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Books > Language & Literature > Language & linguistics > Grammar, syntax, linguistic structure
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Language Between Description and Prescription - Verbs and Verb Categories in Nineteenth-Century Grammars of English (Hardcover)
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Language Between Description and Prescription - Verbs and Verb Categories in Nineteenth-Century Grammars of English (Hardcover)
Series: Oxford Studies in the History of English
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Language Between Description and Prescription is an empirical,
quantitative and qualitative study of nineteenth-century English
grammar writing, and of nineteenth-century language change. Based
on 258 grammar books from Britain and North America, the book
investigates whether grammar writers of the time noticed the
language changing around them, and how they reacted. In particular,
Lieselotte Anderwald demonstrates that not all features undergoing
change were noticed in the first place, those that were noticed
were not necessarily criticized, and some recessive features were
not upheld as correct. The features investigated come from the verb
phrase and include in particular variable past tense forms, which
-although noticed-often went uncommented, and where variation was
acknowledged; the decline of the be-perfect, where the older form
(the be-perfect) was criticized emphatically, and corrected; the
rise of the progressive, which was embraced enthusiastically, and
which was even upheld as a symbol of national superiority, at least
in Britain; the rise of the progressive passive, which was one of
the most violently hated constructions of the time, and the rise of
the get-passive, which was only rarely commented on, and even more
rarely in negative terms. Throughout the book, nineteenth-century
grammarians are given a voice, and the discussions in grammar books
of the time are portrayed. The book's quantitative approach makes
it possible to examine majority and minority positions in the
discourse community of nineteenth-century grammar writers, and the
changes in accepted opinion over time. The terms of the debate are
also investigated, and linked to the wider cultural climate of the
time. Although grammar writing in the nineteenth century was very
openly prescriptivist, the studies in this book show that many
prescriptive dicta contained interesting grains of descriptive
detail, and that eventually prescriptivism had only a small-scale,
short-term effect on the actual language used.
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