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English Grammar

English grammar

English grammar is the study of rules governing the use of the English language. Grammars of English can be either prescriptive or descriptive. Prescription sets rules for language, while description simply describes the way a language is spoken; this article attempts to be primarily descriptive. It is important to understand that experts disagree about many parts of English grammar: what follows is just one analysis among many. The grammar of English is in some ways relatively simple, and in others quite complex. For example, word order is relatively fixed because English is an analytic language and this aspect of grammar is therefore relatively simple. The verbal system, on the other hand, is quite large and complex, like those of many other Indo-European languages. This article is organized in sections, addressing word order, nouns, verbs, and other areas as they become relevant in the course of discussion.

Word Order

English is a subject verb object (SVO) language: it prefers a sequence of subject–verb–object in its simplest, unmarked declarative statements. Thus "Tom [subject] eats [verb] cheese [object]" and "Mary sees the cat". However, beyond these simple examples, word order is a complicated matter in English. In particular, the speaker's or writer's point of departure in each clause is a key factor in the organisation of the message. Thus, the elements in a message can be ordered in a way that signals to the reader or listener what the message concerns. #The duke has given my aunt that teapot. (i.e., I'm going to tell you about the duke) #My aunt has been given that teapot by the duke. (i.e., I'm going to tell you about my aunt) #"That teapot the duke has given to my aunt. (i.e., I'm going to tell you about that teapot) The point of departure can also be set up as an equation, known as a thematic equative. In this way, virtually any element in a clause can be put first. #"What the duke gave my aunt was a teapot" (i.e., I'm going to tell you what the duke gave my aunt) #"What happened was that the duke gave my aunt a teapot" (i.e., I'm going to tell you what happened) Usually, the point of departure is the subject of a declarative clause; this is the unmarked form. A point of departure is marked when it is not the subject—thus, occasionally it is the object ("You I blame for this dilemma") and more often an adverbial phrase ("This morning I got up late"). In questions, point of departure is treated slightly differently. Unmarked questions start with the word that indicates what the speaker wants to know. #"Where is my little dog?" (I want you to tell me where) #"Is John Smith inside?" (I want you to tell me whether he is or isn't) Marked questions displace this key "what I want to know" word with some other element. #"After tea, will you tell me story?" (still "will you or won't you"?) #"In your house, who does the cooking?" (still "who"?) Imperative clauses are either of the type "I want you to do something" or "I want you and me to do something". The second type usually starts with let's; in the unmarked form of the first type, you is implied and not made explicit ("Improve your grammar!"), and included in the marked form ("You improve your grammar!"); another marked form is "Do improve your grammar". In the negative, "Don't argue with me" is unmarked, and "Don't you argue with me" is marked. In English, the point of departure is frequently marked off in speech by intonation. In general, English is a head-initial language, meaning that the "anchor" of a phrase (segment of a sentence) occurs at the beginning of the phrase. #ran quickly (verb phrase) #to the store (prepositional phrase) The main exception is in noun phrases, which are head-final. #blue house (adjective + noun) #Fred's cat (possessive + noun) This leads to a sentence like: "Fred's sister ran quickly to the store". As can be inferred from this example, the sequence of a basic sentence (ignoring articles and other determiners) is: Adjective1 - Subject - Verb - Adverb - Adjective2 - Direct Object - Adjective3 - Indirect Object. Changes in word order are used in interrogative sentences ("Did you go to the store?"), changes from active to passive voice ("The car was bought by John"), and lexical or grammatical emphasis (topicalization).

Nouns

In English, nouns generally describe persons, places, things, and abstract ideas, and are treated as grammatically distinct from verbs. English nouns, in general, are not marked for case, nor for gender. Nouns are, however, marked for number and definiteness. English does not have dual or trial numbers for nouns.

Gender

A remnant of grammatical gender is also preserved in the third person pronouns. Gender is assigned to animate objects based on biological gender (where known), and to personified objects based on social conventions (ships, for example, are often regarded as feminine in English). He is used for masculine nouns; she is used for feminine nouns; and it is used for nouns of indeterminate gender and inanimate objects. It is generally considered both ungrammatical and/or impolite to refer to humans (other than babies) as it. Traditionally, the masculine he was used to refer to a person in the 3rd person when their gender was unknown or irrelevant to the context; recently, this usage has come under criticism for supporting gender-based stereotypes and is increasingly considered inappropriate (see Gender-neutral language). There is no consensus on a replacement. Some English speakers prefer to use the slightly cumbersome "he or she" or "s/he", others prefer the use of they (3rd plural) (see singular they). This situation rarely leads to confusion, since the intended meaning can be inferred from context, though it still is considered by most to be incorrect grammar. Spivak pronouns have also been proposed which are essentially formed by dropping the leading <th> from the plural counterpart, but their use is relatively rare compared to other solutions. For comparison, speakers of German distinguish between the homophonous sie ("she"), sie ("they"), and Sie ("you", polite) with little difficulty.

Number and Definiteness

- Nouns are described as being either singular or plural, the latter referring to two or more of the same type of thing. Plurals are often formed by adding an -s to the singular form, though there are plenty of irregular cases.
- #He is talking to the girl.
- #She is talking to the girls.
- A definite article such as "the" is used to refer to a specific noun. Definite articles should not be confused with demonstratives, which indicate the location of nouns with respect to the speaker and audience.
- #We were looking for the dog.
- #I am walking to the store.
- An indefinite article such as "a" or "an" is used to refer to a generic noun. Note that "a" is used when preceding a noun beginning with a consonant sound, whereas "an" is used when preceding a noun beginning with a vowel sound.
- #You should have a drink. That building is a university.
- #They are being an annoyance. He is an heir to the throne.

Case

Older versions of English did mark nouns for case, and the two remaining case markings are the pronominal system and the possessive clitic (which used to be called the saxon genitive). The possessive is marked by a clitic at the end of the possessing noun phrase. This can be illustrated in the following manner: :The king's daughter's house fell. The first <'s> clitic on king indicates that the daughter in question is the king's. The second <'s> clitic does not attach to "daughter", as many people mistakenly believe, but in fact to the entire noun phrase The king's daughter. English preserves the old Germanic noun case system in its pronouns. The full set of cases are listed below; note that modern use of the second person singular thou is rare, and is confined to dialects and religious and poetic functions. In modern standard English, the second person plural you is used instead.

Notes

#Some North American dialects use "y'all" and related forms for the second person plural pronoun: other forms include "you guys", "yu'uns", and "youse". These forms are generally regarded as colloquial and non-standard. #The pronoun thou was the former second person singular pronoun; it is considered an archaism in most contexts, although it is still used in some dialects in the north of England. #Mine (and thine) were also previously used before vowel sounds to avoid a glottal stop. e.g., Do mine eyes deceive me? Know thine enemy. This usage is now archaic.

Verbs

In English, verbs generally describe actions, and can also be used to describe certain states of being. In contrast to the relative simplicity of English nouns, verbs come in a large array of tenses, some moods, two voices, and are marked for person.

Person

Verbs in English are marked in limited fashion for person. Unlike some other European languages, person cannot generally be inferred from the conjugation attached to the verb. As a result, subject nouns and pronouns are generally required elements in English sentences for clarity's sake. Most regular verbs in English follow the paradigm exemplified below for the simple present of the verb "to listen": Note: an archaic version of the second person singular is "thou listenest".

Voice

English has two voices for verbs: the active and the passive. The basic form is the active verb, and follows the SVO pattern discussed above. The passive voice is derived from the active by changing the verb to its passive form, exchanging the subject and direct object, and marking the former subject with by. The former subject changes to objective case and becomes optional, e.g. #active: I heard the music. #passive: The music was heard (by me). (Note: me, not I) The passive form of the verb is formed by replacing the verb with to be in the same tense, and appending the past participle of the original verb. Thus: This pattern continues through all the composite tenses as well. The semantic effect of the change from active to passive is the depersonalization of an action. It is also occasionally used to topicalize (this word does not exist in the English language) the direct object of a sentence. Many writing style guides including Strunk and White recommend minimizing use of the passive voice in English.

Mood

English has five primary moods of verb. These are the declarative, the imperative, the conditional and subjunctive, and the interrogative.
- The declarative mood or [indicative mood] is the simplest and most basic mood. Simply put, it's a statement in the active voice of a verb presented as though it were factual. This mood, along with most cases of other moods (unless otherwise stated), is concluded with a period <.>.
- # I am walking home.
- # They are singing.
- # He isn't a dancer.
- # We are very happy.
- The imperative mood is used in issuing commands. It is formed by using the verb in its simplest, unconjugated form: "Listen!", "Sit!", "Eat!". The imperative mood in English occurs only in the second person, and the subject ("you") is generally not expressly stated, because it is implied. When the speaker gives a command regarding anyone else, it is still directed at the second person as though it were a request for permission, although it may be a rhetorical statement.
- # Let me do the talking.
- # Let us build a bridge.
- # Give him an allowance.
- # Let sleeping dogs lie. Sometimes a vocative is used for clarification, e.g. "Sit, John."
- The conditional mood is used to express if-then statements, or in response to counterfactual propositions (see subjunctive mood, below), denoting or implying an indeterminate future action. It is expressed through the use of the verbal auxiliaries could, would, should, may and might in combination with the stem form of the verb.
- #He could go to the store.
- #You should be more careful.
- #I may try something else.
- #He might be heading north. Note that for many speakers, "may" and "might" have merged into a single meaning (that of "might") that implies the outcome of the statement is contingent. The implication of permission in "may" seems to remain only in certain uses with the second person, e.g. "You may leave the dinner table."
- The subjunctive mood is used to express counterfactual (or conditional) statements, and is often found in if-then statements, and certain formulaic expressions. It is typically marked in the present tense by the auxiliary "were" plus the present participle (<-ing>) of the verb.
- #Were I eating, I should sit.
- #If they were eating, they would sit.
- #Truth be told...
- #If I were you... The conjugation of these moods becomes a significantly more complex matter when they are used with different tenses. However, casual spoken English rarely uses the subjunctive, and generally restricts the conditional mood to the simple present and simple past.
- The interrogative mood is used to pose questions, with or without an expected answer. It is formed by switching the order of the subject and helping verb in a declarative sentence. When spoken, an intonation change is often used so as to emphasize this switch, or can entirely reflect the interrogative mood in some cases eg John ran?. The interrogative mood can further be formed in this manner by moving the predicate of a declarative sentence in front of the helping verb and changing it to a demonstrative, relative pronoun, quantifier, etc. This mood is denoted by ending the sentence with a question mark .
- #Are you going to the party?
- #Is he supposed to do that?
- #How much do I owe you?
- #Where is the parking lot? Rhetorical questions can be formed by moving the helping verb-subject pair to the end of the question, e.g. "You wouldn't really do that, would you?"

Tense

intonation English has a wide variety of verb tenses, all of which convey only the time of an action; however, as in most Germanic languages, they can be whittled down to four: present and past indicative and subjunctive. Using the verbs "to be" and "to have", and the modals "will/would", "shall/should", and "to go", plus the present and past participles, it is possible to create the various compound tenses. The twelve major tenses in English result from combining each of three times (past, present, future) with each of four aspects (simple, continuous (also known as "progressive or "imperfect"), perfect, and continuous perfect). (Certain combinations are very rare in the passive voice, however, most notably the future continuous perfect.) The following are illustrative examples of the primary verb tenses encountered in English. Tenses in which the main verb is marked for person:

- Simple present: "I listen." For many verbs, this is used to express habit or ability ("I play the guitar").
Tenses in which the auxiliary is marked for person:
- Present progressive: "I am listening." This is used to express what most other languages use the simple present tense for. Note that this form in English can also be used to express future actions, such as in the phrase "We're going to the movies tonight".
- Past progressive: "I was listening." Used to express an ongoing action completed in the past.
- Present perfect: "I have listened." This is usually used to express that an event happened at an unspecified or unknown time on the past. It often has the sense of a past action with an ongoing present effect, as in sentences like I have finished the job; he has not arrived yet.
- Present perfect continuous: "I have been listening." This is used to express that an event started at some time in the past and continues to the present.
- Simple future: "I shall/will listen." This expresses that an event will occur in the future, or that the speaker intends to perform some action.
- Future progressive: "I shall/will be listening." Expresses an ongoing event that has not yet been initiated. Tenses in which neither the main verb nor the auxiliary is marked for person:
- Infinitive: "to listen" Used in combination with other verbs: "I was to listen to the story."
- Simple past: "I listened." In English (unlike some other languages with aorist tenses), this implies that the action took place in the past and that it is not taking place now.
- Past perfect (pluperfect): "I had listened." Expresses that an action was completed prior to some other event.
- Past perfect continuous: "I had been listening." Usually expressed with a duration, this indicates that an event was ongoing for a specific time, then completed before a specific event.
- Future perfect: "I shall/will have listened." Indicates that an action will occur after some other event.
- Future perfect continuous: "I shall/will have been listening." Expresses an ongoing action that occurs in the future, after some other event.

Usage and Auxiliaries

In addition, forms of "do" are used for some negatives, questions and emphasis of the simple present and simple past: #"Do I go?" "I do not go." "I do go!" #"Did I go?" "I did not go." "I did go!" The continuous form "going to" is used for some future based tenses: #"I am going to go." #"I was going to go." See Auxiliary verb for more examples and details.

Irregular verbs

While many verbs in English follow the relatively simple paradigm illustrated at the beginning of this section, there are many verbs that do not. There are two categories of such verbs: #strong verbs (the "transparently irregular") #true irregular verbs. The term "transparently irregular" is sometimes used to describe Jakob Grimm's "strong" verbs that appear irregular at first, but actually follow a common paradigm. This group of verbs are relics of the older Germanic ablaut system for conjugation. This is generally confined to atypical simple past verb forms, e.g. :I meet ~ I met ~ I have met :I read ~ I read ~ I have read :I lead ~ I led ~ I have led :I swim ~ I swam ~ I have swum :I sing ~ I sang ~ I have sung :I steal ~ I stole ~ I have stolen True irregular verbs have forms that are not predictable from ablaut rules. The most common of these in English is the verb "to be". A sampling of its verbal paradigm is listed below; the majority of other forms are predictable from the knowledge of these four. Irregular verbs include "eat", "sit", "loan", "keep", among many others. Some paradigms are based on obsolete root words, or roots that have changed meaning. Others are derived from old umlaut patterns that changes in phonemic structure and grammar have distorted (keep ~ kept is one such example). Some are unclear in origin, and may date back to Proto-Indo-European times.

Notes

#In English, a long-standing prescriptive rule holds that shall denotes simple futurity in the first person, and will denotes simple futurity in the second and third persons. In American English, this distinction has largely vanished; will is normally used for both cases, and shall is rare. In British English, adherence to the rule has declined during the 20th century (see Shall and will for a more detailed discussion), although use of shall remains for expressing the simple future in the first person. #The distinction between tense, aspect, and mood is not clear-cut or universally agreed-upon. For example, many analysts would not accept that English has twelve tenses. The six "continuous" (also called "progressive") forms in the list above are often treated under the heading of "aspect" rather than tense: the simple past and the past continuous are examples of the same tense, under this view. In addition, many modern grammars of English agree that English does not have a future tense (or a future perfect). These include the two largest and most sophisticated recent grammars: :#Biber, D., S. Johansson, G. Leech, S. Conrad & E. Finegan. 1999. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow, Longman. :#Huddleston, R. & G. Pullum. 2002. The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge, CUP. The main argument given by Huddleston and Pullum (pp 209-10) that English does not have a future tense is that "will" is a modal verb, both in its grammar and in its meaning. Biber et al. go further and say that English has only two tenses, past and present: they treat the perfect forms with "have" under "aspect". Huddleston & Pullum, on the other hand, regard the forms with "have" as "secondary tenses".

Adjectives and adverbs

Adjectives are modifiers for nouns and adverbs are modifiers for verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Not all languages distinguish them, but English does in both grammar and word formation. Grammatically, adjectives precede the noun they modify, whereas adverbs might precede or follow the verb they modify, depending upon the specific adverb. English also has a means of converting adjectives into adverbs: the addition of the suffix <-ly> changes an adjective to an adverb (in addition to moving it to the appropriate place in a sentence). Occasionally, people use adverbs with verbs that require an adjective. #"I feel badly" - the speaker has an impaired sense of touch (likewise: "I hear badly") #"I feel bad" - the speaker is ill or upset (likewise: "I feel happy") The latter is, of course, the meaning most people try to convey. As well, confusion often occurs between good, well (adj.), and well (adv.). #"I feel good" - a good mood #"I feel well (adj.)" - good health #"I did well (adv.)" - success There are other ways of changing words from one lexical class to another. Nouns are easily transformed into verbs by moving them to the appropriate position in a sentence, and then conjugating them according to the default paradigm. Nouns can also be changed to other kinds of nouns (<-er>, <-ist>), into adverbs of state/condition (<-ness>), and into adjectives (<-ish>, as in "bullish"). Verbs can be turned into adjectives with <-ing> ("dancing school"), into adverbs with <-ly>, and sometimes even into nouns with <-er> ("dancer", "listener"). These processes provide the English language with greater flexibility in choosing words, expanding vocabulary, and re-shuffling words to add subtlety of meaning that might otherwise not be available in an analytic language.

External links

#[http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar English Grammar Online] - exercises, explanations and teaching materials on English as a foreign language #[http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/index.html Common Errors in English] - alphabetically indexed list of common errors with explanations #[http://www.EnglishTensesWithCartoons.com Short descriptions of the English Tenses] #[http://cctc2.commnet.edu/sensen/index.html Sentence Sense] - an online textbook in basic writing #[http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/inhalt_grammar.htm Learning English Online] - information for learners of English as a foreign language #[http://www.dianahacker.com/bedhandbook/subpages/language.html Language Debates] - a list of controversial topics in English grammar #[http://www.lbt-languages.de/english/lernhilfe/lernhilfe.html Free Grammar Tutorials] - a column overview of the English tenses #[http://www.gramster.com Gramster] - Free English grammar #[http://grammar.free-esl.com Free-ESL Grammar] - Basic comprehensive grammar of English with discussion
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English language

English is a West Germanic language that is spoken in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, and many other countries. English is now the third-most spoken native language worldwide (after Chinese and Hindi), with some 380 million speakers. It has lingua franca status in many parts of the world, due to the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries and that of the United States from the 20th century to the present. Through the global influence of native English speakers in cinema, airlines, broadcasting, science, and the Internet in recent decades, English is now the most widely learned second language in the world. Many students worldwide are required to learn some English, and a working knowledge of English is required in many fields and occupations.

History

English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Old Saxon language brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of northwest Germany. The original Old English language was subsequently influenced by two successive waves of invasion. The first was by speakers of languages in the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who colonised parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries. The second wave was of the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke a variety of French. These two invasions caused English to become "creolised" to some degree (though it was never a full creole in the linguistic sense of the word); creolisation arises from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication. Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Friesian core of English; the later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of European languages; this new layer entered English through use in the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of considerable suppleness and huge vocabulary. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, around the year 449, Vortigern, King of the British Isles, invited the "Angle kin" (Angles led by Hengest and Horsa) to help him against the Picts. In return, the Angles were granted lands in the south-east. Further aid was sought, and in response "came men of Ald Seaxum of Anglum of Iotum" (Saxons, Angles, and Jutes). The Chronicle talks of a subsequent influx of settlers who eventually established seven kingdoms, known as the heptarchy. Modern scholarship considers most of this story to be legendary and politically motivated. These Germanic invaders dominated the original Celtic-speaking inhabitants, whose languages survived largely in Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Ireland. The dialects spoken by the invaders formed what would be called Old English, which resembled some coastal dialects in what are now the Netherlands and north-west Germany. Later, it was strongly influenced by the North Germanic language Norse, spoken by the Vikings who settled mainly in the north-east (see Jorvik). The new and the earlier settlers spoke languages from different branches of the Germanic family; many of their lexical roots were the same or similar, although their grammars were more distant, including the prefixes, suffixes and inflections of many of their words. The Germanic language of these Old English inhabitants of Britain would be partly creolised by the contact with Norse invaders. This resulted in a stripping away of much of the grammar of Old English, including gender and case, with the notable exception of the pronouns; thus, the language became simpler and plainer. The most famous work from the Old English period is the epic poem "Beowulf", by an unknown poet. For the 300 years following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Norman kings and the high nobility spoke only a variety of French. A large number of Norman words were assimilated into Old English, with some words doubling for Old English words (for instance, ox/beef, sheep/mutton). The Norman influence reinforced the continual evolution of the language over the following centuries, resulting in what is now referred to as Middle English. Among the changes was a broadening in the use of a unique aspect of English grammar, the "continuous" tenses, with the suffix "-ing". During the 15th century, Middle English was transformed by the Great Vowel Shift, the spread of a standardised London-based dialect in government and administration, and the standardising effect of printing. Modern English can be traced back to around the time of William Shakespeare. The most well-known work from the Middle English period is Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

Classification and related languages

The English language belongs to the western subbranch of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. The closest living relative of English is Scots (Lallans), a West Germanic language spoken mostly in Scotland and parts of Northern Ireland. Like English, Scots is a direct descendant of Old English, also known as Anglo-Saxon. After Scots, the next closest relative is Frisian—spoken in the Netherlands and Germany. Other less closely related living languages include Dutch, Afrikaans, German, Plattdüütsch and the Scandinavian languages. Many French words are also intelligible to an English speaker (pronunciations are not always identical, of course), because English absorbed a tremendous amount of vocabulary from French, via the Norman language after the Norman conquest and directly from French in further centuries; as a result, a substantial share of English vocabulary is quite close to the French, with some minor spelling differences (word endings, use of old French spellings, etc.), as well as occasional differences in meaning.

Geographic distribution

Norman conquest English is the second or third most widely spoken language in the world today; a total of 600–700 million people use English regularly. About 377 million people use English as their mother tongue, and an equal number of people use it as their second or foreign language. It is used widely in either the public or private sphere in more than 100 countries all over the world. In addition, the language has occupied a primary place in international academic and business communities. The current status of the English language compares with that of Latin in the past. English is the primary language in Antigua and Barbuda, Australia (Australian English), the Bahamas, Barbados (Caribbean English), Bermuda, Belize, Canada (Canadian English), the Cayman Islands, Dominica, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guernsey, Guyana, Ireland (Irish English), Isle of Man, Jamaica (Jamaican English), Jersey, Montserrat, New Zealand (New Zealand English), Saint Helena, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the United Kingdom (various forms of British English), the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the United States. English is also an important minority language of South Africa (South African English), and in several other former colonies and current dependent territories of the United Kingdom and the United States, for example Guam and Mauritius. In Hong Kong, English is an official language and is widely used in business activities. It is taught from kindergarten, and is the medium of instruction for a few primary schools, many secondary schools and all universities. Substantial numbers of students acquire native-speaker level. It is so widely used and spoken that it is inadequate to say it is merely a second or foreign language, though there are still many people in Hong Kong with poor or no command of English. The majority of English native speakers (67 to 70 per cent) live in the United States. Although the U.S. federal government has no official languages, it has been given official status by 27 of the 50 state governments, most of which have declared English their sole official language. Hawaii, Louisiana, and New Mexico have also designated Hawaiian, French, and Spanish, respectively, as official languages in conjunction with English. In many other countries where English is not a major first language, it is an official language; these countries include Cameroon, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, Ghana, Gambia, India, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Rwanda, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. English is the most widely learned and used foreign language in the world, and as such, many linguists believe it is no longer the exclusive cultural emblem of "native English speakers", but rather a language that is absorbing aspects of cultures worldwide as it grows in use. Others believe that there are limits to how far English can go in suiting everyone for communication purposes. It is the language most often studied as a foreign language in Europe (32.6 per cent), followed by French, German, and Spanish. It is also the most studied in Japan, South Korea and in the Republic of China (Taiwan), where it is compulsory for most high school students. See English as an additional language.

English as a global language

See also: English on the Internet Because English is so widely spoken, it has been referred to as a "global language". While English is not the official language in many countries, it is the language most often taught as a second language around the world. It is also, by international treaty, the official language for aircraft/airport communication. Its widespread acceptance as a first or second language is the main indication of its global status. There are numerous arguments for and against English as a global language. On one hand, having a global language aids in communication and in pooling information (for example, in the scientific community). On the other hand, it excludes those who, for one reason or another, are not fluent. It can also marginalise populations whose first language is not the global language, and lead to a cultural hegemony of the populations speaking the global language as a first language. Most of these arguments hold for any candidate for a global language, though the last two counter-arguments do not hold for languages not belonging to any ethnic group (like Esperanto). A secondary concern with respect to the spread of global languages (English, Spanish, etc.) is the resulting disappearance of minority languages, often along with the cultures and religions that are primarily transmitted in those languages. English has been implicated in a number of historical and ongoing so-called "language deaths" and "linguicides" around the world, many of which have also led to the loss of cultural heritage. In the Americas, Native American nations have been most strongly affected by this phenomenon.

Dialects and regional variants

The expansiveness of the British and the Americans has spread English throughout the globe. Because of its global spread, it has bred a variety of English dialects and English-based creoles and pidgins. The major varieties of English in most cases contain several subvarieties, such as Cockney within British English, Newfoundland English within Canadian English, and African American Vernacular English ("Ebonics") within American English. English is considered a pluricentric language, with no variety being clearly considered the only standard. Some consider Scots as an English dialect. Pronunciation, grammar and lexis differ, sometimes substantially. The Scottish dialect retains many German aspects including guttural pronunciations. Because of English's wide use as a second language, English speakers can have many different accents, which may identify the speaker's native dialect or language. For more distinctive characteristics of regional accents, see Regional accents of English speakers. For more distinctive characteristics of regional dialects, see List of dialects of the English language. Many countries around the world have blended English words and phrases into their everyday speech and refer to the result by a colloquial name that implies its bilingual origins, which parallels the English language's own addiction to loan words and borrowings. Named examples of these ad-hoc constructions, distinct from pidgin and creole languages, include Engrish, Wasei-eigo, Franglais and Spanglish. (See List of dialects of the English language for a complete list.) Europanto combines many languages but has an English core.

Constructed variants of English

- Basic English is simplified for easy international use. It is used by some aircraft manufacturers and other international businesses to write manuals and communicate. Some English schools in the Far East teach it as an initial practical subset of English.
- Special English is a simplified version of English used by the Voice of America. It uses a vocabulary of 1500 words.
- English reform is an attempt to improve collectively upon the English language.
- Seaspeak and the related Airspeak and Policespeak, all based on restricted vocabularies, were designed by Edward Johnson in the 1980s to aid international co-operation and communication in specific areas.
- European English is a new variant of the English language created to become the common language in Europe.

Sounds

Vowels

Notes: It is the vowels that differ most from region to region. Where symbols appear in pairs, the first corresponds to the sounds used in North American English, the second corresponds to English spoken elsewhere. #North American English lacks this sound; words with this sound are pronounced with or . According to The Canadian Oxford Dictionary (1998), this sound is present in Standard Canadian English. #Many dialects of North American English do not have this vowel. See cot-caught merger. #The North American variation of this sound is a rhotic vowel. #Many speakers of North American English do not distinguish between these two unstressed vowels. For them, roses and Rosa's are pronounced the same, and the symbol usually used is schwa . #This sound is often transcribed with or with . #The letter U can represent either /u/ or the iotated vowel /ju/.

Consonants

This is the English Consonantal System using symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). #The velar nasal is a non-phonemic allophone of /n/ in some northerly British accents, appearing only before /g/. In all other dialects it is a separate phoneme, although it only occurs in syllable codas. #The alveolar flap is an allophone of /t/ and /d/ in unstressed syllables in North American English and increasingly in Australian English. This is the sound of "tt" or "dd" in the words latter and ladder, which are homophones in North American English. This is the same sound represented by single "r" in some varieties of Spanish. #In some dialects, such as Cockney, the interdentals /θ/ and /ð/ are usually merged with /f/ and /v/, and in others, like African American Vernacular English, /ð/ is merged with /d/. In some Irish varieties, /θ/ and /ð/ become the corresponding dental plosives, which then contrast with the usual alveolar plosives. #The sounds are labialised in some dialects. Labialisation is never contrastive in initial position and therefore is sometimes not transcribed. #The voiceless velar fricative /x/ is used only by Scottish or Welsh speakers of English for Scots/Gaelic words such as loch or by some speakers for loanwords from German and Hebrew like Bach or Chanukah /xanuka/, or in some dialects such as Scouse (Liverpool) where the affricate [kx] is used instead of /k/ in words such as docker . Most native speakers have a great deal of trouble pronouncing it correctly when learning a foreign language. Most speakers use the sounds [k] and [h] instead. #Voiceless w is found in Scottish, Irish, some upper-class British, some eastern United States, and New Zealand accents. In all other dialects it is merged with /w/.

Voicing and Aspiration

Voicing and aspiration of stop consonants in English depend on dialect and context, but a few general rules can be given:
- Voiceless plosives and affricates (//, //, //, and //) are aspirated when they are word-initial or begin a stressed syllable and are not part of a consonant cluster—compare pin [] and spin [].
- In some dialects, aspiration extends to unstressed syllables as well.
- In other dialects, such as Indian English, most or all voiceless stops may remain unaspirated.
- Word-initial voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects.
- Word-terminal voiceless plosives may be unreleased or accompanied by a glottal stop in some dialects (e.g. many varieties of American English)—examples: tap [], sack [].
- Word-terminal voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects (e.g. some varieties of American English)—examples: sad [], bag []. In other dialects they are fully voiced in final position, but only partially voiced in initial position.

Intonation

Tone groups

English is an Intonation language. This means that the pitch of the voice is used syntactically, for example, to convey surprise and irony, or to change a statement into a question. In English, intonation patterns are on groups of words, which are called tone groups, tone units, intonation groups or sense groups. Tone groups are said on a single breath and, as a consequence, are of limited length, more often being on average five words long or lasting roughly two seconds. The structure of tone groups can have a crucial impact on the meaning of what is said. For example: :- :- :-

Characteristics of intonation

Each tone group can be subdivided into syllables, which can either be stressed (strong) or unstressed (weak). There is always a strong syllable, which is stressed more than the others. This is called the nuclear syllable. For example: :That | was | the | best | thing | you | could | have | done! Here, all syllables are unstressed, except the syllables/words "best" and "done", which are stressed. "Best" is stressed harder and, therefore, is the nuclear syllable. The nuclear syllable carries the main point the speaker wishes to make. For example: :John had stolen that money. (... not I) :John had stolen that money. (... you said he hadn't) :John had stolen that money. (... he wasn't given it) :John had stolen that money. (... not this money) :John had stolen that money. (... not something else) The nuclear syllable is spoken louder than all the others and has a characteristic change of pitch. The changes of pitch most commonly encountered in English are the rising pitch and the falling pitch, although the fall-rising pitch and/or the rise-falling pitch are sometimes used. For example: :When do you want to be paid? :Nów? (rising pitch. In this case, it denotes a question: can I be paid now?) :Nòw (falling pitch. In this case, it denotes a statement: I choose to be paid now)

Grammar

English grammar is based on its Germanic roots, though some scholars during the 1700s and 1800s attempted to impose Latin grammar upon it, with little success. English is just slightly inflected, much less so than most Indo-European languages. It compensates for this by placing more grammatical information in auxiliary words and word order. Unlike most other Indo-European languages, modern nominal groups (nouns) in English do not carry gender, although an archaic form of gender is technically assigned as either masculine, feminine, neuter or common. Engendered nouns are only apparent in special cases, such as "I loved that ship as if she were my own", where the noun "ship" is referred to by its feminine pronoun.

Vocabulary

Almost without exception, Germanic words (which include all the basics such as pronouns and conjunctions) are shorter and more informal. Latinate words are often regarded as more elegant or educated. However, the excessive use of Latinate words is often mistaken for either pretentiousness (as in the stereotypical policeman's talk of "apprehending the suspect") or obfuscation (as in a military document which says "neutralise" when it means "kill"). George Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language gives a thorough treatment of this feature of English. An English speaker is often able to choose between Germanic and Latinate synonyms: "come" or "arrive"; "sight" or "vision"; "freedom" or "liberty"—and sometimes also between a word inherited through French and a borrowing direct from Latin of the same root word: "oversee", "survey" or "supervise". The richness of the language is that such synonyms have slightly different meanings, enabling the language to be used in a very flexible way to express fine variations or shades of thought. List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents In everyday speech the majority of words will normally be Germanic. If a speaker wishes to make a forceful point in an argument in a very blunt way, Germanic words will usually be chosen. A majority of Latinate words (or at least a majority of content words) will normally be used in more formal speech and writing, such as a courtroom or an encyclopedia article. English is noted for the vast size of its active vocabulary and its fluidity. English easily accepts technical terms into common usage and imports new words which often come into common usage. In addition, slang provides new meanings for old words. In fact this fluidity is so pronounced that a distinction often needs to be made between formal forms of English and contemporary usage. See also sociolinguistics.

Number of words in English

As the General Explanations at the beginning of the Oxford English Dictionary state: :The Vocabulary of a widely diffused and highly cultivated living language is not a fixed quantity circumscribed by definite limits.... there is absolutely no defining line in any direction: the circle of the English language has a well-defined centre but no discernible circumference. The vocabulary of English is undoubtedly vast, but assigning a specific number to its size is more a matter of definition than of calculation. Unlike other languages, there is no Academy to define officially accepted words. Neologisms are coined regularly in medicine, science and technology—some enter wide usage; others remain restricted to small circles. Foreign words used in immigrant communities often make their way into wider English usage. Archaic, dialectal, and regional words might be considered "English" or not. The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition) includes over 500,000 headwords, following a rather inclusive policy: :It embraces not only the standard language of literature and conversation, whether current at the moment, or obsolete, or archaic, but also the main technical vocabulary, and a large measure of dialectal usage and slang (Supplement to the OED, 1933). The difficulty of defining the number of words is compounded by the emergence of new versions of English, such as Asian English.

Word origins

One of the consequences of the French influence is that the vocabulary of English is, to a certain extent, divided between those words which are Germanic (mostly Old English) and those which are "Latinate" (Latin-derived, mostly from Norman French but some borrowed directly from Latin). A computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd ed.) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973) which estimated the origin of English words as follows:
- French, including Old French and early Anglo-French: 28.3%
- Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
- Old and Middle English, Old Norse, and Dutch: 25%
- Greek: 5.32%
- No etymology given: 4.03%
- Derived from proper names: 3.28%
- All other languages contributed less than 1% James D. Nicoll made the oft-quoted observation: "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary." [http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1990May15.155309.8892%40watdragon.waterloo.edu&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain]

Writing system

English is written using the Latin alphabet. The spelling system or orthography of English is historical, not phonological. The spelling of words often diverges considerably from how they are spoken, and English spelling is often considered to be one of the most difficult to learn of any language that uses an alphabet. See English orthography.

Basic sound-letter correspondence

Written accents

English includes some words which can be written with accent marks. These words have mostly been imported from other languages, usually French. But it is increasingly rare for writers of English to actually use the accent marks for common words, even in very formal writing, to the point where actually writing the accent may be interpreted as a sign of pretension—though this view is counterbalanced by the view that fine typography should preserve accents, especially where it makes a distinction in pronunciation (compare façade vs. facade which would rhyme with cascade). The strongest tendency to retain the accent is in words that are atypical of English morphology and therefore still perceived as slightly foreign. For example, café has a pronounced final e, which would be silent by the normal English pronunciation rules. Some examples: ångström, appliqué, attaché, blasé, bric-à-brac, café, cliché, crème, crêpe, façade, fiancé(e), flambé, naïve, né(e), papier-mâché, passé, piñata, protégé, raison d'être, résumé, risqué, über-, vis-à-vis, voilà. For a more complete list, see List of English words with diacritics. Some words such as rôle and hôtel were first seen with accents when they were borrowed into English, but now the accent is almost never used. The words were considered very French borrowings when first used in English, even accused by some of being foreign phrases used where English alternatives would suffice, but today their French origin is largely forgotten. The accent on "élite" has disappeared from most publications today, but Time magazine still uses it. For some words such as "soupçon" however, the only spelling found in English dictionaries (the OED and others) uses the diacritic. Italics, with appropriate accents, are generally applied to foreign terms that are uncommonly used in or have not been assimilated into English: for example, adiós, coup d'état, crème brûlée, pièce de résistance, raison d'être, über (übermensch), vis-à-vis. It is also possible to use a diaeresis to indicate a syllable break, but again this is often left out or a hyphen used instead. Examples: coöperate (or co-operate), daïs, naïve, noël, reëlect (or re-elect). One publication that still uses a diaeresis to indicate a syllable break is the New Yorker magazine. Written accents are also used occasionally in poetry and scripts for dramatic performances to indicate that a certain normally unstressed syllable in a word should be stressed for dramatic effect, or to keep with the meter of the poetry. This use is frequently seen in archaic and pseudoarchaic writings with the "-ed" suffix, to indicate that the "e" should be fully pronounced, as with cursèd. In certain older texts (typically in Commonwealth English), the use of ligatures is common in words such as archæology, œsophagus, and encyclopædia. Such words have Latin or Greek origin. Nowadays, the ligatures have been generally replaced in Commonwealth English by the separated letters "ae" and "oe" ("archaeology", "oesophagus") and in American English by "e" ("archeology", "esophagus"). However, the spellings "oeconomy" and "oecology" are now generally replaced by "economy" and "ecology" in Commonwealth English, making these spellings the same as in American English.
See also

- English literature
- Formal written English - regional differences
- List of languages
- Common phrases in various languages
Dialects

- American and British English differences
- English speaking Europe
- General American
- List of dialects of the English language
Pronunciation

- General American
- International Phonetic Alphabet for English
- List of words of disputed pronunciation
- Non-native pronunciations of English
- Phonemic differentiation in English
- Received Pronunciation
- Regional accents of English speakers
- Rhotic and non-rhotic accents
Social, cultural or political

- English as a lingua franca for Europe
- English as an additional language
- English on the Internet
- Foreign language influences in English
- Languages in the United States
- Lists of English words of international origin
- Anglosphere
- Anglo-Saxon
Grammar

- English declension
- English plural
- English verb conjugation
- Initial-stress-derived noun
- Present progressive tense
Usage

- Dictionary
- Like
- List of archaic English words and their modern equivalents
- List of unusual English words
- Longest word in English
- Misspelling
- Gender-neutral language
- Singular they
- Siamese twins (English language)
External links

- [http://www.abroadlanguages.com/al/english/ Learning English abroad] and online. With dictionaries, games, penpals, etc.
- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/routesofenglish/index.shtml BBC - Radio 4 - Routes of English]
- [http://www.englishtenseswithcartoons.com Short Discriptions of the English Tenses]
- [http://www.ego4u.com/ English Grammar Online] free exercises, explanations, games and teaching materials on English as a foreign language
- [http://www.eslbase.com/ TEFL] - Teaching English as a Foreign Language - information and advice
- http://www.teach-yourself-english.com/ Easy-going learning aid
- [http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en Learning English Online] grammar, vocabulary, exercises, exams - English as a second language.
- [http://www.english.hb.pl Pako's English Page - Articles and advice on learning English]
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=eng Ethnologue report for English]
- [http://www.LanguageMonitor.com LanguageMonitor] - Watchdog on contemporary English usage
- [http://www.vec.ca/english/1/english.cfm Development of English]
- [http://www.esu.org English Speaking Union]
- [http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm The World's Most Widely Spoken Languages]
- [http://www.antimoon.com/ Antimoon - How to learn English] - Advice and inspiration for learners of English.
- [http://www.zozanga.com/ Zozanga ESL - Learn Online English] How to learn English.
- [http://www.quiz-tree.com/English_Spelling_main.html Free English spelling quizzes]
- [http://inenglishofcourse.pl Conversation and Resource Point for Learners of English]
- [http://www.globalenglishsalon.com Global English Salon] - Listen to English online free.
- [http://www.loecsen.com/travel/discover_pop.php?lang=en&to_lang=2&learn-English/ Learn and listen to useful expressions in English] Each expression is presented with an audio recording and an illustration
- [http://www.whatdoesthatmean.com What Does That Mean?] A wiki based lexicon of English idioms from around the world
- [http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/SLF/EngluVglSW/ELiX/bge.pdf Basic Global English]
Dictionaries

- [http://www.oed.com Oxford English Dictionary] The definitive record of the English language
- [http://dicts.info/dictlist1.php All free English dictionaries] Collection of many free English dictionaries.
- [http://dictionary.cambridge.org Cambridge Dictionary]
- [http://www.freelang.net/dictionary/french.html Freelang - French-English Dictionary made by Bertrand Cornu]
Further reading

- Baugh AC and Cable T. A history of the English language (5th ed), Rouledge, 2002 (ISBN 0415280990_
- Crystal, D. The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language (2nd ed), Cambridge University Press, 2003 (ISBN 0521530334)
- Halliday, MAK. An introduction to functional grammar (2nd ed), London, Edward Arnold, 1994 (ISBN 0340557826)
- McArthur, T (ed). The Oxford Companion to the English Language, Oxford University Press, 1992 (ISBN 019214183X)
- Robinson, Orrin, "Old English and Its Closest Relatives", Stanford Univ Press, 1992 (ISBN 0-8047-2221-8) English language Category:Languages of Fiji Category:Languages of Guam Category:Languages of Hong Kong Category:Languages of Singapore Category:Languages of the Philippines Category:Languages of the United Kingdom Category:Languages of the United States Category:Languages of Canada Category:Languages of New Zealand Category:Languages of India als:Englische Sprache ko:영어 ms:Bahasa Inggeris zh-min-nan:Eng-gí ja:英語 nb:Engelsk språk simple:English language th:ภาษาอังกฤษ

Prescription and description

In linguistics, prescription is the laying down or prescribing of normative rules for a language. A milder form of prescriptivism makes "recommendations" for good language usage. This is in contrast to the description of a language, which simply describes how that language is used in practice. Outside the field of linguistics, these terms are used in a more general sense to indicate whether a statement is merely describing a state of affairs or presenting it as desirable. For example, "a man should take responsibility for his actions" is a prescriptive statement; "some men don't take responsibility for their actions" is a descriptive one. Some prescriptive statements are phrased in the language of description: for instance, in many contexts "a man takes responsibility for his actions" would be understood as saying that a man ought to take responsibility for his actions.

Examples of linguistic prescription

For example, a descriptive linguist (descriptivist) working in English would describe the word "ain't" in terms of usage, distribution, and history rather than correctness; while acknowledging it a nonstandard form, the descriptivist would accept the broad principle that as a language evolves it often incorporates such items and thus would not didactically reject the term as never appropriate. A prescriptivist, on the other hand, would rule on whether "ain't" met some criterion of rationality, historical grammatical usage, or conformity to a contemporary standard dialect. Frequently this standard dialect is associated with the upper class (e.g., Great Britain's Received Pronunciation). When a form does not conform — as is the case for "ain't" — the prescriptivist will condemn it as a solecism or barbarism, prescribing that it not be used. In short, the door is absolutely barred to ungrammatical forms. The argumentation of prescriptive and descriptive grammar often runs in diametrically opposite directions. To take an example which was controversial as recently as the mid-20th century, in a discussion about whether it is grammatically correct to say "Bye for now!", a prescriptivist might argue: :1. for is a preposition and now is an adverb; :2. a preposition must be followed by a noun phrase; :3. therefore for cannot be followed by now. A descriptivist might argue: :1. for is a preposition; :2. English speakers do in fact say Bye for now; :3. therefore either a preposition can be followed by an adverb or now is not (in this case) an adverb. Children in British schools used to be told that the common usage was wrong, for the prescriptivist reasons given. Modern dictionaries agree with the descriptivist and list now as "adverb or noun".

A history of linguistic prescription in English

Languages, especially standard languages or official languages used in courts of law, for administration of government, and for the promulgation of official works, tend to acquire norms and standards over time. Once English became the language of administration of law in England, a form of late Middle English called chancery English became such a standard. When William Caxton introduced printing with movable type into England, the norms of his grammar and spelling were taken largely from chancery English. However, the "correction" of English grammar was not a large subject of formal study until the eighteenth century. Poet John Dryden remarked that the grammar in use in his day (second half of 1600s) was an improvement over the usage of William Shakespeare. Dryden was himself the first to promulgate the rule that a sentence must not end with a preposition, a rule taken from Latin grammar (see preposition). Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary contributed to the standardization of English spelling. More influentially, the first of a long line of prescriptionist usage commentators, Robert Lowth, published A Short Introduction to English Grammar in 1762. Lowth's grammar is the source of many of the prescriptive shibboleths that are studied in schools and was the first of a long line of usage commentators to judge the language in addition to describing it. For example, the following footnote from his grammar is, in turn, descriptive and prescriptive: "Whose is by some authors made the Possessive Case of which, and applied to things as well as persons; I think, improperly." Lowth's method included criticising "false syntax"; his examples of false syntax were culled from Shakespeare, the King James Bible, John Donne, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, and other famous writers. His approach was based largely on Latin grammar, and a number of his judgments were arrived at by applying Latin grammar to English, though this contradicted his own stated principles. Thus Lowth condemns Addison's sentence "Who should I meet the other night, but my old friend?" on the grounds that the thing acted upon should be in the "Objective Case", corresponding, as he says earlier, to an oblique case in Latin. (Descriptive critics, on the other hand, would take this example and others as evidence from noted writers that "who" can refer to direct objects in English.) Lowth's ipse dixits appealed to those who wished for certainty and authority in their language. Lowth's grammar was not written for children; nonetheless, within a decade of its appearance, versions of it were adapted for schools, and Lowth's stylistic opinions acquired the force of law in the classroom. During the nineteenth century, with the rise of popular journalism, the common usage of a tightly-knit educated and governing class was extended to a more widely literate public than before or since, through the usage of editors of newspapers and magazines. There therefore began to be a broader market for usage guides. In general, these attempted to elucidate the distinctions between different words and constructions, promoting some and condemning others as unclear, declassé, or simply wrong. Perhaps the most well-known and historically important text of this sort was Henry Watson Fowler's idiosyncratic and much praised Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Originally published in 1926, it was extensively revised for the 1996 third edition, and remains a primary reference for many educated speakers and editors. Besides Fowler, other writers in this tradition include the 19th-century poet and editor William Cullen Bryant, and, in the 20th-century, Theodore Bernstein and William Safire. Contemporary stylebooks such as the Associated Press Stylebook, from the Associated Press in the United States, or The Times Style and Usage Guide, from The Times in the United Kingdom, are prescriptive in intent. However, these books are intended for use by editors, and are meant to standardize the text of a particular publication, rather than to prescribe all writing in the language. During the second half of the twentieth century, the prescriptionist tradition of usage commentators has fallen under increasing criticism. Thus, works such as the Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, appearing in 1993, attempt to describe usage issues of words and syntax as they are actually used by writers of note, rather than to judge them by standards derived from logic, fine distinctions, or Latin grammar. Academics will note that the Oxford English Dictionary has always been a descriptive text. Academic linguistics is descriptivist. As in most academic disciplines, the purpose of scholarship is understood to be the observation and analysis of phenomena as they actually appear in the world. Nonstandard varieties are held to be no more or less 'correct' than standard varieties, though it is recognised that many speakers of the latter look down on nonstandard forms. In the 18th and 19th centuries philologists expected to find 'primitive' languages in the new colonies around the world, but never did. As a result linguists soon came to understand that there is no such thing and that this principle also applies to nonstandard varieties of European languages. However, while most linguists see the rise of the descriptive approach as a positive development, many would contend that there is still a place for elements of prescriptivism in some contexts. Most people would agree that there is such a thing as a spelling mistake or that standardised languages are useful for interregional communication, both concepts which demand at least a partly prescriptive approach to school literacy lessons. Learners of foreign languages need prescriptive teaching unless they are very advanced. And writers or communicators who wish to use words as clearly, powerfully or effectively as possible may be better helped by informed recommendations than by an assurance that anything is acceptable. Consequently, it is unlikely that prescriptive approaches will disappear entirely.

Topics in English usage prescription

See also: Disputed English grammar
- ain't
- null comparative
- comparison of absolute adjectives
- deprecated
- double negative
- preposition
- serial comma
- singular they
- split infinitive
- superlative of two
- y'all

References

- Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, ISBN 0877791325
- Strunk and White's The Elements of Style
- Fowler's Modern English Usage

Additional resources

- [http://wiki.oxus.net/Language_Police Language Police] at Kerim's Wiki
- [http://specgram.com/CXLIX.3/07.announce.oem.html The Original English Movement]: The ultimate in English prescriptivism, which suggests undoing the damage done to the language by the Norman invasion. Category:Sociolinguistics

Analytic language

An analytic language (or isolating language) is a language in which the vast majority of morphemes are free morphemes and considered to be full-fledged "words". By contrast, in a synthetic language, a word is composed of agglutinated or fused morphemes that denote its syntactic meanings.

Features of analytic languages

Analytic languages often express abstract concepts using independent words, while synthetic languages tend to use adpositions, affixes and internal modifications of roots for the same purpose. Analytic languages have stricter and more elaborate syntactic rules. Since words are not marked by morphology showing their role in the sentence, word order tends to carry a lot of importance; for example, Chinese and English make use of word order to show subject-object relationship. Chinese also uses word order to show definiteness (where English uses "the" and "a"), topic-comment relationships, the role of adverbs (whether they are descriptive or contrastive), and so on. Analytic languages tend to rely heavily on context and pragmatic considerations for the interpretation of sentences, since they don't specify as much as synthetic languages in terms of agreement and cross-reference between different parts of the sentence. Chinese (of all varieties) is perhaps the best-known analytic language. To illustrate: As can be seen, each syllable (or sometimes two) corresponds to a single concept; in addition it can be seen that two words (所有 and 都) cooperate to form the concept of "all", which gives an idea of the syntactical rules that dominate the grammars of such languages. Comparing the Chinese to the English translation, one sees that while English itself is fairly analytic, it contains some agglutinative features, such as the bound morpheme -/s/ to mark either possession (in the form of a clitic) or number (in the form of a suffix). Outside China, Southeast Asia is home to many analytic languages, such as Thai and Vietnamese. When compared with a synthetic language, such as German, the contrast becomes clear: Note that the morpheme "der" corresponds to four separate concepts simultaneously, and the morpheme "die" refers to three concepts (German does not distinguish gender in the plural), but the rules relating "der" and "die" in this manner are quite arbitrary, making this set of morphemes fusional in nature. It is worth mentioning that both "der" and "die" also can function as a feminine singular definite article, depending on the case. Furthermore, the word "Männer" corresponds to two concepts and relates to "Mann" through both the plural marker /-er/ and a process of umlaut that changes "a" to "ä" in many German plurals. Thus, the formation of German plurals is a simple, rule-governed inflectional pattern. As a result, German can be said to lie between the agglutinative and fusional areas of the spectrum of linguistic typology. Bulgarian is the only analytic Slavic language acquiring this feature from the Balkan linguistic union. This allows us to study the process. In the beginning, cases began to mix sounds; this paved the way for the distinctions between forms to be forgotten. Old relationships expressed by inflected words were, it is supposed, first replaced by prepositional phrases. If a preposition took an inflected word after itself, it was a short walk for the word to lose its declension, because cases after prepositions are in semantically weak positions – that is, replacing one case by another after prepositions doesn't affect meaning as much as does changing the case of a free inflected word (since prepositions distinguish meanings fairly unambiguously from the start). Pronoun cases always tend to survive better than noun cases, but consider English "Me and him went a long way" or the hypercorrect "The shipmaster saluted Martin and I." ko:고립어 ja:孤立語

Indo-European languages

The Indo-European languages include some 443 (SIL estimate) languages and dialects, including most of the major language families of Europe, as well as many languages of Southwest and South Asia, which belong to a single superfamily. Contemporary languages in this superfamily include Bengali, English, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish (each with more than 100 million native speakers), as well as numerous smaller national or minority languages. The Indo-European is the largest widely accepted family of languages in the world today, spoken by approximately 3 billion native speakers. (The second most common family of tongues being Sino-Tibetan)

Classification

The various subgroups of the Indo-European family include (in historical order of their first attestation):
- Anatolian languages — earliest attested branch, from the 18th century BC; extinct, most notable was the language of the Hittites.
- Indo-Iranian languages, descending from a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-Iranian
- Indo-Aryan, including Sanskrit, attested from the 2nd millennium BC
- Iranian languages, attested from roughly 1000 BC, including Avestan and Persian.
- Greek language — fragmentary records in Mycenaean from the 14th century BC; Homer dates to the 8th century BC. See History of the Greek language.
- Italic languages — including Latin and its descendants, the Romance languages, attested from the 1st millennium BC.
- Celtic languages — Gaulish inscriptions date as early as the 6th century BC; Old Irish texts from the 6th century AD.
- Germanic languages (including English) — earliest testimonies in runic inscriptions from around the 2nd century, earliest coherent texts in Gothic, 4th century.
- Armenian language — attested from the 5th century.
- Tocharian languages — extinct tongues of the Tocharians, extant in two dialects, attested from roughly the 6th century.
- Balto-Slavic languages, believed by many Indo-Europeanists to derive from a common proto-language later than Proto-Indo-European, while others are skeptical and think that Baltic and Slavic are no more closely related than any other two branches of Indo-European.
- Slavic languages — attested from the 9th century, earliest texts in Old Church Slavonic.
- Baltic languages — attested from the 14th century, and, for languages attested that late, they retain unusually many archaic features attributed to Proto-Indo-European.
- Albanian language — attested from the 15th century (1462); relations with Illyrian, Dacian, or Thracian proposed. In addition to the classical ten branches listed above, there are several extinct languages, about which very little is known:
- Illyrian languages — possibly related to Messapian or Venetic; relation to Albanian also proposed.
- Venetic language — close to Italic.
- Liburnian language — apparently grouped with Venetic.
- Messapian language — not conclusively deciphered.
- Phrygian language — language of ancient Phrygia, possibly close to Greek, Thracian, or Armenian.
- Paionian language — extinct language once spoken north of Macedon.
- Thracian language — possibly close to Dacian.
- Dacian language — possibly close to Thracian and Albanian.
- Ancient Macedonian language — probably related to Greek, others propose relation to Ilyrian, Thracian or Phrygian.
- Ligurian language — possibly not Indo-European; possibly close to or part of Celtic There were no doubt other Indo-European languages which are now lost without a trace. The fragmentary Raetian language cannot be classified with any certainty. Further subfamilies have been suggested, among them Italo-Celtic and Graeco-Aryan. Neither of these is widely accepted. Indo-Hittite refers to the hypothesis that there is a significant separation between Anatolian and all the remaining groups.

Satem and Centum languages

Indo-Hittite/Srubna cultures).]] The Indo-European sub-branches are often classified in a Satem and a Centum group. This is based on the varying treatments of the three original velar rows. Satem languages lost the distinction between labiovelar and pure velar sounds, and at the same time assibilated the palatal velars. The centum languages, on the other hand, lost the distinction between palatal velars and pure velars. Thus, geographically, the "eastern" languages are Satem (Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavic, but not including Tocharian and Anatolian), and the "western" languages are Centum (Germanic, Italic, Celtic). The Satem-Centum isogloss runs right between the Greek (Centum) and Armenian (Satem) languages (thought to be related by a number of scholars), with Greek exhibiting some marginal Satem features. Some scholars think that there may be some languages that classify neither as Satem nor as Centum (Anatolian, Tocharian, and possibly Albanian). It should be noted that the grouping does not imply a claim of monophyly: there never was a "proto-Centum" or a "proto-Satem", but the sound changes spread by areal contact among already distinct post-PIE languages (say, during the 3rd millennium BC).

Suggested superfamilies

Some linguists propose that Indo-European languages are part of a hypothetical Nostratic language superfamily, and attempt to relate Indo-European to other language families, such as South Caucasian languages, Altaic languages, Uralic languages, Dravidian languages, Afro-Asiatic languages. This theory is controversial, as is the similar Eurasiatic theory of Joseph Greenberg, and the Proto-Pontic of John Colarusso.

History

See also: Proto-Indo-European, Historical linguistics, Glottochronology. The possibility of common origin for some of these languages was first proposed by Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn in 1647, proposing their derivation from "Scythian". However, the suggestions of van Boxhorn did not become widely known and were not pursued. The hypothesis was again proposed by Sir William Jones, who noticed similarities between four of the oldest languages known in his time, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Persian. Systematic comparison of these and other old languages conducted by Franz Bopp supported this theory, and Bopp's Comparative Grammar, appearing between 1833 and 1852 is considered the starting point of Indo-European studies as an academic discipline. The common ancestral (reconstructed) language is called Proto-Indo-European (PIE). There is disagreement as to the original geographic location (the so-called "Urheimat" or "original homeland") from where it originated. There are two main candidates today: # the steppes north of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea (see Kurgan) # Anatolia (see Colin Renfrew). Proponents of the Kurgan hypothesis tend to date the proto-language to ca. 4000 BC, while proponents of Anatolian origin usually date it several millennia earlier, associating the spread of Indo-European languages with the Neolithic spread of farming (see Indo-Hittite).

Kurgan hypothesis

The Kurgan hypothesis was originally suggested by Marija Gimbutas in the 1950s. According to the Kurgan hypothesis, early PIE was spoken in the chalcolithic steppe cultures of the 5th millennium BC between the Black Sea and the Volga. Timeline
- 4500–4000: Early PIE. Sredny Stog, Dnieper-Donets and Sarama cultures, domestication of the horse.
- 4000–3500: The Yamna culture, the prototypical kurgan builders, emerges in the steppe, and the Maykop culture in the northern Caucasus. Indo-Hittite models postulate the separation of Proto-Anatolian before this time.
- 3500–3000: Middle PIE. The Yamna culture is at its peak, representing the classical reconstructed Proto-Indo-European society, with stone idols, early two-wheeled proto-chariots, predominantly practicing animal husbandry, but also with permanent settlements and hillforts, subsisting on agriculture and fishing, along rivers. Contact of the Yamna culture with late Neolithic Europe cultures results in the "kurganized" Globular Amphora and Baden cultures. The Maykop culture shows the earliest evidence of the beginning Bronze Age, and bronze weapons and artefacts are introduced to Yamna territory. Probable early Satemization.
- 3000–2500: Late PIE. The Yamna culture extends over the entire Pontic steppe. The Corded Ware culture extends from the Rhine to the Volga, corresponding to the latest phase of Indo-European unity, the vast "kurganized" area disintegrating into various independent languages and cultures, still in loose contact enabling the spread of technology and early loans between the groups, except for the Anatolian and Tocharian branches, which are already isolated from these processes. The Centum-Satem break is probably complete, but the phonetic trends of Satemization remain active.
- 2500–2000: The breakup into the proto-languages of the attested dialects is complete. Proto-Greek is spoken in the Balkans, Proto-Indo-Iranian north of the Caspian in the Sintashta-Petrovka culture. The Bronze Age reaches Central Europe with the Beaker culture, likely composed of various Centum dialects. Proto-Balto-Slavic (or alternatively, Proto-Slavic and Proto-Baltic communities in close contact) develops in north-eastern Europe. The Tarim mummies possibly correspond to proto-Tocharians.
- 2000–1500: The chariot is invented, leading to the split and rapid spread of Iranian and Indo-Aryan from the Andronovo culture and the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex over much of Central Asia, Northern India, Iran and Eastern Anatolia. Proto-Anatolian is split into Hittite and Luwian. The pre-Proto-Celtic Unetice culture has an active metal industry (Nebra skydisk).
- 1500–1000: The Nordic Bronze Age develops (pre-)Proto-Germanic, and the (pre-)Proto-Celtic Urnfield and Hallstatt cultures emerge in Central Europe, introducing the Iron Age. Proto-Italic migration into the Italian peninsula. Redaction of the Rigveda and rise of the Vedic civilization in the Punjab. Flourishing and decline of the Hittite Empire. The Mycenaean civilization gives way to the Greek Dark Ages.
- 1000 BC–500 BC: The Celtic languages spread over Central and Western Europe. Northern Europe enters the Pre-Roman Iron Age, the formative phase of Proto Germanic. Homer initiates Greek literature and early Classical Antiquity. The Vedic Civilization gives way to the Mahajanapadas. Zoroaster composes the Gathas, rise of the Achaemenid Empire, replacing the Elamites and Babylonia. The Cimmerians (Srubna culture) are replaced by Scythians in the Pontic steppe. Armenians succeed the Urartu culture. Separation of Proto-Italic into Osco-Umbrian and Latin-Faliscan, and foundation of Rome. Genesis of the Greek and Old Italic alphabets. A variety of Paleo-Balkan languages are spoken in Southern Europe. The Anatolian languages are extinct.

Competing hypotheses

Colin Renfrew in 1987 suggested that the spread of Indo-European was associated with the Neolithic revolution, spreading peacefully into Europe from Asia Minor from around 7000 BC with the advance of farming (wave of advance). Accordingly, all of Neolithic Europe would have been Indo-European speaking, and the Kurgan migrations would at best have replaced Indo-European dialects with other Indo-European dialects. Thomas Gamkrelidze and Vyacheslav V. Ivanov in 1984 placed the Indo-European homeland on Lake Urmia. They suggested that Armenian was the language which stayed in the Indo-European cradle while other Indo-European languages left the homeland. They are also the originators of the Glottalic theory. Some people have pointed to the Black Sea deluge theory<

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