Grammar without grammaticality : growth and limits of grammatical precision / Geoffrey Sampson, Anna Babarczy.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextSeries: Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs ; ; 254.Publisher: Berlin ; Boston : De Gruyter Mouton, [2014]Copyright date: ©2014Description: 1 online resource (359 pages) : illustrationsContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • computer
Carrier type:
  • online resource
ISBN:
  • 9783110290011 (e-book)
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Additional physical formats: Print version:: Grammar without grammaticality : growth and limits of grammatical precision.DDC classification:
  • 415 23
LOC classification:
  • P299.G7 S26 2014eb
Online resources: Summary: Grammar is said to be about defining all and only the 'good' sentences of a language, implying that there are other, 'bad' sentences - but it is hard to pin those down. A century ago, grammarians did not think that way, and they were right: linguists can and should dispense with 'starred sentences'. Corpus data support a different model: individuals develop positive grammatical habits of growing refinement, but nothing is ever ruled out. The contrasting models entail contrasting pictures of human nature; our final chapter shows that grammatical theory is not value-neutral but has an ethical dimension.
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Includes bibliographical references and index.

Grammar is said to be about defining all and only the 'good' sentences of a language, implying that there are other, 'bad' sentences - but it is hard to pin those down. A century ago, grammarians did not think that way, and they were right: linguists can and should dispense with 'starred sentences'. Corpus data support a different model: individuals develop positive grammatical habits of growing refinement, but nothing is ever ruled out. The contrasting models entail contrasting pictures of human nature; our final chapter shows that grammatical theory is not value-neutral but has an ethical dimension.

Description based on print version record.

Electronic reproduction. Palo Alto, Calif. : ebrary, 2014. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ebrary affiliated libraries.

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