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21 GRAMMAR
Prescriptive and descriptive grammar
When we consider grammar as providing a set of skills which we need to be
able to write Latin (or any other foreign language), it is clear that there is a set
of correct answers to any given problem. There is only one answer to what the
form of the first person plural of the present tense indicative of the verb amo
‘I love’ is, and any other form is wrong. This leads people to expect that any
language is a fixed system, where there is on any occasion a correct answer as
to what form should be used. For all but the best learners, that was virtually
true in Latin, a language which existed for many centuries mainly in a written
form and without native speakers, but the expectation gets carried forward to
modern languages like English. By the same logic, people expect there to be a
single right answer to questions of usage in English. However, consideration of
examples like those below will show that things are not so simple.
(2) a. I have no money.
b. I haven’t any money.
c. I don’t have any money.
d. I haven’t got any money.
e. I’ve not got any money.
f. I’ve got no money.
g. I ain’t got no money.
(3) a. I want you to start to write immediately.
b. I want you to start writing immediately.
(4) a. This is the woman about whom I spoke to you.
b. This is the woman whom I spoke to you about.
c. This is the woman who I spoke to you about.
d. This is the woman that I spoke to you about.
e. This is the woman as I spoke to you about.
f. This is the woman I spoke to you about.
A number of different factors contribute to the variations shown in these
examples. There are matters of style, matters of change (albeit extremely slow
change) and matters of dialect. The end result is that there may not be any
single correct answer on questions of usage. Nevertheless, it is clear that some
of these versions give very clear social messages. (4e), for example, not only
provides evidence of geographical origin, but is unlikely to be said by a highly
educated person talking on a formal occasion. This leads some people to
believe that it is ‘wrong’, and that there must be a correct version to replace
it.
Accordingly there is an industry playing on people’s inferiority complexes
by telling them what the ‘right’ answer is. Linguists call this prescriptive