Peter,
   I will resist giving you the ten page answer to this (in first post).
It is a question I have wrestled with quite a bit.
   I don't think a grammar can be descriptive in the usual sense, simply
because forms aren't empty of content and language is not outside of
context. My own book is "meaning-centered" and has been called "a
traditional grammar from a functional perspective." The focus is on
what happens when words come together to form meanings.
   I know most people understand grammar to be about what is acceptable
and what is not, and so the question you ask is a thoughtful one. How
can we describe use without being biased toward one group over another,
and how can we describe use so that people who want to find access have
the information they need to meet the hoop jumping criteria of academia
or of public life?
   As you may have noticed, my whole emphasis has always been on knowledge
about language, not on controlling anyone's behavior, and the
anti-grammar movement generally tends to accept that behavior has to
conform, but that we can do that with as little knowledge as possible.
What they don't accept is that grammar is at the heart of everything we
do with language, that words don't simply add up their individual
meanings, but combine with each other in meaningful ways, not just in
the formation of utterances, but in the construction of complex texts.
   In short,your question reduces the issue to usage. We can (and should)
have a description of language that pays attention to how it means.
   A few things happen in tandem. The student now knows enough about
language to follow any usage conversation thoughtfully. And the
students can see the highly functional aspects of informal language
use.
   If you want to use "descriptive grammar" in the same way you might say
"descriptive physics", I'd be happy to come on board. The principles
are highly nuanced, highly complex, and it involves seeing through to
the heart of language, which is also the heart of our shared humanity.

Craig

I've been poking around in several grammars of English for the past few
> weeks--Martha's and Craig's, as well as the Cambridge Grammar, Greenbaum
> and Quirk,
> and Klammer--and I am confused about one point.
>
> Each of them identifies itself as a descriptive, not prescriptive,
> grammar.
> A description of the rules of syntax and morphology of the English
> language.
>
> But I wonder exactly which versions of the English language "count" for
> these
> grammars?   I notice that the corpus used by the Cambridge includes
> American,
> British, Australian, and (oddly) the Wall Street Journal.   Does this mean
> they did not include the Englishes of South Africa, Nigeria, or Jamaica?
> Or,
> were they a part of the British corpus?   And was the language of native
> speakers the only one that was included?
>
> The Cambridge grammar admits that it favors written language over spoken.
> Is that the situation in most descriptive grammars?   The Cambridge says
> that
> the reason for this bias is that the spoken language has many more
> "errors" in
> it.   Perhaps they mean such things as false starts, self-corrections,
> repetitions, hesitation noises--all of which they mention--but they also
> include
> "dysfluencies."   And they continue to point out that speech "contains a
> higher
> number of errors than writing."   Of course, what concerns me is this
> reference
> to errors in what purports to be a "descriptive grammar."
>
> And then there's the distinction between formal and informal language.
> Both
> would seem to be English.   Are these descriptive grammars describing
> both?
> Does the English of emails count as English?
>
> And what about regionalisms?   Here is Baltimore people regular "go down
> the
> ocean" or have a beer "over Jamie's house."   Their computers go "up" when
> I
> would say they break "down."   And so forth.
>
> What I'm getting at here is trying to understand just how different a
> "descriptive grammar" is from a "prescriptive" one.
>
> I understand the philosophical difference, but when I look at the details,
> the difference seems more one of degree than kind.   If certain versions
> of
> English are not included in the study of "how the English language works,"
> (for
> perfectly understandable reasons: because they are used by only a
> minority, or
> because they contain too many errors, or because they're too informal),
> then
> the description of the remaining versions of the language is somewhat
> prescriptive.
>
> Granted most grammars that are classified as presecriptive are much more
> narrow--they include, I would say, only the English used by educated
> Americans
> when they are using the language carefully--and that's a much more
> restricted
> version of the language than that used as the basis of "descriptive"
> grammars,
> but, and this is my point (or is it my question?), it seems to me that
> descriptive grammars are also somewhat prescriptive.
>
> Just a little concrete example of what I mean.   In Martha's wonderful
> text,
> she explains that the comparative forms of adjectives are used in the
> comparison of two nouns and the superlative, for three or more.   And
> she's right, if
> she describing the English of educated Americans when they are using the
> language carefully.   But many Americans regularly speak and even write
> sentences
> like this:
>
> Of my two sisters, Emily is the tallest.
>
> Am I over interpreting, or isn't this a fairly prescriptive version of a
> grammar rule?
>
>
>
>
> Peter Adams
>
>
>
> **************************************
>  See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
>
> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface
> at:
>      http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
> and select "Join or leave the list"
>
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/