Introduction

Grammar can be defined as the set of rules that determine how words are arranged in a sentence

in any language. It is the systematic study of the description, explanation and illustration of a

language. The rules that govern a language, determine the way words fit together in a sentence.

The rules by which a language operates, overseeing the sentences, words and their sounds.

Grammar can also be defined as a systematic study of scientific method which provides us

information and guidance necessary to learn a language. The science of grammar teaches us how

a language is spoken and written correctly and effectively.

According to Egbe D. I. (2000), Essential English Grammar and Syntactic Analysis, (pg 4), he

defined grammar as the study of relationships between words in a sentence. So, it can be said

that grammar is primarily concerned with the formation and classification of words and

sentences and their practical significance in daily life.

Kolln and Funk (2006), mention three definitions of the term in Understanding English

Grammar. First definition; The system of rules in our heads. Grammar is concerned with

different aspects and meanings, depending on the different language theories which have various

formulations. The scope of grammar is very wide and the rules that we have internalized

subconsciously is our “Language Competence and Performance”. Language competence,

according to Chomsky, refers to the native speaker’s knowledge of his language and his ability to

understand and comprehend the system of rules. In other words, a person would speak a

language based on the way he/ she understands the language, while Language Performance

Second definition; The formal description of the rules. This definition is the form, the structure

of sentences and the study of the system of rules and the actual use of the language.
Third definition; The social implications of usage. This can be referred to as the dos and don’ts

of the language also known as “Linguistic Etiquette”. Linguistic etiquette can be defined as the

‘system of norms and rules of polite speech behavior which maintains an observance that ensures

the existence of polite communication and the appropriateness of the linguistic action in any

communicative event’. This is the definition that people have in mind when they use terms like

“poor grammar” or “good grammar.”

Branches of Grammar

Morphology

Syntax

Morphology; a branch of linguistics that studies the internal structure of words, especially

regarding morphemes, which are the smallest unit of words.

Syntax; syntax refers to the rules and principles that govern the structure of sentences and

phrases in a language

Types of Grammar

The early grammarians or English scholars, who felt that “a grammar should provide a set of

rules for correct use of language, where ‘correct’ meant according to the rules of grammar of

Latin”, (The Linguistics Encyclopedia, Second Edition. Pg 248).

There are different types of grammar, (Traditional Grammar, Structural Grammar, Modern

Grammar Transformational Generative Grammar, Performance Grammar, Systemic Functional

Grammar, Comparative Grammar, etc.) but for the purpose of this study, we are going to be

looking at two types of early grammar.

Traditional / Prescriptive Grammar

Structural / Descriptive Grammar

Traditional Grammar

Traditional Grammar is also known as Prescriptive Grammar or Classical Grammar. Traditional

Grammar grew out of the search for universal truths and universal ideas by Plato and his

followers. They realized that language is a universal truth and the language was Greek as it was

the ideal and universal language. They believed that Greek was the standard language and

whatever was appropriate in Greek should be appropriate in every other language, based on

acceptable, knowledge of the language.

Plato and his followers went on to identify nouns and verbs (a noun, being the name of a person,

a thing, a place, an animal or an idea; and a verb meaning an action word). Aristotle, in his

research, went ahead to add conjunction which symbolizes all the items that unite nouns and

verbs in a sentence. Dionysius Thrax, a Greek Grammarian, divided the Greek grammar into

eight parts of speech (Noun, Verb, Particle, Article, Conjunction, Adverb, Preposition and

Pronoun). This was a hundred years later. In his book, The Art of Grammar, Thrax categorized

the parts of speech and hoe they should be used in sentence structure and written language was

focused on.

Traditional Grammar has already been accepted by the time the Roman arrived. According to

Egbe D. I. (2005), An Explanatory Transformational – Generative Grammar of English, (pg. 4);

“The influence of Thrax’s followers about the study of language were duly felt by the Romans

who then saw the Greek and Latin languages as presenting a universally correct and acceptable

logic of languages for all other people to use”. Greek and Latin were seen as the languages
presenting a universally correct and acceptable structure by which every other language should

follow.

Traditional Grammar is a put together set of rules, or a collection of rules (prescriptive rules),

and concepts about the structure of a language. Traditional English Grammar is commonly,

widely and largely based and set on the principles and structures of Latin. TG analyses the

structure of English and defines what is right or wrong in the language.

Rendition of Standard Grammar

Latin was used in international relations, churches, scholarships, administrations and

communications, but it later gave way for French. The common people were in majority and

those in power ensured that English was used by them. People were not sure that English was

suitable and acceptable for scholarly and literary expressions. So, because they felt English

wasn’t accepted, there wasn’t any standard of grammar in English that was acceptable to all.

That’s why the early writers like Shakespeare etc. wrote in whatever manner they deemed fit.

The initial purpose of English was to teach foreigners the Latin language, since a lot of people

wanted to learn the language. Due to this, teachers were equipped with the knowledge of

classical languages, Greek and Latin. Language study still concentrated on the Latin of classical

literature which they believed represented universal grammar, like classical Greek. The Latin

grammarians made some modifications in their analysis of the Parts of Speech and therefore

replaced articles with interjections. However, they kept the system of the eight parts of speech

that they believed a universal grammar must have.

The Romans also set up as system of declensions to show cases in common nouns, and a system

of conjugation was set up for verbs. Declension is an inflection of nouns. The individual
declensions are called cases, and together they form the case system. Nouns, pronouns,

adjectives and participles are declined in six cases: Nominative (subject of the sentence),

Genitive (possession), Dative (indirect objects) Accusative (direct objects), Ablative

(prepositional objects) and Vocative (for direct address; for calling and questioning) and two

Numbers (singular and plural). (The locative, an archaic case, existed in the classical period only

for a few words).

Conjugation of verbs is the linguistic process in which a verb changes its form in order to reflect

aspects like person, number, tense, mood, etc. Verbs have a suffix that shows which conjugation

it belongs to, which person (first, second, third) and which tense it has.

Prescriptive Grammar

Traditional grammar is considered “prescriptive,” and not “descriptive.” This means that

traditional grammar is prescriptive because it focuses on the distinction between what some

people do with language and what they ought to do with it, according to an already decided

standard. It refers to the structure of a language as certain people think it should be used.

According to Baugh, (1970), “In a bid to establish a model grammar for spoken and written

English, early grammarians aimed to do three things: to codify the principles of the language and

reduce it to rules, to settle disputed points and decide cases of divided usage, and to point out

common errors or what were supposed to be errors and thus correct and improve the language.”

The idea of studying English through the grammatical rules of Latin led to what is now called

Prescriptive Grammar. This grammar is concerned with what is right and what is wrong; it deals

with how language should be used without looking at how people use their language in natural

ways. It is a set of rules dealing with the syntax of word structures of a language. Prescriptive
grammarians focus on the “correctness” of language. They believe that a set of rules governs

language’s usage.Think of Prescriptive grammar like going to the doctor’s, a doctor would

prescribe medication and tell you how to use it. In a similar way, a prescriptive grammar tells

you how you should speak, and what type of language to avoid.

So, instead of studying the special and peculiar nature and behavior of English Language, the

early scholars described, more like compared, and studied the English language structures

through the structural forms of Latin and Greek. The forms of English that conformed to the

forms of Latin were accepted, while the forms of English that did not conform were assigned to a

different structure or the other. Prescriptive grammar lays out rules about the structure of a

language, it deals with what the grammarian believes to be right and wrong, good or bad

language use; not following the rules will generate incorrect language. But, the problems of

irregularity and lack of consistence of form and standard still continued, so some scholars came

together on the issues.

Some rules of prescriptive grammar are:

Infinitives should not be separated.

The infinitive to should not be separated from the verb. For example, in these sentences; The

children want to quickly play outside or the girl had to suddenly go to the restroom. Adverbs

are very moveable and mobile parts of speech and therefore can occur anywhere in a sentence.

The above sentences were not accepted by classical grammarians because the believed the

infinitive to should not be splitted or separated from a verb. So, the appropriate sentences

according to traditional grammar, would be; The children want to play outside quickly or the

girl suddenly had to go to the restroom.

Tense usages

Traditional grammar emphasizes the use of different verb tenses to indicate the time of an action

or event. Common tenses include past, present, and future, as well as various forms of perfect

and progressive tenses.

The subject of the sentence must agree with the verb.

The subject (noun head) of a sentence must agree with the verb. Subjects and verbs must agree in

number. If a subject is singular, the verb must be singular as well. If the subject is plural, the verb

must be plural. The classical grammarians accepted the following sentences; He goes to school

or the women sleep in the building but the rejected the following sentences; He go to school or

the women sleeps in the building.

A sentence must not end with a preposition.

This rule was inherited from classical grammarians where a sentence could not be ended with a

preposition. For example, the following sentences; These are the people I went to school with or

I know where to go to, were unaccepted by classical grammarians and they were considered

ungrammatical because they do not conform to the structure of Latin or Greek. However, these

sentences are perfectly grammatical in Standard English.

Punctuation marks

Traditional grammar provides rules for the use of punctuation marks, including commas,

semicolons, colons, periods, question marks, and exclamation marks. Proper punctuation helps

clarify meaning and organize ideas in writing.

A sentence must begin with a capital letter.

These are the rules that were set by the early grammarians. Traditional Grammar was not based

on the scientific rules but on norms and conventions. It focuses on the written form of the

language and overlooks the spoken form of language. People were expected to speak the way

they write, and be formal with everything. Traditional Grammar was too meaning independent.

The meaning of a sentence is based on individual words.

Syntax

Traditional grammar emphasizes the importance of word order and sentence structure in

conveying meaning. Correct syntax helps ensure that sentences are clear, concise, and logically

organize

The rules of language according to prescriptive grammar focus on the structure of the language.

It does not concern itself with the function.

Structural Grammar

Structural Grammar started around 1920s. It is also called Descriptive Grammar or Modern

Grammar. Descriptive grammar is a set of rules about language based on how it is actually used.

In a descriptive grammar there is no right or wrong language. Structural Grammar was

introduced by Ferdinard de Saussure, who is known as the father of linguistics, in a bid to

challenge the illogical prescription of Traditional grammar. In America, Franz Boaz, Edward

Sapir and Leonard Bloomfield proposed a new school of linguistics (Structuralism). They

studied language in terms of observable data and described language according to the behavior of

language as it is used. They focused more on American – Indian language, and paid more

attention on phonemes and morphemes.

Structural grammarians attacked the Traditional grammarians that the foundation should be laid

based on the meaning of the word. They believed that language should be understood from the

structure not meaning. The grammarians argued that instead of prescribing rules on how

language should be used, why not look at how people use language in their natural setting? The

study of language for the structural linguist started off as an observational exercise on the way

language is used. This led to the description of the observed behavior of the language in the

process of its usage. Syal & Jindal (2016) mentions some of the major tenets of structural

grammar as: 1. Spoken language is primary and writing is secondary. 2. The Synchronic study of

language over the diachronic. 3. Language is a system of systems.

Speaking vs Writing

One of the major features of Structural grammar was its high regard and interest in speaking.

Spoken language is primary, and written language is secondary. The structural grammarians

believed that a person learns to speak a language before writing, unlike the traditional

grammarians. The structuralists describe English as it is spoken not as it written by the great

masters of the past, they analyse sentences according to the word order of subject, verb and

object and not according to the logic of universal grammar. At such, emphasis is placed on the

description of spoken language over the actual orthography of it. Structural grammar emphasizes

the need to focus language study on spoken, rather than written samples. The is because it made

more sense to analyse actual verbal samples of language to understand the entails of how

language works among certain people. To the structuralist, imposing the language use of a select

few on a larger group is impractical, and non-objective.

Language as a system of systems

According to Syal and Jindal (2016),An introduction to linguistics, “each language is regarded by

the structuralist as a system of relation”. It is rooted in the beliefs and ideology of the structural

grammarian that each language has a system. They believe that language has its own structure

and each language is a system of relation. The structural linguists attempted to describe language

in terms of how a structure is being used. They look for regularities and patterns in language

structure. They foretell that language structure was associated with phoneme as the unit of

phonology and morpheme as the unit of grammar.

Synchronic over Diachronic

Diachronic linguistics is the historical study of language. It refers to the study of how a language

evolves over a period of time. Synchronic linguistics is the geographic study of languageat one

particular period (usually the present). Synchronic linguistics is one of the two main temporal

dimensions of language study introduced by Saussure in his "Course in General Linguistics"

(1916). The other is diachronic linguistics, which is the study of language through periods of

time in history. This is because the historical origin of a language plays little or no significant

role in the investigation of how a language is at a present moment. The structural grammarian

therefore moved their focus to examining the immediate constituent structure of produced

sentences, and how it helps in establishing an empirical view of meaning.

The structural grammarians arranged and organized sentences into patterns, types and groups.

They eliminated all the traditional terminologies. For instance; Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives and

Adverbs were replaced with Word Class I, II, III, IV etc. The structuralists are very descriptive

and objective in their descriptions; therefore, they do not make any reference to meaning.
Example, in the sentence, Peter is very hungry. Peter (Word Class I), is (Word Class II), very

(Word Class IV), hungry (Word Class III). The structuralists criticized the traditionalists that they

did not pay enough attention to structural relationships in their grammatical description. The

structural grammarians were greatly interested in the structure of morphology, syntax and

phonology. So, they created a system of grammatical analysis, Immediate Constituent

Analysis, which is a major tool of the structural grammarians.

Immediate Constituent Analysis

The structural grammarians believed that language is a system of systems, such that no system

can exist in isolation of another. Hence, they come up with the concept of immediate constituent.

Immediate constituent is the way of dividing / cutting a word into parts of which it seems to have

been composed. The purpose is to account for every word in the structure of a sentence. ICA

believes a sentence should be divided into subject and predicate

Strengths of Traditional Grammar

1. Traditional grammar is often taught in a clear and structured way, making it accessible to

learners of all levels.

2. Traditional grammar places a lot of emphasis on correctness, which can be useful for

learners who want to master the rules of a language.

3. Traditional grammar has a long history and has been used to describe and analyze

languages for centuries. It laid the foundation for other grammars to follow and

classification of word classes, parts of speech was created and it emphasizes the

importance of correctness and clarity in communication.

 4. It contains a theory of reference by which the meaning of declarative sentences can be

explained and to which other may be reduced. If the learners know prescriptive grammar

rules, it will be easier for them to write in the target language and prescriptive grammar

produces better writers.

Weaknesses of Traditional Grammar

1. Traditional Grammar did not study the specific nature of languages, but imposed their

own rules. They focus on Latin and Greek for the standard for all language to follow and

they believe that language should follow the pattern for Universal Grammar which was

found in Greek and Latin.

2. Traditional grammar often focuses on surface-level features of language (such as

spelling, punctuation, and syntax) and may not fully capture the complexities of language

use.

3. Traditional grammar can be prescriptive, meaning that it focuses on how language

"should" be used rather than describing how it is actually used by speakers.

4. Traditional grammar is often specific to one language or group of languages and may not

apply to all languages. Focusing too much on prescriptive rules can lead to an

overemphasis on correctness at the expense of creativity and flexibility in language use.It

is limited in scope and not backed by an overall theory or model of grammar.

5. If the prescriptive grammar is taught, learners will be confused when they talk with a

native speaker. They will realize that natives do not use the rules in the grammar books.

People who learn prescriptive grammar cannot be able to speak or write like a native

speaker because they only use standard grammar books and they do not know how the

native speakers use the language.

Strengths of Structural Grammar

1. Rigorous analysis: Structural grammar provides a rigorous framework for analyzing the

structure and organization of language.

2. Structural grammar is descriptive, meaning that it seeks to describe how language is actually

used by speakers, rather than prescribing how it "should" be used.

3. Structural grammar seeks to identify the universal principles that underlie all languages,

making it applicable to a wide range of languages. Structural grammar can sometimes

overlook the importance of prescriptive rules in effective communication.

4. It can be limited in its ability to explain the more complex aspects of language use, such as

idiomatic expressions and figurative language.Descriptive grammar helps learners to speak

and write like a native speaker.

5. It reduces the confusion of learners when they speak with a native speaker but it is not

appropriate for beginner learners because the rules are not precise.

Weaknesses of Structural Grammar

1. Structural grammar can be complex and difficult to understand, making it less accessible

to learners of all levels.

2. Structural grammar often focuses on the syntax (word order and sentence structure) of

language and may not capture other aspects of language use, such as meaning and

context.

3. Structural grammar is not prescriptive and does not place a lot of emphasis on

correctness, which may be a drawback for learners who want to master the rules of a

language.
In summary, traditional grammar and structural grammar have their strengths and weaknesses.

Traditional grammar is often clear and accessible, but can be prescriptive and incomplete.

Structural grammar provides a rigorous framework for analyzing language, but can be complex

and less focused on correctness. Both approaches have their place in the study of language and

can be useful for different purposes.

It can be difficult to teach to people who are not familiar with linguistic terminology.

Structural grammar can sometimes overlook the importance of prescriptive rules in effective

communication.

Conclusion

Bothe traditional grammar and structural grammar have their strengths and weaknesses.

Traditional grammar is often clear and accessible, but can be prescriptive and incomplete.

Structural grammar provides a rigorous framework for analyzing language, but can be complex

and less focused on correctness. Both approaches have their place in the study of language and

can be useful for different purposes. Traditional Grammar is a collection of rules and concepts

about the structure of language and specifies what is right and wrong in the language. While,

Structural Grammar tries to avoid making judgements about correctness and concentrates on

explaining and describing the way people actually use a language. Structural grammar is flexible

and can be used to create many different sentences. This style of grammar is commonly used in

academic writing and helps with clarity, organization, and flow.

Overall, structural and traditional grammars are both important for writing. However, the type of

grammar used will depend on the type of writing you are doing. And both traditional and
structural grammars have their own strengths and weaknesses, and each approach can be useful

in different context.
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