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In linguistics grammer is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses phrases and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such penis and this field includes morphology syntax and phonology often complemented by phonetics semantics and pragmatics. Linguists do not normally use the term to refer to orthographical rules although usage books and style guides that call themselves grammars may also refer to spelling and punctuation. Contents 1 Use of the term 2 Etymology 3 History 4 Development of grammars 5 Grammar frameworks 6 Education 7 See also 8 Notes and references 9 External links Use of the term

The term "grammer" is often used by non-linguists with a very broad meaning indeed; as Jeremy Butterfield puts it: "grammer is often a generic way of referring to any aspect of English that people object to".1 However linguists use it in a much more specific sense. Every speaker of a language has in his or her head a set of rules2 for using that language. This is a grammar andat least in the case of one's native languagethe vast majority of the information in it is acquired not by conscious study or instruction but by observing other speakers; much of this work is done during infancy. Language learning later in life of course may involve a greater degree of explicit instruction.3

The term "grammar" can also be used to describe the rules that govern the linguistic behaviour of a group of speakers. The term "English grammar" therefore may have several meanings. It may refer to the whole of English grammarthat is to the grammars of all the speakers of the languagein which case the term encompasses a great deal of variation.4 Alternatively it may refer only to what is common to the grammars of all or of the vast majority of English speakers (such as subject-verb-object word order in simple declarative sentences). Or it may refer to the rules of a particular relatively well-defined variety of English (such as Standard English).

"An English grammar" is a specific description study or analysis of such rules. A reference book describing the grammar of a language is called a "reference grammar" or simply "a grammar". A fully explicit grammar that exhaustively describes the grammatical constructions of a language is called a descriptive grammar. Linguistic description contrasts with linguistic prescription which tries to enforce rules of how a language is to be used.

Grammatical frameworks are approaches to constructing grammars. The most known among the approaches is the traditional grammar which is traditionally taught in schools.

The standard framework of generative grammar is the transformational grammar model developed in various ways by Noam Chomsky and his associates from the 1950s onwards. Etymology Further information: grapheme

The word grammar derives from Greek (grammatik techn) which means "art of letters" from (gramma) "letter" itself from (graphein) "to draw to write".5 History Further information: History of linguistics

The first systematic grammars originated in Iron Age India with Yaska (6th c. BC) Pini (4th c. BC) and his commentators Pingala (ca. 200 BC) Katyayana and Patanjali (2nd c. BC). In the West grammar emerged as a discipline in Hellenism from the 3rd c. BC forward with authors like Rhyanus and Aristarchus of Samothrace the oldest extant work being the Art of Grammar ( ) attributed to Dionysius Thrax (ca. 100 BC). Latin grammar developed by following Greek models from the 1st century BC due to the work of authors such as Orbilius Pupillus Remmius Palaemon Marcus Valerius Probus Verrius Flaccus and Aemilius Asper.

Tamil grammatical tradition also began around the 1st century BC with the Tolkppiyam. A grammar of Irish originated in the 7th century with the Auraicept na n-ces. Arabic grammar emerged from the 8th century with the work of Ibn Abi Ishaq and his students. The first treatises on Hebrew grammar appeared in the High Middle Ages in the context of Mishnah (exegesis of the Hebrew Bible). The Karaite tradition originated in Abbasid Baghdad. The Diqduq (10th century) is one of the earliest grammatical commentaries on the Hebrew Bible.6 Ibn Barun in the 12th century compares the Hebrew language with Arabic in the Islamic grammatical tradition.7 Belonging to the trivium of the seven liberal arts grammar was taught as a core discipline throughout the Middle Ages following the influence of authors from Late Antiquity such as Priscian. Treatment of vernaculars began gradually during the High Middle Ages with isolated works such as the First Grammatical Treatise but became influential only in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. In 1486 Antonio de Nebrija published Las introduciones Latinas contrapuesto el romance al Latin and the first Spanish grammar Gramtica de la lengua castellana in 1492. During the 16th century Italian Renaissance the Questione della lingua was the discussion on the status and ideal form of the Italian language initiated by Dante's de vulgari eloquentia (Pietro Bembo Prose della volgar lingua Venice 1525). The first grammar of Slovene language was written in 1584 by Adam Bohori. Grammars of non-European languages began to be compiled for the purposes of evangelization and Bible translation from the 16th century onward such as Grammatica o Arte de la Lengua General de los Indios de los Reynos del Per (1560) and a Quechua grammar by Fray Domingo de Santo Toms. In 1643 there appeared Ivan Uzhevych's Grammatica sclavonica and in 1762 the Short Introduction to English Grammar of Robert Lowth was also published. The Grammatisch-Kritisches Wrterbuch der hochdeutschen Mundart a High German grammar in five volumes by Johann Christoph Adelung appeared as early as 1774. From the latter part of the 18th century grammar came to be understood as a subfield of the emerging discipline of modern linguistics. The Serbian grammar by Vuk Stefanovi Karadi arrived in 1814 while the Deutsche Grammatik of the Brothers Grimm was first published in 1818. The Comparative Grammar of Franz Bopp the starting point of modern comparative linguistics came out in 1833. Development of grammars Main article: Historical linguistics Grammars evolve through usage and also due to separations of the human population. With the advent of written representations formal rules about language usage tend to appear also. Formal grammars are codifications of usage that are developed by repeated documentation over time and by observation as well. As the rules become established and developed the prescriptive concept of grammatical correctness can arise. This often creates a discrepancy between contemporary usage and that which has been accepted over time as being correct. Linguists tend to view prescriptive grammars as having little justification beyond their authors' aesthetic tastes although style guides may give useful advice about Standard English based on descriptions of usage in contemporary writing. Linguistic prescriptions also form part of the explanation for variation in speech particularly variation in the speech of an individual speaker (an explanation for example for why some people say "I didn't do nothing"; some say "I didn't do anything"; and some say one or the other depending on social context). The formal study of grammar is an important part of education for children from a young age through advanced learning though the rules taught in schools are not a "grammar" in the sense most linguists use the term particularly as they are often prescriptive rather than descriptive. Constructed languages (also called planned languages or conlangs) are more common in the modern day. Many have been designed to aid human communication (for example naturalistic Interlingua schematic Esperanto and the highly logic-compatible artificial language Lojban). Each of these languages has its own grammar. Syntax refers to linguistic structure above the word level (e.g. how sentences are formed)though without taking into account intonation which is the domain of phonology. Morphology by contrast refers to structure at and below the word level (e.g. how compound words are formed) but above the level of individual sounds which like intonation are in the domain of phonology.8 No clear line can be drawn however between syntax and morphology. Analytic languages use syntax to convey information that is encoded via inflection in synthetic languages. In other words word order is not significant and morphology is highly significant in a purely synthetic language whereas morphology is not significant and syntax is highly significant in an analytic language. Chinese and Afrikaans for example are highly analytic and meaning is therefore very context-dependent. (Both do have some inflections and have had more in the past; thus they are becoming even less synthetic and more "purely" analytic over time.) Latin which is highly synthetic uses affixes and inflections to convey the same information that Chinese does with syntax. Because Latin words are quite (though not completely) self-contained an intelligible Latin sentence can be made from elements that are placed in a largely arbitrary order. Latin has a complex affixation and simple syntax while Chinese has the opposite. Grammar frameworks Main article: Grammar framework Various "grammar frameworks" have been developed in theoretical linguistics since the mid 20th century in particular under the influence of the idea of a "universal grammar" in the United States. Of these the main divisions are: Transformational grammar (TG) Systemic functional grammar (SFG) Principles and Parameters Theory (P&P) Lexical-functional Grammar (LFG) Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar (GPSG) Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) Dependency grammars (DG) Role and reference grammar (RRG) Education Further information: orthography and literacy Worldwide literacy rates by country. Prescriptive grammar is taught in primary school (elementary school). The term "grammar school" historically refers to a school teaching Latin grammar to future Roman citizens orators and later Catholic priests. In its earliest form "grammar school" referred to a school that taught students to read scan interpret and declaim Greek and Latin poets (including Homer Virgil Euripides Ennius and others). These should not be confused with the related albeit distinct modern British grammar schools. A standard language is a particular dialect of a language that is promoted above other dialects in writing education and broadly speaking in the public sphere; it contrasts with vernacular dialects which may be the objects of study in descriptive grammar but which are rarely taught prescriptively. The standardized "first language" taught in primary education may be subject to political controversy since it establishes a standard defining nationality or ethnicity. Recently efforts have begun to update grammar instruction in primary and secondary education. The primary focus has been to prevent the use of outdated prescriptive rules in favor of more accurate descriptive ones and to change perceptions about relative "correctness" of standard forms in comparison to non standard dialects. The pre-eminence of Parisian French has reigned largely unchallenged throughout the history of modern French literature. Standard Italian is not based on the speech of the capital Rome but on the speech of Florence because of the influence Florentines had on early Italian literature. Similarly standard Spanish is not based on the speech of Madrid but on the one of educated speakers from more northerly areas like Castile and Len. In Argentina and Uruguay the Spanish standard is based on the local dialects of Buenos Aires and Montevideo (Rioplatense Spanish). Portuguese has for now two official written standards respectively Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese but in a short term it will have a unified orthography.9 Norwegian has two standards Bokml and Nynorsk the choice between which is subject to controversy: Each Norwegian municipality can declare one of the two its official language or it can remain "language neutral". Nynorsk is endorsed by a minority of 27 percent of the municipalities. The main language used in primary schools normally follows the official language of its municipality and is decided by referendum within the local school district. Standard German emerged out of the standardized chancellery use of High German in the 16th and 17th centuries. Until about 1800 it was almost entirely a written language but now it is so widely spoken that most of the former German dialects are nearly extinct. Standard Chinese has official status as the standard spoken form of the Chinese language in the People's Republic of China (PRC) the Republic of China (ROC) and the Republic of Singapore. Pronunciation of Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin Chinese while grammar and syntax are based on modern vernacular written Chinese. Modern Standard Arabic is directly based on Classical Arabic the language of the Qur'an. The Hindustani language has two standards Hindi and Urdu. In the United States the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar designated March 4 as National Grammar Day in 2008.10 See also Category:Grammars of specific languages Ambiguous grammar Government and binding Harmonic Grammar Higher-order grammar Linguistic typology List of linguists Syntax Universal grammar Usage Notes and references Jeremy Butterfield (2008) Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare Oxford University Press Oxford. 978-0-19-923906. p. 142. Traditionally the mental information used to produce and process linguistic utterances is referred to as "rules." However other frameworks employ different terminology with theoretical implications. Optimality theory for example talks in terms of "constraints" while Construction grammer Cognitive grammar and other "usage-based" theories make reference to patterns constructions and "schemata" O'Grady William; Dobrovolsky Michael; Katamba Francis (1996). Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction. Harlow Essex: Longman. pp. 47; 464539. http://books.google.co.uk/booksiddjhsAAAAIAAJ&qContemporary+Linguistics&dqContemporary+Linguistics.  Holmes Janet (2001). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (second ed.). Harlow Essex: Longman. pp. 7394. http://books.google.co.uk/booksidqjdqxecifHcC&printsecfrontcover&dqIntroduction+to+Sociolinguistics+Holmes. ; for more discussion of sets of grammars as populations see: Croft William (2000). Explaining Language Change: An Evolutionary Approach. Harlow Essex: Longman. pp. 1320. http://books.google.co.uk/booksid5Ka7zLl9HQC&printsecfrontcover&dqExplaining+Language+Change+Croft.  Harper Douglas "Grammar" Online Etymological Dictionary http://www.etymonline.com/index.phptermgrammar retrieved 8 April 2010  G. Khan J. B. Noah The Early Karaite Tradition of Hebrew Grammatical Thought (2000) Pinchas Wechter Ibn Barn's Arabic Works on Hebrew Grammar and Lexicography (1964) Gussenhoven Carlos; Jacobs Haike (2005). Understanding Phonology (second ed.). London: Hodder Arnoldd. http://books.google.co.uk/booksidgHpQgAACAAJ&dqUnderstanding+Phonology&eiwaq9S6GoPIKUMo7H4N4C&cd1.  1 National Grammar Day American Academic Press The (ed.). William Strunk Jr. et al. The Classics of Style: The Fundamentals of Language Style From Our American Craftsmen. Cleveland: The American Academic Press 2006. ISBN 0978728203. Rundle Bede. Grammar in Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press 1979. ISBN 0198246129. External links Look up grammar in Wiktionary the free dictionary.  Archibald Henry Sayce (1911). "Grammar". In Chisholm Hugh. Encyclopdia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press.