Conceptions of Language and GrammarExercise
- What rule would you formulate that would allow English speakers to
say that sentences a, b, and c are OK, but that d is not? (The symbol
means ungrammatical, i.e., not in conformity with the rules of compe-
tence.) Feel free to make use of grammatical terminology and also of
terms for meanings.
a. John looked the address up.
b. John looked it up.
c. John looked up the address.
d. John looked up it. - And what rule would you formulate to explain why (a-c) below are
grammatical, but (d) is not?
a. Harry sent a present to Mary.
b. Harry sent Mary a present.
c. Harry sent a package to Boston.
d. *Harry sent Boston a package. (Can you think of a context or a
meaning in which this sentence can be grammatical?)
A language is a system
Rules are not distributed randomly in the mind like potatoes in a sack. Rather,
they are systematically related to one another. It is easiest to envision this con-
ception with an analogy. A computer system has a set of components (central
processing unit, monitor, keyboard, speakers, drives of various types) whose
overall function is to process information. The components interact with each
other; you can, for instance, play a CD while reading your email. The com-
ponents also contain smaller parts, all of which interact in precise, though
limited, ways with each other and with parts of other components.
Language systems likewise have components. The most commonly cited
ones are:
• phonetics/phonology
• morphology
• vocabulary
• orthography/spelling/writing
• syntax
• semantics
• pragmatics
• discourse