Besides, prescriptive grammar can lead to pretty weird language:

(Winston Churchill)

"…it is a rule up with which we should not put."

1. A system of communication specific to the human species
2. Autonomy from other cognitive abilities: there is a special place in the brain for language
3. Sensitive period for learning

• Unlike human language, animal communication systems are not creative.

• Human language, in contrast, consists of rules and principles that allow you to express new meanings.

(someone who wugs is a….)

Different dances depending on what kind of food is found, how far, and which direction

If other species could learn human language, then language would not be species specific (Hence, perhaps not part of our biology). But:

• Attempts have been made to teach language to apes.
• They can learn words, but they can never put them together into anything resembling human sentences

2. Autonomy from other cognitive abilities

Just as an individual may have an auditory or a visual impairment, individuals may have language impairments.

Examples:

• Specific Language Impairment
• Aphasia

• Normal cognitive abilities
• Impaired language

Problems with the rule system of language, e.g. Picture selection task:

Pict 1: dog bites cat.

Pict 2: cat bites dog.

Individuals with SLI may select pict 1 for either sentence:

The dog is bitten by the cat.

Individuals with specific lesions in the language area of the brain have a problem producing and understanding language

• Not a speech problem
• All other cognitive functions may be intact
• Normal intelligence

Yes-ah-Monday- ah-Dad-ah-Hospital-and ah–Wednesday-Wednesday-nine o’clock and ah Thursday — ten o’clock ah doctors-two-two-ah doctors and —ah-teeth-yah. And a doctor-ah girl-and gums, and I.

3. A critical period for learning language

If you don’t start to learn language when you are young, you will never master language at an adult level.

Similar to other biologically determined behaviors

• The visual system
• "Hygienic" behavior in cats

Evidence for a critical period in language acquisition

• Adult learning of a second language
• Attempts at language learning by individuals deprived of language during childhood.

• In 1970, an abused, 13-year-old child was found.
• She had not been exposed to language
• Could she still learn language?

Two meanings of the term "grammar"

Prescriptive grammar

• Rules that tell people how they "ought" to talk

Descriptive grammar

• Rules that describe how people actually talk

Examples of descriptive rules

• The subject precedes the verb, the object follows the verb

• 3^rd person singular: -s after the verb stem

Examples of prescriptive rules:

• Don’t end a sentence with preposition

Vs. About what is she talking

• Don’t use double negation

Another prescriptive rule:

• Use whom instead of who when this word is an object rather than a subject

Some of the origins of prescriptive rules

• Imported or "kept" in English because of resemblance to Latin
• Adopted from mathematical logic
• Older forms of the language
• Variant of the language spoken by a socially prestigious group

Why do we study language as it is actually spoken?

Because we are interested in the (often unconscious) knowledge of language in human beings

Our object of study is what is in the human mind, not what some say should be in the human mind

• It is automatic
• It does not require explicit teaching for children
• It describes the "mental ‘ grammar
• Grammar = the language rules in the brain

• It is not automatic; decision to follow is an individual choice
• It requires explicit teaching
• It describes rules of language that are associated with social prestige
• Grammar = what the author of a prescriptive grammar would like to see

Prescriptive grammar is not compatible with the view that language is an instinct

1. Can spiders spin incorrect webs?
2. Can cats purr wrong?
3. Is the way orangutans swing through the tree tops wrong ?
4. Can your grammar be wrong?