Teach Grammer: Learn Grammer -2

“Language enables human beings to exchange messages with one another … we can make statements about ourselves, others and things in general. We can also ask questions, give commands, make requests and express our wishes and feelings.  Human languages exist primarily in the form known as speech.

Many languages also have a written form.  English is one of the many languages that have both spoken and written forms,” I. K. Gyasi, ‘A Text book of English’.

‘Language’ is the phenomenon of vocal and written communication.  Otto Jespersen, in 1921, wrote: “The genesis of language is not to be sought in the prosaic, but in the poetic side of life: The source of speech is not gloomy seriousness, but merry play and youthful hilarity … In primitive speech, I hear the laughing cries of exaltation when lads and lassies vied with one another to attract the attention of the other sex, when everybody sang his merriest and danced his bravest to lure a pair of eyes to throw admiring glances in his direction.  Language was born in the courting days of mankind”.  That language originated while human beings were enjoying themselves, as argued by Otto Jespersen, remains a mere speculation.  The truth is that no one can tell how language originated.  All we know is that spoken language developed long before written language.

Grammar constitutes the basis of every language.  It is basically a ‘set of rules’ by which a language functions.  The New Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines ‘grammar’ as:  “The branch of language study or linguistics which deals with the means of showing the relationship between words in use, traditionally divided into the study of inflections (or morphology) and of the structure of sentences (syntax), accidence and often including also phonology”.

Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics defines ‘grammar’ as: “Any systematic account of the structure of a language … restricted to relations among units that have meaning … in the widest sense a set of rules … internalized by members of a speech community…”

In ‘Correct English’, J. E. Metcalfe and C. Astle say: “Grammar is … the framework on which ideas are hung, and the loftiest imagery of thought can fall flat if ungrammatically expressed.  It exists in any language long before the language comes to be written, for grammar and punctuation are largely based on logic which in turn is based on fundamental linguistics premises”.

English grammar is basically a conglomeration of the grammars of those languages from which English is derived:  Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Latin, Scandinavian, French, Greek, Arabic and also Indian, Chinese and Malayan.

There have been changes in conversational and literary styles since A.D. 1500.  These changes can be found in usage, meanings of words, spelling, and order (arrangement) of words (syntax).  A discussion of English grammar is limited to the study of prose, since poetry is not affected by rules, and poets enjoy ‘poetic licence’ (irregularity in grammar or message for its own sake or a variation from regular usage and facts).  Guidelines in grammar are only to help ensure clear communication. However, these guidelines do not remain constant; they change from age to age, from generation to generation.

Avram Noam Chomsky (born 1928), an American linguist, in ‘Syntactic Structures’ (1958) developed the theory of ‘generative grammars’ and the concept of evaluation procedure as a means of justifying them.  Developing the theory of ‘Universal grammar’, he argued that there exists an innate or genetically inherited structure of language.

We may take the opening lines from Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘The Canterbury Tales’ (1386):  “When that April with his ‘showres soote’ The drought of March hath perced to the roote and bathed every vein in swich licour.  Of which vertu engendred is the flowr; when Zephyrus, eek, with his sweete breeth  The tender croppes and the yonge sunne Hath in the Ram his halve course y-runne And smalle fowles maken melodye That sleepen all the night with open ye (So pricketh hem Nature in hir corages) Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, and palmers for the seeken straunge strondes To ferne halwes, kouth in sundry londes: And specially, from every shires ende of Engelond, to Canterbury they wende,  The holy blissful Martyr for to seke That hen hath hopen whan that they were seke”.

Translated into modern English, the above passage reads:  “When in April the sweet showers fall And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all The veins are bathed in liquor of such power As brings about the engendering of the flower,  When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath Exhales an air in every grove and heath Upon the tender shoots, and the young sun His Half-course in the sign of the Ram has run, And the small fowls are making melody that sleep away the night with open eye (So nature pricks them and their heart engages) then people long to go on pilgrimages And palmers long to seek the stranger strands Of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands, And specially, from every shire’s end of England, down to Canterbury they wend To seek the holy blissful martyr, quick To give his help to them when they were sick.”

We could readily identify: showres – showers; soote – fall; perced – pierced; roote – root; licour – liquor; sweete – sweet; breeth – breath; flowr – flower; eke – also; tender croppes – tender shoots; sundry londes – sundry lands; Engelond – England; wende – wend (to go, hence the past tense of ‘go’ is ‘went’); seke – seek; seke – sick.  We may regard the original Chaucer’s and Shake-speare’s English as ‘quaint or old-fashioned’, but our generation also stands the risk of having some English words and phrases of today being described as queer or odd by later generations.

With the evolution of language comes the evolution of grammar.  English grammar can be studied by reference to three broad approaches:  Traditional grammar, Structural grammar and Transformational grammar.

By Africanus Owusu-Ansah