So let’s talk about rules. When it comes to language, we follow a lot of rules without
even thinking about it. But for a lot of things we think we’re supposed to do, we have to
remind ourselves to do it almost every single time. That’s why linguists think word crimes
are usually misdemeanors, not outright felonies. I’m Moti Lieberman, and this is the Ling Space.
So a large part of what we know when we know a language is a big set of rules. Or really,
two different sets of rules. One set of rules we need to be taught, and they tell us how
we should behave with our language. These rules don’t say what we can do; they
tell us what we can’t do, if we want to sound “proper”. Another set of rules we
acquire more implicitly, without any straight-up book-learning. These tell us what we actually
can do with whatever language we’re speaking, without making any judgments about whether
that’s proper or not. It just says what the language is.
These two sets of rules represent different notions of what it means to know a language.
One kind shakes a finger at you and tells you you’re wrong and bad if you don’t
behave and use your words right. This type of grammar is known as prescriptive,
because it prescribes the way you can use language: it tells you what to do. The other kind of
rules are laidback and mellow, just keeping track of what you’re actually doing with
your language. It describes the way people use language, and so this is known as descriptive
grammar: it tells you how you do it.
Let’s look at some concrete examples here from outside of linguistics to help nail down this idea.
Prescriptive rules exist all over society, like, say, Don’t drive over 100 kilometers
an hour on the highway. Or Don’t drink alcohol when you’re under age. These rules show
all the hallmarks of prescriptivism: They tell you what you shouldn’t do. And you
have to be told the rules; there’s nothing natural or necessary about the speed limit
being specifically 100 kilometers an hour, or the drinking age being exactly 18. Motors are totally
capable of moving cars at higher speeds, and it’s physically possible for a younger person
to ingest alcohol. But we’ve decided as a society to draw the line at a certain spot.
Also, these rules are explicit knowledge: whenever anyone asks what exactly the speed
limit is, or how old you have to be to start drinking, you can answer it easily. And finally, you
can choose whether or not to follow the rule. People break these prescriptive rules of society
all the time: whether you think it’s a good idea or not, some people do speed, and some
kids will drink before they’re supposed to.
So prescriptive rules are like this: they tell you what you shouldn’t do; you have
to be taught them; they’re explicit knowledge that you know consciously; and you can feel
free to break them if you want.
Now, for a descriptive rule from outside language. Let’s try this: If your retinal molecules
are exposed to light, change their configuration so they send a nerve impulse to the brain.
This rule just describes a process; there isn't any judgment about whether your eye
working this way is good or bad.
The rule applies all the time, regardless of whether you knew it or not. In fact,
you probably didn’t know this rule about how your eye works, and even if you did, it’s
not like your parents had to explain to you: “Now, my child, make your nerves work like
this so you can see.” Your eyes just did it. This rule is implicit: you apply it without
knowing the exact rule, and it’s unconscious.
And finally, you have no way to disobey it. Just try to
sit there with your eyes open and be like, “No, no, photons, don’t make my retinas
change, I won’t allow it!!!” It doesn’t work. Your eyes will react the same way every single time.
Rules for how language works are the same. Most of the rules that you think of are probably
the prescriptive ones. Like, “don’t leave a preposition at the end of a sentence,”
so something like “I know who Dave got the broken sword from” is bad, because you shouldn’t
have that from there. Or here’s another: don’t split an infinitive, so you can't put anything
between the to and the verb. That makes a sentence like “Roxy wants to completely
drink all of the booze” wrong, too.
And it’s not just sentences: prescriptive rules apply to words, too. Let’s take a
favorite example: literally. Now, this is supposed to mean that something is the actual, honest-to-goodness
case, so a sentence like “Rose literally fell in love with a troll” should only be
okay if that actually, really happened. You shouldn’t use it if it’s
not exactly what happened, like “John literally got 500 cakes for his birthday.”
These rules are clearly prescriptive, like the speed limit. They’re guidelines for
being a particular kind of well-behaved speaker of a language. They need to be taught to you,
and people break them all the time. They’re social conventions, and while they may have
value, there’s nothing fundamental about them. They’re not scientific, and so we’re
not interested in them in our study of linguistics.
What we are concerned with are the descriptive rules, so let’s look at a couple of
those. If you’re an English speaker, you should have a feeling about which of these two possible words
is better: [stik] or [sfik]. It should be [stik], right? But why is that?
Or how about this: let’s take the sentence “Dirk and Jake expect to see them
in dreams.” Now who’s them here? It’s hard to say, but one thing that we do know is that it’s
not Dirk and Jake.
But now let’s slot in a couple of words at the beginning and make this a question:
“Who do Dirk and Jake expect to see them in dreams?” Now suddenly, Dirk and Jake
are totally fine with being them. Something pretty clearly changed here, but what was it?
These examples are covered by descriptive rules. I’m not going to explain them now
– we’ll talk more about them more in future episodes, and I'll have some basic explanations back on our
website. But even so, if you’re an English speaker, you know what’s possible and what’s
not. You were never explicitly taught it, and you likely can’t explain what the
rules are. And it’s not like you can disobey them: you can’t force yourself to get an
interpretation of a sentence that’s not there for you. Any more than you can force photons not to interact with your retina.
These rules are part of the Universal Grammar in your heads.
We still call them rules, but really, they’re more like bedrock principles. You can’t
disobey a descriptive rule of how your language works, because the rule outlines the ways
that you can make sounds into words, words into sentences, and sentences into meanings.
That’s what makes descriptive rules the heart of linguistics. Descriptive grammar
shows how language does work, how it can work, and that’s where the science is. I’m not
going to argue that there’s no place in the world for prescriptive rules – having
conventions is fine, although those rules can cause problems of their own,
which we'll talk about in the future.
But here’s the thing: language is special. It’s a system we pick up easily from when we’re
little babies. We know all sorts of things about how our languages can work before anyone
ever tries to teach us any prescriptive rules. And we don’t take
naturally or easily to being told what to do with our words. But we know what the real
rules are, and we follow them without thinking. That’s what’s so fascinating about language,
and so that’s where we should put our attention and our study.
So we’ve reached the end of the Ling Space for this week. If you were following social
conventions, you learned that there are two different kinds of rules we can talk about in language,
prescriptive and descriptive; that prescriptive rules tell us what we should do
to sound proper; that descriptive rules show how language is really used;
and why the science of linguistics is interested in descriptive grammar, not prescriptive.
The Ling Space is written and produced by me, Moti Lieberman. It’s directed by Adèle-Élise
Prévost, our production assistant is Georges Coulombe, and music and sound design is by
Shane Turner. Our educational consultants are Level-Up Learning Solutions, and our graphics
team is atelierMUSE. We’re down in the comments below, or you can bring the discussion over
to our website, where we have some more material on this topic. Check us out on Twitter and
Facebook, and if you want to keep expanding your own personal Ling Space, please subscribe.
And we’ll see you next Wednesday. Hanggang sa susunod!