Prescriptivism and Descriptivism

1. Prescriptivism and Descriptivism September 20, 2010

2. Current Work with Bonobos • After Nim Chimpsky, funding for primate language studies mostly dried up. • …although a few experiments went on. • One project involves bonobos, a sub-species of chimpanzees. • Bonobos Sherman and Austin have also been trained to use lexigrams. • Kanzi learned just by watching Sherman and Austin’s training!

3. Bonobo Successes • It is claimed that bonobos: • Have better comprehension abilities than production abilities. • (just like human children) • Learned to comprehend just through ordinary exposure (Kanzi) • Skills include creative extension of signs for humor and metaphorical expression. • Some evidence of displacement • (referring to chimps who are not present)

4. Bonobo Criticisms • Kanzi’s use of symbols for purposes other than requesting is only 4%. • Longest “utterances” are three signs, with variable word order. • For all chimps who are taught language, development reaches a modest level of success and then stops. • In children, development keeps going well beyond the early years of life.

5. In Conclusion • The ability of animals to acquire language is limited. • Works best with primates. • Generally requires focused training conditions. • Primate “language” can exhibit some crucial design features like creativity and displacement… • However, it also exhibits features not found in human language. • It also fails to exhibit other important features like consistent word order, continual progress, etc.

6. Moral of the Story • Ever since Chomksy’s insight into the biological nature of language, • Scientists are much more open to the idea that behavior can be biologically specified. • Think of the human use of language in the same way that you think of: • Spiders spinning webs • Eagles flying • Ducks swimming on water • etc.

7. The Last Quick Write Q: Can natural selection account for the existence of language?

8. The Last Quick Write Q: Can natural selection account for the existence of language?

9. The Last Quick Write Q: Can natural selection account for the existence of language?

10. The Last Quick Write Q: Can natural selection account for the existence of language?

11. Evolution Wrap • Note: survival of the “fittest” • = that which fits in best in its environment, survives… • Not necessarily that which is strongest, fastest, etc. • Ex: cockroaches in a nuclear holocaust. • Or: mammals after the extinction of the dinosaurs. • Adaptibility is what matters. • Some of the distinctive features of language--creativity, displacement, etc.--enable human beings to: • communicate information about different environments • develop solutions to new problems • adapt to new situations

12. Moving On • So far, we’ve learned: • Language is biological • Everyone learns a language as they grow up… • but no one teaches it to them. • The main points to cover today: • All forms of language are very complex. • And rule-based. (=systematic) • Part of learning a language involves learning these rules (the grammar). • For native speakers, the rules are in their heads!

13. The Rules? • Since kids are not taught the rules of their native language explicitly… • they have to figure out the rules on their own. • Our goal, as linguists, is to figure out what they’ve figured out. • (which is not always easy) • One basic tool we have: grammaticality judgments • Native speakers of a language have a sense of whether or not particular strings of sounds and words are acceptable expressions in their language. • plab, forch, *fmort, *ptud

14. Grammaticality Judgments • Examples at the sentence level: • Grammatical: People in Calgary are friendly. • Ungrammatical: *Calgary in friendly people are. • How do you feel about these? • Winter is a very cold time of year. • Sad people sing the often blues. • Green eggs like I and ham. • Each Nutch in a Nitch knows that some other Nutch would like to move into his Nitch very much. • One important point: sentences can be grammatical without meaning anything.

15. The Origins of Grammar • Another important (technical) distinction: • A grammatical sentence is one that can be generated by the linguistic rules inside of a native speaker’s head. • An ungrammatical sentence cannot. • Note: a sentence is not ungrammatical simply because it has been ruled “bad” by decree. • So. How do you feel about these? • The Enterprise’s mission is to boldly go where no man has gone before. • Who do you trust? • Mick can’t get no satisfaction.

16. Standards • The rules of “grammar” that we learn in English class first emerged in London in the 17th and 18th centuries. • Note: Latin used to be the language that all educated people had to learn. • Latin’s supremacy was being challenged by English… • So the educated classes decided to incorporate the rules of Latin into “educated” English grammar. • Examples: • don’t split infinitives • don’t end a sentence with a preposition • no double negatives

17. Prescriptive vs. Descriptive • Prescriptive grammar = • Arbitrary rules imposed upon a language by someone (or some group of people) who thinks they ought to be adhered to. • Descriptive grammar = • Linguists’ description of the rules of grammar inside of native speakers’ heads. • Designed to account for native speaker intuitions about grammaticality judgments. • Descriptive = natural grammar • Prescriptive = artificial grammar

18. The Problems with Prescription • There are problems with applying Latin rules to English grammar. • The rules are not organic. • Note: English is not Latin. • So: native speakers can get confused about how to apply them. • Language is constantly changing… • So the (arbitrary) standards can also change. • Prescriptive rules don’t capture most of the grammatical patterns actually exhibited by language. • Most importantly: prescriptive rules are not scientific.

19. Problem #1: Confusion • A prescriptive rule: don’t end a sentence with a preposition. • A prescriptive fix: • Natural: That’s the house we lived in. • “Fixed”: That’s the house in which we lived. • How well does this work? • Paul McCartney: “…and in this ever-changing world in which we live in…” • Winston Churchill: “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put!”

20. Hypercorrection • Another problem: speakers can sometimes correct forms that aren’t (prescriptively) wrong to begin with. • This is known as hypercorrection. • One example: the case of conjoined pronouns. • Pronouns in English have two forms: • Subject: I, he, she, we, they • Object: me, him, her, us, them • The object pronouns appear in the following frames: • Bob annoys me. (*Bob annoys I.) • Karen wants to come with us. (*with we.)

21. Unforeseen Consequences • Conjoined pronouns: • Bob and I, Karen and you, etc. • A prescriptive rule: for conjoined pronouns, use the form that ought to be used when the pronoun stands on its own. • Examples: • Good: John and I went to the movies. • (Because: I went to the movies.) • However: • “Bad”: John and me went to the movies. • “Bad”: Me and John went to the movies. • (Because: *Me went to the movies.)

22. Unforeseen Consequences • In the objective case: • Good: Larry was talking to John and me. • (Because: Larry was talking to me.) • However, you often hear people say: • “Bad”: Larry was talking to John and I. • Or Bill Clinton: “Give Al Gore and I a chance to bring America back.” • What’s going on here? • People have interpreted the rule as: • “and me” is bad; “and I” is good (regardless of case)

23. Problem #2: Shifting Standards • “Ain’t” is prescriptively bad. • “Ain’t ain’t a word, because it ain’t in the dictionary.” • However, “ain’t” used to be popular among the British upper class (about 100 years ago). • Another example: runnin’ vs. running, walkin’ vs. walking • And yet another: double negation (or multiple negation) • From Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (late 14th century): • He nevere yet no villeynye ne sayde. • Translation: He never yet no villany not said.

24. Double Negatives • Prescriptivists currently frown upon double negatives. • The argument against them is based on logic: • The negation of a negation is a positive. • Q: Why would a native speaker of a language say the exact opposite of what they mean? • (and why are listeners never be confused by the meaning of a double negative?) • A: There’s more going on in double negatives than it at first appears. • Q: How would a prescriptivist fix the following sentence? • I can’t get no satisfaction.

25. Double Negatives • Possible solutions: • I can get no satisfaction. • I can’t get any satisfaction. • What does the word any mean in that sentence? • How about: I can get any satisfaction. (?) • “any” does not negate the sentence on its own. • (technical term: negative polarity item) • “no” is the non-standard translation of “any” in sentences like: We don’t need no stinkin’ badges. • Moral: natural language doesn’t necessarily follow the same rules as formal logic.