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Linguistics
Theoretical linguistics
Phonetics
Phonology
Morphology
Syntax
Semantics
Lexical semantics
Statistical semantics
Structural semantics
Prototype semantics
Pragmatics
Applied linguistics
Language acquisition
Psycholinguistics
Sociolinguistics
Linguistic anthropology
Generative linguistics
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Unsolved problems
In linguistics, "traditional grammar" is a cover name for the collection of concepts and ideas about the structure of language that Western societies have received from ancient Greek and Roman sources. The term is used to distinguish these ideas from those of contemporary linguistics, which are intended to apply to a much broader range of languages, and to correct a number of errors in "traditional grammar".

Although modern linguistics has exposed the limitations of "traditional grammar", it is still the backbone of the grammar instruction given to the general population in Western countries. As such, while very few people have encountered linguistics, nearly everybody in a modern Western culture encounters "traditional grammar". This is one of the big difficulties that linguists face when they try to explain their ideas to the general public.

The role of "traditional grammar"

"Traditional grammar" attempts, usually within a single language, to analyse and elucidate the constituents of any given well-formed sentence. The focus of attention is on surface structure, not meaning. The main benefit of "traditional grammar" is that it gives learners a basic understanding of the building blocks of language, which can help in improving their writing skills.

"Traditional grammar" and prescriptive grammar

While there is a large overlap between "traditional grammar" and prescriptive grammar, they are not entirely the same thing. "Traditional grammar" is best thought of as the set of descriptive concepts used by nearly all prescriptive works on grammar. Linguists' critiques of prescriptive grammar often take the form of pointing out that the usage prohibition in question is stated in terms of a concept from "traditional grammar" that modern linguistics has rejected.

Language-specific grammatical traditions

"Traditional grammar" is not a unified theory that attempts to explain the structure of all languages with a unique set of concepts (as is the aim of linguistics). It is fragmented into different traditions for different languages, each of them with its own traditional vocabulary and analysis. Each of them represents an adaptation of Latin grammar to a particular European language.

For example, what English "traditional grammar" calls a direct object, in Spanish "traditional grammar" is called complemento directo; English "traditional grammar" doesn't call the notion "direct complement," nor does Spanish call it "objeto directo."

Linguistics and "traditional grammar"

Modern linguistics owes a very large debt to "traditional grammar", but it departs from it quite a lot, in the following ways (among others):
  • Linguistics aims to be general, and to provide an appropriate way of analysing all languages, and comparing them to each other. "Traditional grammar" is usually concerned with one language, and when it has been applied to non-European languages, it has very often proved very inappropriate.
  • Linguistics has broader influences than "traditional grammar" has. For example, modern linguistics owes as much of a debt to Panini's grammar of Sanskrit as it does to Latin and Greek grammar.
  • Linguistics is in many ways more descriptively rigorous, because it goes after accurate description as its own end. In "traditional grammar", description is often only a means towards formulating usage advice.

Key concepts of "traditional grammar"

"Traditional grammar" distinguishes between the grammar of the elements that constitute a sentence (i.e. inter-elemental) and the grammar within sentence elements (i.e. intra-elemental).

Concepts of inter-elemental grammar

subject

predicate

object

predicative (aka complement)

adverbial and adjunct

sentence

clause

phrase

Concepts of intra-elemental grammar

phrase

noun

adjective

determiner

verb

adverb

preposition

conjunction

pronoun

See also

For the journal, see .
Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. Someone who engages in this study is called a linguist.
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Theoretical linguistics is the branch of linguistics that is most concerned with developing models of linguistic knowledge. Part of this endeavor involves the search for and explanation of linguistic universals, that is, properties all languages have in common.
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Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning 'sound, voice') is the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds (phones), and their production, audition and perception, while phonology, which
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For the journal, see .
Phonology (Greek φωνή (phōnē), voice, sound + λόγος (lógos), word, speech, subject of discussion), is a subfield of linguistics which studies the sound system of a
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For other uses, see Morphology.
Morphology is the field within linguistics that studies the internal structure of words. (Words as units in the lexicon are the subject matter of lexicology.
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In computer science, SYNTAX is a system used to generate lexical and syntactic analyzers (parsers) (both deterministic and non-deterministic) for all kind of context-free grammars
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Lexical semantics is a subfield of linguistics. It is the study of how and what the words of a language denote (Pustejovsky, 1995). Words may either be taken to denote things in the world, or concepts, depending on the particular approach to lexical semantics.
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Statistical Semantics is the study of "how the statistical patterns of human word usage can be used to figure out what people mean, at least to a level sufficient for information access" (Furnas, 2006).
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Structural semantics deals with relationships between the meanings of terms within a sentence, and how meaning can be composed from smaller elements.

See also

  • Principle of compositionality
  • Ferdinand de Saussure

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Prototype Theory is a mode of graded categorization in Cognitive Science, where some members of a category are more central than others. For example, when asked to give an example of the concept furniture, chair is more frequently cited than, say, stool.
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Pragmatics is the study of the ability of natural language speakers to communicate more than that which is explicitly stated. The ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning is called pragmatic competence.
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Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of study that identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real life problems. Some of the academic fields related to applied linguistics are education, linguistics, psychology, anthropology, and sociology.
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For the academic journal, see .


Language acquisition is the process by which the language capability develops in a human. First language acquisition concerns the development of language in children, while second language acquisition focuses on
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Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, and understand language.
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Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context on the way language is used. Sociolinguistics overlaps to a considerable degree with pragmatics.
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Linguistic anthropology is that branch of anthropology that brings linguistic methods to bear on anthropological problems, linking the analysis of semiotic and particularly linguistic forms and processes (on both small and large scales) to the interpretation of sociocultural
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Generative linguistics is a school of thought within linguistics that makes use of the concept of a generative grammar. The term "generative grammar" is used in different ways by different people, and the term "generative linguistics" therefore has a range of different,
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In linguistics and cognitive science, cognitive linguistics (CL) refers to the school of linguistics that understands language creation, learning, and usage as best explained by reference to human cognition in general.
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Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the statistical and/or rule-based modeling of natural language from a computational perspective. This modeling is not limited to any particular field of linguistics.
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Descriptive linguistics is the work of analyzing and describing how language is spoken (or how it was spoken in the past) by a group of people in a speech community. All scholarly research in linguistics is descriptive; like all other sciences, its aim is to observe the linguistic
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Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics) is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:
  • to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages;

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Comparative linguistics (originally comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages in order to establish their historical relatedness. Languages may be related by convergence through borrowing or by genetic descent.
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Etymology is the study of the history of words - when they entered a language, from what source, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.

In languages with a long written history, etymology makes use of philology, the study of how words change from culture to
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Stylistics is the study of varieties of language whose properties position that language in . For example, the language of advertising, politics, religion, individual authors, etc., or the language of a period in time, all belong in a particular situation.
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In linguistics, prescription can refer both to the codification and the enforcement of rules governing how a language is to be used. These rules can cover such topics as standards for spelling and grammar or syntax; or rules for what is deemed socially or politically correct.
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Linguistics as a study endeavors to describe and explain the human faculty of language and has been of scholarly interest throughout recorded history. Contemporary linguistics is the result of a continuous European intellectual tradition originating in ancient Greece that was later
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A linguist in the academic sense is a person who studies linguistics. Ambiguously, the word is sometimes also used to refer to a polyglot (one who knows more than 2 languages), or a grammarian, but these two uses of the word are distinct.
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This article discusses currently unsolved problems in linguistics.

Some of the issues below are commonly recognized as problems per se, i.e., it is general agreement that the solution is unknown. Others may be described as controversies, i.e.
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For the journal, see .
Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. Someone who engages in this study is called a linguist.
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