WEEK 2
GRAMMAR AND LINGUISTIC
COMPETENCE
What is grammar
• Grammar is the way we arrange words to make proper
sentences.
• Word level grammar covers verbs and tenses, nouns, adverbs
etc. Sentence level grammar covers phrases, clauses, reported
speech etc.
• In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules governing the
composition of clauses, phrases and words in a natural language.
• The term refers also to the study of such rules and this field includes
phonology, morphology and syntax, often complemented by
phonetics, semantics and pragmatics.
• Speakers of a language are able to produce and understand an
unlimited number of utterances, including many that are novel and
unfamiliar.
• In investigating linguistic competence, linguists focus on the mental
system that allows human beings to form and interpret the words and
sentences of their language.
The components of a grammar
Component Domain
• Phonetics the articulation and perception of speech sounds
• Phonology the patterning of speech sounds
• Morphology word formation
• Syntax sentence formation
• Semantics the interpretation of words and sentences
Linguistic competence
• Linguistic competence is the system of linguistic knowledge possessed
by native speakers of a language.
• It is distinguished from linguistic performance, which is the way a
language system is used in communication.
GENERALITY: ALL LANGUAGES HAVE
GRAMMAR
• All languages have a grammar because since all languages are
spoken, they must have phonetic and phonological systems.
• Since they all have words and sentences, they also must have a
morphology and syntax; and
• Since these words and sentences have systematic meanings, there
obviously must be semantic principles as well.
• Some languages had remark that they had no grammar.
• It happens because unfamiliar languages sometimes appear to an
untrained observer to have no grammar simply because their
grammatical systems are different from those of better-known
languages.
Universal Grammar
• Universal grammar (UG), in modern linguistics, is the theory of the
genetic component of the language faculty, usually credited by Noam
Chomsky.
• The basic postulate of UG is that a certain set of structural rules are
innate to humans, independent of sensory experience.
• Universal grammar is a theory in linguistics usually credited by Noam
Chomsky that suggests that the ability to learn grammar is built into
the human brain from birth regardless of language.
• Chomsky didn’t believe that exposure to a language was enough for a
young child to become efficient at understanding and producing a
language.
• He believed that humans are born with an innate ability to learn
languages.
•
• According to Chomsky’s theory, the basic structures of language are
already encoded in the human brain at birth.
• His “universal grammar theory” suggests that every language has
some of the same laws.
• For example, every language has a way to ask a question or make
something negative.
• In addition, every language has a way to identify gender or show that
something happened in the past or present.
• If the basic grammar laws are the same for all languages, a child
needs only to follow the particular set of rules that his peers follow in
order to understand and produce their native language.
• In other words, his environment determines which language he will
use, but he is born with the tools to learn any language effectively.
Regularization
• Overregularization is a part of the language-learning process in which
children extend regular grammatical patterns to irregular words, such
as the use of "goed " for "went", or "tooths" for "teeth".
• This is also known as regularization.
• Overregularization is a part of the language-learning process in which
children extend regular grammatical patterns to irregular words
