Modern Linguistics vs Traditional Grammar

1. Introduction

Language changes from generation to generation, at all levels of sound and

meaning. Thus, grammar as a method of analysing these changes altered
accordingly. Now we have two branches: the traditional Grammar and modern
linguistics. It should be noted that before the 19th century, linguistics as a scientific
discipline was called philologybecause it was based on philosophical assumptions
concerning the grammar of language. By the beginning of the 19th century,
researchers started thinking about the use of a scientific approach for the study of
language. Thus, the term linguistics was used to refer to any form of investigation
about the different elements of language, including grammar.

What is Grammar?
The origin of the term Grammar is traced to the Greek label grammatikē: The first
part gram indicates something written; the second part tikē comes from technē with
the meaning of art. So, grammar (grammatikē) is the art of writing.

The Conception of Traditional Language Studies (Traditional Grammar)

Traditional Grammatical Studies refer back to all the scholarly works that
studied the nature of language before the emergence of modern linguistics (1916).
As the most ancient grammar, Traditional grammar has its origins in the 15th
century B.C., with Plato and Aristotle in Greece and a Sanskrit scholar named Panini
in India. Various Romans and early-Christian-era writers also contributed to the
Traditional grammar, but the most influential of the Traditional grammarians began
writing in the 18th century, about the time when English was beginning to be taken
seriously as a separate language and not as merely another vernacular (Rajabi et al,
2014, pp. 378-382). The history of such studies is divided into several periods:
classical grammar (Latin and Greek), medieval grammar (the Middle
Ages), pedagogical grammar (early English
grammar), and comparative historical philology. Each of these periods is
characterized by widely held assumptions about language and its analysis.

❖ Classical Grammar

Classical Grammar started with the investigations in the nature of language

carried out by the Greek grammarians in the fifth century B.C. Platon (429- 347)
distinguished between nouns and verbs and established the problematic of
etymology. Aristotle (322- 384) classified conjunctions and defined verbs in term of
tense. However, the main grammarians were Alexandrian and included Dionysius
Thrax (170- 190) B.C. Thrax was the first to elaborate a full handbook of grammar
defining it as “the technical knowledge of the language generally employed by poets
and writers.” He classified the Greek words into eight parts of speech (nouns, verbs,
articles, adverbs, conjunctions, propositions, participles and pronouns). The other
Alexandrian grammarians established case, gender, number, tense, voice and
mood. Likewise, the Latin grammarians, notably, Aelius Donatius (4 th century A.D)
and Priscian (5th century A.D) elaborated grammar books for beginners and learners.

Basically, all these grammarians considered language as writing. Speech, for

them, was an imperfect copy of writing. The reason behind this view is the
prevalence of Greek and Latin sacred texts. Such languages were considered as
logical and richer than the other so-called primitive languages. That is why they were
the only written languages worthy of study at that time. As a result, grammar was
completely prescriptive. That is to say, grammarians prescribed the rules and norms
of correct usage. Prescriptive rules dictated precisely how the writers and speakers
ought to write and speak. Any kind of deviation was dismissed as a corruption of the
pure, prestigious texts.

❖ Medieval Grammar
The Middle Ages perpetuated the dominance of Latin as the languages of all
theological and scholarly works. The most important contribution was made by the
17th century grammarians of Port-Royal in France. They developed what is called
Grammaire Genéral et Raisonée (1660), establishing the foundation for a
philosophical grammar. The main thinkers
were Claude Lancelet (1615- 95) and Antoine Arnauld (1612- 94). These thinkers
tried to study the common principles between languages.

Medieval grammar also includes the contributions of the Arab and Muslim
grammarians. Their main works consisted of lexicography, i.e., reference books and
translations. In effect, the first types of dictionaries were produced in Arabic. The aim
was to teach the classical language and preserve it from deviations.

❖ Pedagogical Grammar
The eighteenth-century British grammarians were essentially pedagogical in
nature. They attempted to teach a great number of people how to read and write in
the newly standardized language, English, that would be intelligible throughout the
new industrialized nation, Britain. In this respect, they established rules and norms
based on the Latin model. The most famous grammar book of the 18th century was
Joseph Priestley’s Rudiments of English Grammar (1761). Subsequently, other
influential grammars appeared, namely, Robert Lowth’s Short Introduction to English
Grammar (1762) and Murray’s English Grammar (1794).

❖ Comparative Philology
Study of the relationships or correspondences between two or more
languages and the techniques used to discover whether the languages have a
common ancestor. The fundamental technique of comparative linguistics is the
comparative method, which aims to compare phonological systems,
morphological systems, syntax and the lexicon using this comparative method,
linguists have been able to establish the connections among a group of languages.
Comparative grammar was the most important branch of linguistics in the 19th
century in Europe. Also called comparative philology, the study was originally
stimulated by the discovery by Sir William Jones in 1786 that Sanskrit was
related to Latin, Greek, and German (i.e., in which he found many similarities
between Latin, Greek, and German and suggested the existence of a common
original language).Accordingly, he believed that:

“The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity

is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the
Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more
exquisitely refined than either, yet
 bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in
the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than
could possibly have been produced by accident; so
strong indeed, that no philologer could examine
them all three, without believing them to have
sprung from some common source.”

Indeed, the investigation into the similarities, also called cognate forms,
between Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and other European languages gave birth to the Indo-
European family of languages and the establishment of a general theory of language
change and relationships known as comparative philology.

The term family of languages or linguistic group was coined to show the genetic and
philological relationships existing between groups of related languages. Thus, the
Indo-European family of languages may be called sister languages. English, German
and Dutch are said to be descendant or daughter languages of Germanic. Similarly,
French, Spanish and Italian are daughter languages of Latin. Classical Greek and
Modern Greek are daughter languages of Greek.

Characteristics of Traditional Grammar

● Language is prescriptive, not descriptive

Most modern linguistics is descriptive, because it attempts to describe what people

actually say, not what people should say. It describes language in all its aspects, but
does not prescribe rules of ‘correctness’. This is in contrast with the study of
language in previous centuries. It was mostly prescriptive. Traditional grammar told
people how to use a language. Modern linguists, however, do not believe that there
is an absolute standard of correctness concerning language use. They believe that
whatever occurs in natural speech (hesitation, incomplete utterance,
misunderstanding, etc.) should be described in their analysis.

● Writing is seen as the primary medium of human expression

In the past, grammarians have overstressed the significance of the written word,
and tended to assume the spoken language is inferior to and, in some sense,
dependent upon the standard written language. Speech for traditional grammarians
was regarded as an imperfect copy of
writing. Though it is widely agreed among linguists that speech is a primary medium
of expression for several reasons as it existed long before the written system came
into being. This
belief stems from the previous sacred writing in Latin and Greek.In opposition to this
view, contemporary linguists maintain that the spoken language is primary and that
writing is essentially a means of representing speech in another medium.

● Language study is selective

Grammar considers Latin and Greek as more advanced and richer than the so-
called primitive languages. As a result, they are the only written languages worth
studying. Traditional
grammarians also treat Latin as the most logical language.For instance, concerning
the way a language is constructed, one may say 'English is a more logical language
than French' or it is more logical to say 'spoonfuls' than the other thing 'spoonsful',
without basing their descriptions of language structure on scientific facts and
evidences. In fact, human language is not a logical construct, though some people
think so. It is not even regular. It can change its form sometimes over the years and
it is full of irregularities. One cannot apply reasoning to language. We say, for
instance, 'big' – 'bigger', 'small' – 'smaller', but if we adopt a logical criterion, then we
should say 'good - gooder' is a correct form. Traditional grammarians say this is a
matter of logic without saying irregularities or exceptions or giving any language
description.

Shortcomings of Traditional Grammar

Its prescriptive nature. The tendency to prescribe rules for languages was a major
weakness of this model of grammar. Modern scholars of language studies observe
the behaviour of languages
and describe them. Hence, traditional grammar rules are illogical it is inconsistent
and inadequate as a description of actual language in use. It neglects not only the
contemporary uses but also the functional and social varieties of language.

Traditional grammar is also criticized for not adopting scientific methods in

studying language. Their studies were not empirical, such that the claims they that
were made about language forms,
structure and behaviour were based on intuitions.
Traditional grammar did not view individual languages as unique linguistic
systems, but was more concerned with legislating on how people should speak and
write that language. (Ndimele, p.78).

Another weakness of traditional grammar relates to its definition of parts of

speech. For example, the definition of verbs as action words is inconsistent with
similar terms in English. If verbs are action words, what actions do words like
“seem”, “appear”, “is”, “been”, etc, express? Moreover, it would be difficult to
classify the English words “dare”, “need”, “fire” as nouns or verbs since they are
capable of being used as either nouns or verbs.

It does not adequately distinguish between all the linguistic levels:

phonetic, morphological, and syntactic.

It gives priority to the written form of language and ignores the priority of
spoken form. It does not even cover the whole range of written form and is
restricted to specific kinds of writing form, especially the formal styles.

It cannot resolve the ambiguity existing in the grammatical forms. Its

methods are inaccurate, incomplete and inconsistent, and the descriptions are
inexplicit and intuitive.

Main Contributions of Classical Grammar

Despite its numerous misconceptions and false assumptions about the patterns
underlying language, and the lack of a theoretical systematic analysis, classical
grammar has as its record a rich technical vocabulary and sound rules governing
correct usage of language. Here are its main highlights:

- The distinction between active and passive voice as well as transitive and
intransitive verbs. - The classification of all Greek words in terms of case, gender,
number, tense, voice and mood. - The classification of words into eight parts of
speech: noun, verb, article, pronoun, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and participle.
What is Modern linguistics?
By linguistics, we mean the empirical structural approach to language as
represented principally by American linguistics during the period of the early 1940s
and mid-1950s. Modern structural linguistics can be said to begin with the
publication of Ferdinand de Saussure's lectures under the title Course in General
Linguistics in 1916. De Saussure is often described as ‘father of modern linguistics’
and ‘a master of a discipline which he made ‘modern’ (Culler 1976, p. 7). Behind de
Saussure, stretching back over 2000 years lies the era of traditional grammar. De
Saussure was the first person to point out clearly that language was a highly
organized structure in which all the elements are interdependent. From him, we date
the era of 'structural linguistics'. The term structural linguistics (in its general sense)
refers to any linguistic study of a language, which considers it as an independent
system of sound features, grammar and vocabulary in its own right. It is sometimes
misunderstood. In fact, it does not refer to a separate school or branch of linguistics.
Linguistics since de Saussure is structural, as structural in this sense means the
recognition that language is a patterned system composed of interdependent
elements rather than a collection of unconnected individual items.

The differences between Modern Linguistics and Traditional

Grammar
The dissimilarities between traditional Grammar and Modern linguistics can be
illustrated by drawing a contrast between the two. Traditional grammar started
around the 5th century, whereas Modern Linguistics started in the 19th century. Still
traditionally, the grammatical rules of European languages were believed to apply to
any other language on the basis of analogy as the principle of language regularity. It
was yet realised later on that this assumption did not account for real facts on
languages: Traditional grammarians were unable to consider the inherent
differences between
languages. In structural linguistics, however, every language has its particular
underlying system that is worth considering. Linguists look at language structure as
an object of study in itself as every language is ruled and patterned on different
levels, and therefore analogy for them is a minor factor.
While traditional grammar is prescriptive in the sense that it is interested in dictating
grammatical rules, Modern Linguistics is descriptive in the sense that it contemplates
language configuration without calling upon correctness.Further, primacy is given to
writing in traditional grammar over speech; the spoken form of language is regarded
as an imperfect version of the written form, which is purer and more correct. On the
contrary, the structural trend sees that the written form of language is secondary
and derives from speech. It also perceives that written letters are only symbols
shaping the spoken form sounds.
Linguistics differs from traditional grammar in that it does not force languages into a
Latin-based framework. In the past, many traditional textbooks have assumed
unquestionably that Latin provides a universal framework into which all languages
fit.