Geoffrey Pullum

Missing century in English grammar:

… almost everything most educated Americans believe about English grammar is wrong.

Two kinds of rules: Descriptive – constitutive Prescriptive – regulative Stated goal: Stated goal: to describe & explain to prevent users of the knowledge behind language from using actual language use bad or incorrect

grammar Also: to help people use language brilliantly, rather than ploddingly

So, suppose we DO want to speak and write Standard American EnglishGrammar vs Style

This city, of all cities, knows the dream of freedom... Where the last war had ended, another world war could have easily begun – and all that stood in the way was Berlin. -- Barack Obama, Berlin, Germany, July 24, 2008

...We are proud to stand with you in NATO. These are big achievements for this country, and the people of Bulgaria ought to be proud of the achievements that they have achieved. --George W. Bush, Sofia, Bulgaria, June 11, 2007

4 levels of correctness

1. Established criteria of educated written usage

2. Issues on which educated people differ (also written vs. spoken)

3. Changes in the spoken language that some people resistOlder form Newer form

skimmed milkiced cream

popped cornroasted beefwaxed paper

iced teawhipped creamcreamed corn

skim milkice creampop cornroast beefwax paper

ice teawhip creamcream corn

I feel like such a free spirit, and I'm really enjoying this so-called ... iced cream. Montgomery Burns in The Simpsons. Episode 1F05, Bart's Inner Child

4. Pure inventions of self-appointed grammarians with no basis in actual usage (pseudo-correctness)

Judges 12: shibboleth massacre 4 Jephthah then called together the men of Gilead and fought

against Ephraim. The Gileadites struck them down because the Ephraimites had said, "You Gileadites are renegades from Ephraim and Manasseh."

5 The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said, "Let me cross over," the men of Gilead asked him, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he replied, "No,"

6 they said, "All right, say `Shibboleth.'" If he said, "Sibboleth," because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time.

Dominican Republic 1937: perejil massacreDictator Rafael Trujillo ordered the slaughter of Haitians.Shibboleth = Haitians could not roll the /r/ in the Spanish word for parsley “perejil.”At least 20 000 Haitians were killed at that time

Less deadly, but no less arbitrary:Singular “their” - Is that a singular antecedent, really?

God send every one their heart's desire! -- William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Act III Scene 4

Can any man or woman choose duties? No more than they can choose their birthplace, or their father or mother.

-- George Eliot

Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.

-- King James Bible, Philippians 2:3

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.

-- Oscar Wilde

Max Weinreich

Language is a dialect with an Army and a Navy

Everyone speaks a dialect!

Every dialect has language-pieces, and rules for putting those pieces together = grammatical rules

Prestige dialects

My Fair Lady & African American Vernacular English (AAVE)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHEN20RB8UM

Dialect vs. Language Logic: Hisself, theirselves Myself my hat Yourself your hat Hisself his hat Herself her hat Ourselves our hats Yourselves your hats Theirselves their hats

Complexity: I don't see nothing = a kind of agreement Word order reversed: Can't nobody hold me down. *Nobody can't hold me down. *Nobody can hold me down. Ain’t = negative support (like do-support) Ain't nobody told me. *Nobody told me.

Other languages: I don't see nothing. French: Je ne vois rien. Spanish: No veo nada. Russian: Nichevo ne vizhu.

Fashions of language use

Hopelessly antiquated Extremely formal Pure fantasyHast thou bought the detergent? Whom did you see? Never split infinitives

but To teach and learn gladly... Whom did you see at Never use ‘singular their’ the frat party ? God send everyone his or her

heart’s desire...

Fashions of language use: different contexts call for different fashions!

AAVE

Some regional variation; salient features common to all varieties

We will mention some phonological features of AAVE when we do phonology.A couple of syntactic features:

Negative concordI don't see nothing = a kind of agreement Word order reversed: Can't nobody hold me down. *Nobody can't hold me down. *Nobody can hold me down. Ain’t = negative support (like do-support) Ain't nobody told me. *Nobody told me.

Copula reductionHe walking. Non-present-tense “be” is never deleted, and neither is “am”:*She will here tomorrow. She was here yesterday. *She here yesterday. I’m here. *I here.AAVE can only skip “is” in places where SE “is” contracts:SE He’s lying => AAVE He lyingSE Is he lying? => AAVE Is he lying? *He lying? (only ok as echo of He’s lying?) SE He is! => AAVE He is! *He..

Ebonics controversy

Oakland Board of Education

1. Recognized that the speech of some African American children entering Oakland's schools is so different from standard English that teachers often can't understand what they are saying.

2. Recognized that traditional way of treating the speech of these children as simply sloppy and wrong, not as evidencing skills and knowledge the children can build on, is unsuccessful in teaching them Standard English.

3. Proposed a new instructional plan that would assist children in learning standard English by encouraging them to compare the way they speak with what they need to learn in school.

4. To do this, teachers must treat what they already have, linguistically, as a worthy possession rather than as evidence of carelessness and ignorance.

5. An important step toward introducing this new practice is to help teachers understand the characteristics of their students' speech so they can lead the children to an awareness of the difference.

Ebonics controversy: firestorm of criticismCA state senator Ray Haynes:“What the ebonics program is saying is we are going to allow you to engage in bad speech patterns. It puts African American students at a disadvantage with white students in the workplace.”

Richard Delgaudio, president of the Legal Affairs Council, Fairfax, Va. :“Militant black extremists in Oakland and elsewhere would encourage street-land talk inside our classrooms and separate and unequal education...”

Ralph A. Wright, an African American teacher, Jefferson High (Oakland school district): black English should be left at the classroom door because it “is a sloppy language and it encourages sloppy thinking.”

Jim Boulet, executive director of the national organisation English First:“It's saying in the most racist way that black kids are stupid and they can't learn English so let's not bother with that.”

Rev. Jessy Jackson on NBC News program ‘Meet the Press’:“I understand the attempt to reach out to these children, but this is an unacceptable surrender, borderlining on disgrace.'' The board is intent on “making slang talk a second language.”