Part II texts for grammar analysis

READ THE TEXTS AND ANALYSE THEM ACCORDING TO THE FOLLOWING PLAN:

• How is the text structured / organised?

• How does the author segue from one topic to the next?

• How does the author use cohesive devices ?

• How many words do the sentences have on average? Can you think of any reasons why?

• How many participle clauses can you find in the text? Why?

• How many sentences are in passive voice?

Text 1.Grammar and language change

Language Evolution and Language Change

Language change doesn’t take place overnight. Small-scale changes to specific forms can spread quite quickly , especially in this age of rapid worldwide communication. The informal American use of “was like” (for example “ She was like”, What do you mean ?”) moved into the language of younger British speakers in a matter often year or so. But changes affecting larger linguistic systems can take centuries to work themselves out.The English progressive has been spreading through the language for several hundred years and here are still verbs which are not used in progressive (verbs showing likes and dislikes; mental perception, feelings, etc.).

The formation of comparatives and superlatives is following the same way. “More “ and “most” first took over three-syllable adjectives (“beautifullest” was possible up to the eighteenth century”) and are now moving into two-syllable words: “commoner” used to be commoner , but not “more common”. Now “more common” is more common. The English modal system is also changing; research reveals that verbs such as “may” and “must” are gradually becoming less frequent.

All languages change over time. The process has sometimes been viewed as type of goal-directed evolution in which a language is progressively refined by its users to the point where it becomes an elegant and precise instrument of communication. More often, perhaps, change is seen as moving in the opposite direction, with languages drifting away from their ideal state , grammatical rules being disregarded, standards dropping and important distinctions and nuances disappearing. From the point of view of communicative efficiency, the end result of these various shifts is neutral: by and large languages continue to provide their speakers with the resources they need to achieve their purposes.

Grammar Change

Much of grammar starts out from lexis. Where new grammatical elements are needed, either to fill developing gaps arising from phonetic erosion, or to increase the expressive power of the language, they are typically created through the grammaticalization of ordinary words such as nouns or verbs. This has happened, for example, with English “have”, “do”, and “will”. If we look at their use in verb phrases like “has seen”, ”did not understand” , or “will go” we can seetheir original meanings “possess”, “act”,“want” have been completely bleached out in these contexts in favor of their grammatical functions as auxiliaries. Grammaticalization is a universal process, and there are remarkable similarities between languages all over the world in the words that are grammaticalized, the purposes for which they are used, and the routes by which they develop into auxiliaries,, particles and inflections, modifying functions as they do so.

The words involved in grammaticalization are nearly always those with the most general meanings: “do” rather than “perform”, “have” rather than“possess” , “go” rather than “travel”. Grammaticalization typically begins in potentially ambiguous contexts, where such a word can be understood not only in its literal meaning but also in its extended and more abstract sense.

The English use of “going to” as a future auxiliary originated in this way. Besides arising from verbs of movement such as “go” or “come” future auxiliaries are also commonly created by grammaticalizing verbs with meanings like “be” (“I am to ….”) become “wish”, “be obliged to …”, and “like”.

Passive auxiliaries are often grammaticalized from words for “be”. – “Become”, “remain”, “stand “ and “come”.

Past tense markers in many languages are taken from words for “finish”. Other sources are “ “be” and “do”.

Nowadays English is developing two new marginal auxiliaries. The metaphorical expression “be set up” coming inmeaning “be about to”is becoming common in journalistic writingin contexts like “interest rate are set to change” where the original sense of physical action has been bleached out. And “see” with its original meaning also bleached out, is increasingly used to construct sentences like “The last half year has seen a significant reduction in accident rates”, providing an alternative to the “there is…” structure (There has been ….the last halfyear).

Grammaticalization is generally unidirectional: meanings become more abstract and generalized, and forms are commonly reduced morphologically and phonetically at the same time. Formal reduction can be seen in English past modal structures (coulda, woulda, shoulda).But most strikingly it is evident in the future auxiliary “going to”. Its common informal spelling is “gonna”.

Grammar is concerned with two kinds of grammatical descrip­tion. The first involves constitutive rules, which describe how our grammati­cal system operates, rules that are the same for all speakers of English (e.g., subjects precede verbs in most sentences). The second involves regulative rules (such as whether to use who or whom in a given context), which govern the version of English considered appropriate for use by educated speakers, the version designated as standard American English.

Defining grammar as the art of speaking and writing correctly, late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century textbooks helped to nurture a popular conviction that still persists today as a characteristic of the prescriptive grammar tradition, namely, the belief in an absolute standard of correctness. According to this view, language use is either correct or incorrect. According to this tradition the rules of grammar remind us, for example, that ain’t is wrong, but they may leave us wondering about our options if we find the “correct” alternative, am I not, pedantic and pretentious.

Although we often hear prescriptive grammar referred to as traditional grammar or scholarly tradition.

Much that was good in scholarly traditional grammars became part of the descriptive grammars of modern theoretical linguistics which might best be described as a pedagogical grammar – one concerned first of all with the needs of students and teachers.

Before we begin to study grammar, we should be aware that any living language, including English, is in a constant state of change. In fact, a language stops changing only when it is no longer used by a group of speakers in everyday communication: in other words, when it is dead. As long as people continue to use a language, they will change and shape it to their needs. Attempts by regulatory groups to control that change have failed everywhere.

As a result of the diverse needs it must serve, there are as many varieties of English as there are groups of speakers. Each group follows a slightly different subset of the rules by which the language operates, and each bends the rules a bit to meet specific needs. Over a period of time, the adaptations or creations of one group of speakers or another may enter the language and become acceptable to all, which is, become standard.

To take a simple example of how this works, consider the word contact. It began as a noun referring to “the state in which two things touch one another”. Its meaning eventually extended to refer to “the state of people being in touch (or in contact) with one another”. Relatively recently, people in need of a verb meaning “to bring about a contact with another person” converted the noun contact into the verb to contact, meaning “to get in touch with someone.”

(Michael Swan. Grammar)