Ch. 12 | Exercise 1

Chapter 12
Linguistics in Language Teaching

Exercise 12.1
Prescriptive Grammar Rules

1.

As we have learned in this chapter, a continuing controversy about grammar has to do with whether we take a prescriptive or descriptive view of English language usage. Look at the following examples from the Corpus of Contemporary American English, each of which exhibits a usage violation from the point of view of prescriptive grammar. For each sentence, (a) identify the violation, (b) give the preferred prescriptive form, and (c) provide the prescriptive grammar rule. You may wish to consult a usage manual (such as Peters 2004 or Swan 2005).

a.

It's time for you and I to talk this over. COCA: SPOK

b.

We love Steak ’n Shake. Her and I eat grilled cheese and chili there. COCA: MAG

c.

This site uses a Google Maps interface for users to quickly locate international, national, regional, or local news. COCA: ACAD

d.

Then she cursed and screamed and told my grandma she didn’t want to live no more. COCA: FIC

e.

… he was certain that he could – and would – once again return to the lifestyle he had grown accustomed to. COCA: FIC

f.

If you choose the most expensive items, you will be able to serve less people. COCA: MAG

g.

We’ve signed a trade agreement between the three countries. COCA: SPOK

h.

I feel badly that I was even involved. COCA: SPOK

i.

It's a most unique water vehicle. COCA: SPOK

j.

There's some really bad people there. COCA: SPOK

k.

And I don’t know how they do it, but they sure do it good. COCA: SPOK

l.

Hopefully, we will find out today. COCA: SPOK

m.

Well, when there's a death, either my deputy or myself are summoned to the scene COCA: SPOK

n.

There are a large amount of biathlon fans, and I do get asked for my autograph. COCA: NEWS

o.

Anyone answering “no” too quickly is either kidding themselves or doesn’t know the meaning of loving someone close to themselves. COCA: ACAD

p.

In the kitchen taped to the stairs, she said, she found a rambling three-page note demanding $118,000 for JonBenet Ramsey's return. COCA: SPOK

2.

A common point of English usage which has long been raised in prescriptive grammar texts concerns the use of who/whom. Students are taught that who is appropriate in certain contexts and whom in others. Develop answers to the following questions; for (a) and (b), you may find it useful to consult a usage manual.

a.

In what contexts is the use of who said to be appropriate?

b.

In what contexts is whom said to be appropriate?

c.

Provide a linguist's account of the appropriateness of who/whom based on actual usage. Give example sentences from the spoken English dialect with which you are most familiar. Be sure to make examples from as many syntactic environments as you can.

d.

Given the different descriptions of environments above, what would you say to a secondary-school student about the ‘proper’ use of whom?

3.

The stranding of prepositions has often been argued against on the ground of its being an illogical practice. The general line of attack has been that prepositions and their objects are too meaningfully related to each other to be separated in this way. Now consider an allegedly related example. An adjective which is closely related to a modifying noun cannot be so separated from it as in the example of passivization below:

Someone caught a beautiful trout at the outing.

⇒ A beautiful trout was caught at the outing.

⇒ *Trout was caught a beautiful at the outing.

The bad example seems very difficult to interpret. While we can account for its ungrammaticality on the basis of a syntactic rule which says that an entire noun phrase must passivize, we might also offer a cognitive explanation which says that such separations present a problem for mental processing.

The stranding of prepositions is claimed to be a violation of a similar sort. How convincing do you find this claim? (Hint: One possibility might be to investigate whether there are any other cases of “separation” of grammatical elements in English to which no prescriptive grammarian would object.)

1.
a.

i.

It's time for you and I to talk this over.

ii.

It's time for you and me to talk this over.

iii.

Use me, not I, in object position.

b.

i.

We love Steak’n Shake. Her and I eat grilled cheese and chili there.

ii.

We love Steak’n Shake. She and I eat grilled cheese and chili there.

iii.

Use she rather than her in subject position.

c.

i.

This site uses a Google Maps interface for users to quickly locate international, national, regional, or local news.

ii.

This site uses a Google Maps interface for users to locate quickly international, national, regional, or local news.

iii.

Avoid spliting infinitives.

d.

i.

Then she cursed and screamed and told my grandma she didn’t want to live no more.

ii.

Then she cursed and screamed and told my grandma she didn’t want to live any more.

iii.

Avoid double negatives.

e.

i.

… he was certain that he could – and would – once again return to the lifestyle he had grown accustomed to.

ii.

… he was certain that he could – and would – once again return to the lifestyle to which he had grown accustomed.

iii.

Don’t end a sentence with a preposition.

f.

i.

If you choose the most expensive items, you will be able to serve less people.

ii.

If you choose the most expensive items, you will be able to serve fewer people.

iii.

Use fewer instead of less with plural nouns.

g.

i.

We’ve signed a trade agreement between the three countries.

ii.

We’ve signed a trade agreement among the three countries.

iii.

Use between when two entities are involved and among with three or more.

h.

i.

I feel badly that I was even involved.

ii.

I feel bad that I was even involved.

iii.

Copula verbs which express a state of being are modified by adjectives, not adverbs.

i.

i.

It's a most unique water vehicle.

ii.

It's a unique water vehicle.

iii.

Do not use the superlative form with absolute adjectives such as unique, round, square, perfect, single, double.

j.

i.

There's some really bad people there.

ii.

There are some really bad people there.

iii.

Use there is to introduce singular and there are to introduce plural noun phrases.

k.

i.

And I don’t know how they do it, but they sure do it good.

ii.

And I don’t know how they do it, but they sure do it well.

iii.

Use an adverb, not an adjective, to modify a verb.

l.

i.

Hopefully, we will find out today.

ii.

I hope that we will find out today.

iii.

Don’t use the adverb hopefully to modify an entire sentence; hopefully should only be used to modify a verb.

m.

i.

Well, when there's a death, either my deputy or myself are summoned to the scene.

ii.

Well, when there's a death, either my deputy or I are summoned to the scene.

iii.

Use I, not myself in subject position.

n.

i.

There are a large amount of biathlon fans, and I do get asked for my autograph.

ii.

There are a large number of biathlon fans, and I do get asked for my autograph.

iii.

Amount of is used with mass (noncount) nouns; for count nouns use a number of.

o.

i.

Anyone answering “no” too quickly is either kidding themselves or doesn’t know the meaning of loving someone close to themselves.

ii.

Anyone answering “no” too quickly is either kidding himself or doesn’t know the meaning of loving someone close to himself.

iii.

Anyone is singular and therefore requires the 3rd person singular pronoun form.

Note: Today, to avoid gender-biased language, it is common to use the 3rd person singular pronoun form him/herself or to change the entire to plural, e.g. People answering “no” too quickly are either kidding themselves or don’t know the meaning of loving someone close to themselves.

p.

i.

In the kitchen taped to the stairs, she said, she found a rambling three-page note demanding $118,000 for JonBenet Ramsey's return.

ii.

In the kitchen, she said, she found a rambling three-page note taped to the stairs demanding $118,000 for JonBenet Ramsey's return.

iii.

Modifiers should be placed next to the phrase that they modifier as otherwise they may cause ambiguity of meaning.

2.
a.

The standard view is that who is appropriate when the wh-pronoun occurs in the position of subject or predicate complement. Thus Who is the current president of France? and Who is this person? (Note that in both cases wh-fronting moves Who to first position in the sentence although the movement has no effects on word order in the first case.)

b.

Again the standard view is that whom is appropriate in all object positions including direct objects and objects of prepositions. Examples of each case are The person whom I saw was your sister and The director whom I sent the form to was on vacation (or The person to whom I sent the form was on vacation). Native speakers tend to judge wh- fronting with indirect objects, as in This is the person whom you gave the book, odd or unacceptable.

c.

Here is a sampling of sentences from one dialect of North American English:

i.

This is the student who/*whom went to my school.

ii.

This is the student who/whom I saw.

iii.

This is the student who/whom I spoke to yesterday.

iv.

This is the student to whom/*who I spoke yesterday.

v.

Who/*Whom are you?

vi.

Who/Whom did you see?

vii.

Who/Whom did you cheer for?

viii.

With whom/*who did you wish to speak?

ix.

Someone who/whom I didn’t know phoned me up last night.

x.

You can give that one to whoever/*whomever else wants one.

It appears that for this dialect, who is obligatory in subject position but alternates with whom in all object positions except when directly preceded by a preposition. In that case, whom is obligatory.

d.

secondary-school student might be told that there is a difference between the formal description in a traditional manual of style and everyday usage. Since one does not typically hear spoken constructions in which pied-piping has occurred – as with to whom, with whom – one may safely say that this dialect does not have whom in any obligatory contexts in the spoken language.

3.

One of the major problems with the prescriptive rule is the designation “illogical”, which is seldom defined clearly. Although it certainly poses comprehension problems to separate adjectives from the nouns which they modify, note that there is absolutely no problem with separating a wh- object of a verb from the verb itself, even across clause boundaries (so-called “long wh-movement”): thus we can have,

Who do you think that Mary saw [t]?

What did John say that Bill believed that Mary did [t]?

Such sentences are not the focus of prescriptive objections. Similarly, adverbial prepositional phrases may be fronted away from the constituent which they modify without comprehension problems:

In the summer, the boys go fishing [t].

Therefore, illogicality cannot be argued simply on the basis of such movement. Rather, we must seek a reason why some types of constituent can move while others cannot.

In the case of stranding prepositions, it should be clear that no problem with comprehension exists; people do not fail to understand someone who says, What did you do that for? or Who did you give that to? Such sentences are not at all like the sentence, *Trout was caught a beautiful at the outing. Whether we give a syntactic or a cognitive explanation, we must clearly account for the huge difference in comprehensibility between the two types of sentence.