries grammars of English began to appear and those grammars were
modelled on Latin Grammar as English had begun to replace Latin as the language of scholarship in
England. By the late 17th and 18th centuries many attempts were being made to purify, refine and
standardize the English language by applying rules of Aristotelian logic or the tenets of Latin grammar.
Important figures in traditional grammar are Robert Lowth who defined grammar as “the art of rightly
expressing our thoughts by words”, Lindley Murray, author of English Grammar Adapted to Different
Classes of Learners and JC Nesfield author of Manual of English Grammar and Composition whose
notions on the correctness and purity of the language have always been criticised by modern
grammarians.
Bishop Robert Lowth was perhaps the most ‘notorious’ of the prescriptive grammarians. Many of
the prescriptive rules that we still speak about even today can be traced back to him and to his book A
Short Introduction to English Grammar. Noah Webster accuses Lowth of having “criticised away more
phrases of good English, than he corrected of bad.” Lowth felt that English as it was used by even the
great writers of his times violated many fundamental rules of grammar and his remedy for this was greater
thoroughness in the study of grammar especially Latin. He cited passages from almost all major writers of
English for what he regarded as correct and incorrect usage.
Traditional grammar is thus normative and prescriptive rather than explicit and descriptive.
Saussure says, “All traditional grammar is normative grammar, that is, dominated by a preoccupation
with laying down rules, and distinguishing between a certain allegedly 'correct' language and another,
allegedly 'incorrect'; which straight away precludes any broader view of the language phenomenon as a
whole.” It is inadequate and inconsistent as a description of an actual language in use. It neglects not
only the contemporary usage but also the functional and social varieties of language. Its approach is
diachronic rather than synchronic. In his book The Structure of English, C. C. Fries challenges traditional
grammars by calling them ‘not insightful’, ‘pre-scientific’, ‘prescriptive’ and having a ‘literary bias’.
Instances of prescriptive rules are many. Notions of correctness ran deep through them. They
disagree with actual usage. Such disagreements are often quite impassioned, using a variety of different
arguments. One common kind of argument will justify on the basis of logic or functionality that a
particular usage is better. Another kind of argument is one based on an appeal to precedent, asserting
that a particular usage should be accepted or preferred because the best writers have used it in the past,
or conversely, that it should be rejected because it is a neologism. This kind of argument can become very
complicated, as not everyone always agrees on whether a usage is a new one: for example, if a usage was
common until the 1800s, but was hardly ever seen in the 1900s, then some might consider it new if it
regained currency, while others might not. (For example, certain Shakespearean constructions, such as
the use of "his" for "its", or "an" for "if", are not considered correct today.) Yet another common argument
follows what might be called a democratic principle: it asserts that, since language changes naturally over
time, a usage should be considered correct if it is common. Structural linguists have pointed out several
examples for unacceptable prescriptive rules in traditional grammar, of which a few are given below.
Disadvantages of traditional grammar·
 It is prescriptive in nature, attempting to lay down rules for speakers of a language. It lacks a
theoretical framework and thus fails to account for t he nature of language. It has given a distorted view of
what language is, placing priority on rules rather than on functions of communication. The following are
some of the problems that modem grammarians have identified with regard to traditional grammars.
1. Latinate fallacy
Although Latin had ceased to be a spoken language, with the Renaissance, ‘classical’ Latin became the
official written language of government and serious scholarship while the living, indigenous languages
were regarded as common and vulgar. Until the 16th century Latin was the language of scholarship and
administration in England and all over Europe. Students were taught Latin grammar which was designed
to teach them the skills to read and write Latin. Needless to say, the first grammars of European
languages such as Italian and French were largely based on classical Latin grammars, the most influential
of which was written by a Spanish scholar named Sanctius.
Most of the early grammars of English were written in Latin to show that English was, in fact, a proper,
civilized tongue by describing English in terms of Latin grammatical categories, whether they fit or not.
Since English was a member of the Indo European Family of languages, to which Latin and Greek also
belong, it did have many elements in common with them. But many of these had been obscured or wholly
lost as a result of extensive changes that had taken place in English. The rules of Latin grammar were
applied to the English language on the assumption that there is a theoretical structure common to all
languages. Moreover, there was the notion that Latin had a perfect grammar, which could be universally
applied. Thus many prescriptive rules crept into traditional English Grammar from Latin. Examples are: -
i) It is wrong to say, ‘It’s me.’ The correct form is ‘It’s I.’ This rule has come down from Latin where a
word used after the verb ‘be’ should take the same case as the word used before it. In ‘It’s me’, ‘It’ is
in the nominative case while ‘me’ is in the accusative case. So the traditional grammarian prefers
‘I’, which is in the nominative case, to ‘me’ in the sentence ‘It’s me.’ But this rule has never been
accepted in England where the familiar expression is “It’s me”, which sounds more natural and not
‘It’s I.’
It should be noted that the use of a nominative complement ("It is I") is by no means
universal in other languages. For Eg., French-speakers say "c'est moi" (it's me) not "c'est je."
ii) Lowth argued that a preposition should not come at the end of a sentence. Hence a sentence such
as ‘"This is the man I live with" was branded as ungrammatical. The prescriptivists would argue
that the preposition with in the above sentence is "stranded" (This is called preposition stranding)
and that the correct expression would be "This is the man with whom I live".
It is probable that this view is influenced by Latin grammar, where a sentence can never end with a
preposition. In Latin a preposition is a word that comes before a noun and hence such sentences
are considered wrong. But it doesn’t mean that it should be so in English (as sarcastically pointed
out by Sir Winston Churchill, “this is the kind of pedantry up with which I will not put.”) In fact
this rule was never been true of Modern English. It is quite usual in spoken English to end a
sentence with a preposition, rather than to use complex pronounal construction. This is due
primarily to the abundance of phrasal verbs in English. Efforts to avoid a stranded preposition
often end in making the sentence more awkward. For example, ‘people worth talking about’ always
sounds better than ‘people about whom it is worth while to talk.’
iii) In the 19th century, some grammatical authorities sought to introduce a prescriptive rule that split
infinitives should not be used in English. Most experts on language from the last 100 years,
however, agree that this rule was misguided, and indeed that the split infinitive construction can
sometimes reduce ambiguity. A split infinitive is a grammatical construction in which a word or
phrase, usually an adverb or adverbial phrase, occurs between the marker ‘to’ and the bare
infinitive (uninflected) form of the verb. One famous example is from the television series Star Trek:
"to boldly go where no man has gone before." Here, the presence of the adverb ‘boldly’ between the
parts of the infinitive, ‘to’ and ‘go’, creates a split infinitive. The construction can often be avoided
by placing the intervening words after the verb or before the ‘to’ marker: "to go boldly where no
man has gone before" or "boldly to go where no man has gone before." However, these two
rephrasings do not have identical meanings — the former attaches the boldness to the manner of
going, while the latter attaches the boldness to the complete act of going "where no man has gone
before." Descriptively speaking, split infinitives are common in most varieties of English. However,
their status as part of the standard language became controversial. Prescriptive Grammarians
insisted that an infinitive should not be split by inserting an adverb between them as in ‘to openly
admit’, ‘to kindly inaugurate’, or ‘to half cook the meat’. This rule was also based on Latin
Grammar. In Latin it is not possible to split the infinitive even if you want to because it is a single
word.
e.g., stare (Lt) – to stand, amore (Lt) – to write linare (Lt) – to write
But this doesn’t mean that it should be so in English. Sometimes we have to insert an adverb
between the proposition and the verb for the purpose of emphasis.
2. Normative Fallacy
 The traditional grammarians had set up many prescriptive norms or standards of usage in sentence
construction. These were aimed at maintaining the purity of the language, which often overlooked realistic
criteria reflecting contemporary usage among the native speakers. Examples are:
i) The prescriptive grammarians insisted that the word ‘only’ should be placed just before the word it
qualifies. E.g., ‘I saw only John.’ Hence they argued that the sentence ‘I only saw John’ is wrong.
The modern tendency is to place ‘only’ anywhere irrespective of the word it modifies. A sentence
like ‘I only saw John’ can mean three different things with different stress patterns.
ii) ‘He is taller than me’ is another sentence the traditional grammarians object to. They argue that
‘than’ is a conjunction and hence it is wrong to use the accusative form ‘me’ after it. The correct
form, they argue, is ‘He is taller than I’ where ‘I’ is the subject of an elliptical clause ‘I am’. But in
modern English ‘than’ is used as a preposition as well. In the sentence ‘He is taller than me’ ‘than’
is used as a preposition and so it is perfectly all right to use ‘me’ after ‘than’. In fact, we use ‘than’
as a preposition in certain other constructions too. An example would be ‘It’ll cost more than a
hundred rupees’ where ‘than’ is a preposition
iii) The traditional grammar makes a distinction between the use of ‘will’ and ‘shall’. It says that in
order to express futurity, ‘will’ is to be used after the second and third person and ‘shall’ after the
first person. Modern English makes no distinctions like this, both forms being interchangeably
used. Moreover traditional grammar says that ‘will’ expresses strong determination while in the
present day usage ‘will’ is a word of simple futurity and does not contemplate any determination.
iv) Lowth pointed out that it is wrong to use ‘it’ in sentences like, ‘it is the dew and showers that make
the grass grow’. He says that, in this sentence, ‘it’ does not agree with ‘dew and showers’, but
modern English does not frown upon such a usage.
v) Traditional grammarians have laid down a definite system of subject-verb concord with respect to
certain collective nouns like ‘committee’, ‘council’ etc. But modern English approves the usage as
both singular and plural.
vi) Singular they: This is another controversial topic in grammar. According to many grammarians,
they, them, and their are always plural. In everyday speech, however, "they" is often used to signify
a singular antecedent, as in this example: Someone who smokes damages their health. The use of
"they" as a singular generic pronoun has been common since the fourteenth century; this usage
mirrors the introduction of "you" as a singular pronoun - it was originally the plural equivalent of
"thee" and later, after the Norman invasion, "thou." Singular "they" was also the appropriate
pronoun for an unknown number of people in Shakespeare's time. English-speakers never stopped
using the term in casual speech and it sometimes appears even in formal literary writing. In recent
decades, some grammarians, linguists, and advocates of non-sexist language have argued that the
prescription against "singular they" is unjustified and should be dropped entirely. Many
prescriptivists, however, argue that the singular they is injudicious, signifying more than one
person when the speaker intends only one person. It is also notable that many people use the
singular "they" when the gender is known. This is one possible example:
I answered the door and a man was standing there. They told me that they needed to
use my phone.
vii) Generic you
In casual speech, the second person pronoun "you" is regularly (perhaps unconsciously) used
as a generic pronoun:
You should never expectorate in public.
Despite the objections of traditional prescriptivists, who maintain that "one" is the correct
generic pronoun, this phenomenon is close to being universal, and the alternative is sometimes
perceived as stilted or pretentious, particularly when spoken: "One should never expectorate in
public." However, the latter is still generally preferred in formal writing.
3. Logical fallacy
Traditional Grammarians were obsessed with logic. They ignored the fact that language use is
expressive and often defies logic. They argued that language use must conform to a set of generally
accepted rules based on logic. Based on this they gave credence to usages, which do not adequately
match actual linguistic practice while condemning usages, which are actually in existence. Some
examples are: -
i) Adjectives like ‘perfect’, ‘round’, ‘correct’ etc. cannot have comparative or superlative forms.
So expressions like ‘more ‘correct’ or ‘rounder’ which are found in Modern English were considered
ungrammatical.
ii) The traditional grammarians argued that double-negatives should not be used. There are
some dialects in English in which double-negatives are never employed (i.e., in which ‘I didn’t do
nothing’ is never employed as the equivalent of standard English ‘I didn’t do anything’). There are
others in which it is the correct construction. The objections against the use of double-negative
were based on logic. Logic tells us, it is argued, that two negatives make a positive. But the point
is that there is nothing inherently illogical about the so-called double-negative construction. In the
dialects in which it is employed, it operates quite systematically according to the grammatical rules
and principles of interpretation that are immanent in them. The rules of Standard English permit
 ‘I didn’t do nothing’ with the meaning roughly equivalent to ‘It’s not true that I did nothing’
provided that ‘didn’t’ is stressed or alternatively ‘do’ or ‘nothing’ is pronounced with particularly
heavy stress. Also, there are many languages like French, Italian, and Russian etc. in which the
double-negative construction occurs in the standard literary dialect. They are found even in
Classical Greek, where traditional grammar had its origins, as used by Aristotle himself, the
founding father of logic.
iii) Pronoun whose antecedent is a possessive
In the 1960s some usage guides started to reject such sentences as:
Winston Churchill's history shows him to have been a good writer.
These guides argue that a pronoun's antecedent cannot be a noun in a possessive construct; in
this case, they contend that Winston Churchill, embedded as it is in the construct Winston
Churchill's, cannot serve as the antecedent for the pronoun him. The basis for this contention is
that a pronoun's antecedent must be a noun, so that if Winston Churchill's is an adjective, then a
pronoun cannot refer back to it. For example, consider the following sentence:
*The big green history shows him to have been a good writer.
Here, ‘him’ lacks any clear antecedent - it certainly cannot refer back to the big green - and the
sentence must be ungrammatical, or at least meaningless, unless a previous sentence provides an
antecedent. Though it sounds logical this rule does not reflect ordinary English usage, and it is
commonly ignored (intentionally or otherwise) even by those who have heard of it. However, the
concern that it reflects is meaningful in a sentence such as this one:
I talked to William's brother today; it seems he's not feeling well.
Here, it is not clear whether he refers to William or to his brother. Many grammarians suggest that
in this kind of sentence, "he" should not be used at all. (Note that ‘it’ here is a dummy pronoun,
and requires no antecedent.)
4. Semantic fallacy
Traditional grammar doesn’t follow any consistent criterion in defining grammatical categories and
assigning their respective places in sentence structure. Most definitions are vague, ambiguous and even
circular.
For example a noun is defined as a word that signifies a person, place or thing. Nesfield defines a
noun as a word used for naming anything. Yet he cannot include ‘blue’ and ‘red’ in the list of nouns
although they are the names of colours. The word ‘thing’ in Nesfield’s definition can stand for a person,
quality, feeling, place, thing, action, collection and so on. This is clearly a notional definition. It doesn’t tell
us anything about the grammatical status of the word.
At the same time an adjective is defined as a word, which qualifies a noun. This definition is based
on the grammatical function of the word and not on the meaning. Also, in compound words like ‘boy-
friend’ and ‘evening-train’, the words ‘boy’ and ‘evening’ apparently qualify the nouns ‘friend’ and ‘train’,
but thy are actually nouns and not adjectives.
An adverb is defined as a word, which qualifies a verb, an adjective or even another adverb. The
adverb is regarded as the dustbin of traditional grammar because it was sometimes even defined as any
word that does not belong to any other part of speech. Should a word like yellow in the expression ‘the
yellow daffodils’ be categorised as a noun or an adjective?
Examples for vague definitions are many. A pronoun is defined as a word that can replace a noun.
Nesfield defines a verb as a word that is used for saying something about something else. The traditional
definition of verb is as a word that denotes an action or a process. It fails to explain words like
construction, destruction etc or a word like drink in the expression ‘get me a drink’.
5. Written Word Fallacy
Traditional Grammar gives priority to the written form of the language and ignores the spoken
form. Even here it does not cover all the written forms of a language. Attention is restricted to specific
forms of writing – the more formal styles in particular. John Lyons says, “the traditional grammarian
tended to assume, that not only the written language was more fundamental than the spoken, but also
that the written language namely the literary language was inherently ‘purer’ and more ‘correct’ than all
other forms of language, written and spoken; and that it was his task, as a grammarian, to preserve this
form of language from ‘corruption’.” The reason for this literary bias is that at several important periods in
the development of European culture – from the period of Alexandrian culture in the 2nd Cent. B. C. to that
of Renaissance Humanism – grammatical description first of Greek, then of Latin was subordinated to the
practical task of making the literature of an earlier age accessible to those who did not speak naturally the
dialect of Greek or Latin upon which the Classical texts were based. The literary bias is justifiable as far as
Greek and Latin were concerned. It is quite unjustifiable when it comes to the grammatical description of
modern spoken languages including English.
6. The Word
The word is taken for granted by the Traditional Grammarians. Most grammar books do not
discuss it. The familiar definition of a word is that ‘a word is a linguistic unit having a single meaning’. But
this too is a notional definition. Meaning is a complex entity for the understanding of which a formal
description of language should form the base. Furthermore, it fails to indicate clearly which meaning it is
going to treat, i.e. whether social meaning, notional meaning, referential meaning or contextual meaning.
Moreover, the definition itself is ambiguous, as we cannot define what is meant by a ‘single’ meaning. We
can say that many words contain bits of meaning.
E.g. run + (d) ran run + (er) runner
There are combinations of words, which do not have meaning separately.
E.g. phrasal verbs and idioms like ‘take off’ and ‘put up with’. Most phrasal verbs and idioms give
their meanings in their totality and not by the literal meaning of the individual words, which
constitute them.
Sometimes word divisions do not correspond to meaning division.
E.g. ‘heavy smoker’. We cannot substitute the word ‘heavy’ with another word with similar meaning
like ‘laden’ or ‘weighty’
7. The Sentence
Though the sentence is a very fundamental concept it is not clearly defined in traditional grammar.
The familiar traditional definition tells us that it is ‘a group of words that make complete sense’. Structural
grammarians find fault with this, as it is vague in grammatical terms. In writing sentences are clearly
identified. We always indicate them putting in punctuation marks like full stops, exclamation marks or
question marks. Moreover we always capitalise the first word of every sentence. But speech is not always
made up of sentences in the traditional sense. Great deal of spoken language is made up of incomplete,
interrupted or chaotic ‘sentences’. Here the concept of utterance is valid. An utterance is defined as ‘any
stretch of talk or speech by one person before or after there is silence on the part of that person’. Speech
may be made up of utterances or separate bits. But utterances need not always be sentences. A linguistic
definition of a sentence must be in terms of its internal structure. A sentence is composed of certain
specified elements in a certain order. We can identify basic sentence patterns of English like the following.
NV - Birds sing.
NVA - Smith is tall.
NVN - Rama killed Ravana.
NVNN - Americans elected Clinton president.
where N stands for Noun, V for Verb and A for Adjective.
Sentence is the minimum unit in grammatical analysis. Bloomfield defines a sentence as “an independent
linguistic form not included by virtue of any grammatical construction in any larger linguistic form.”
Consider the following utterance,
How are you? It’s a fine day. Are you going to play tennis this afternoon?
Whatever practical connections there may be between these three forms there is no grammatical
arrangement uniting them into one larger form. The utterance consists of three sentences. Hockett defines
a sentence as “a grammatical form, which is not in construction with any other grammatical form. It is a
constitute which is not a constituent”.
8. General Concept Of Language
Traditional Grammar gives a general conception of the nature of language in essentially aesthetic
terms. A language, structure, word or sound is said to be ‘beautiful’, ‘ugly’, ‘bad’, ‘affected’ and so on. It
regards grammar as something God-given, neat, and holy and does not allow the consideration for
language-change and ignores the fact that the grammar of a language also should change as the language
changes. Its methods and notions are unverifiable, inaccurate, incomplete and inconsistent; its
descriptions are often intuitive and not explicit. The traditional grammar does not have an adequate
notion of a linguistic rule. It appeals only to intuition. The rules are not adequate and wholesome. The
learner has to use his commonsense or judgement in the matters unstated rules. This grammar
concentrates on giving rules and defining terms, but its rules and definitions are not satisfactory, nor are
they scientifically sound.
Traditional Grammar is thus full of inadequacies and shortcomings and it is precisely this fact that
has given rise to many different models of grammar. Also Traditional Grammar is based mainly on Indo-
European classical languages and so it is a poor model for the grammars of languages that differ from
them. Traditional Grammar also does not adequately distinguish between all the linguistic levels-
phonetic, morphological, syntactic and semantic.
But all this criticism should not blind us towards the considerable achievements made by traditional
grammarians. Traditional grammar is the most widespread and influential method of discussing languages
in the world. It distinguishes between rational, emotional, automatic and purely conventional type of
discourse in theory if not in grammatical practice. It gives fairly a thorough and consistent analysis of the
declarative sentence. Some of the Chomskian ideas on Universal Grammar have their origin in the
Universal Grammarians of the 17th & 18th centuries. As Chomsky points out, “contemporary linguists
would do well to take their concept of language as a point of departure for current work. Not only do they
make a fairly clear and well-founded distinction between deep and surface structure, but they also
“…provide valuable hints and insights concerning the rules that relate the abstract underlying mental
structures to surface from the rules that we would now call grammatical transformations.” In their
enthusiasm for concentrating on the spoken language modern scholars almost ignored the written
language. But now there is the realisation that speech and writing each has an importance of a different
sort and that mastery of the language involves mastery of both.
 The discovery of Sanskrit by western scholars like Liebinitz and Sir William Jones was a major factor
in the development of linguistics during the 19th century. Researchers during this period started
systematically comparing different languages and tracing them to a common origin. This way of comparing
languages came to be known as Comparative Philology. The contribution of Comparative Philology to the
development of linguistic science lay in the following: -
1. It established a methodology for setting up language families
2. It developed a general theory of linguistic change and linguistic relationship
3. It started focussing on the observation of ‘facts’ of the language instead of speculation.
These were the first step towards turning linguistics into a scientific discipline.

Disadvantages of traditional grammar

 It is prescriptive in nature, attempting to lay down rules for speakers of a language.
 Its grammatical categories are merely based on European languages and are found inadequate in
describing other languages.
 It lacks a theoretical framework and thus fails to account for the nature of language.
 It has given a distorted view of what language is, placing priority on rules rather than on functions
of communication.
 It takes into account only the written form of Language and ignores the spoken form.
 Languages change constantly. This is not accommodated in traditional grammar.
 In analyzing sentences, the method adopted is called parsing. This generally involves five aspects:
(1) identifying elements of the sentence, labeling the parts as subject, predicate, object, attribute,
adverbial, etc.; (2) identifying part of speech of each word; (3) pointing out the inflection of the
words; (4) describing the relationship between the words; (5) generalizing the order of words.
Fundamentally, this approach to the analysis of sentence structure is notional (grammar which is
dependent on the definition of terminology - e.g. ‘a verb is a doing word’ - as opposed to
identification of structures and processes) in nature. It classifies words and parts of sentences
mainly according to meaning.