<img class="r-stretch" src="humorimg/grammartime.jpg" alt="grammartime.jpg The image features a person dressed entirely in white, including a long-sleeved shirt, pants, and shoes. The individual is wearing sunglasses with a reflective surface that appears to be silver or light-colored. Around their neck hangs a necklace with a circular pendant. They are also wearing bracelets on both wrists. The person's posture suggests they are crouching slightly, with one hand resting near the knee of the leg that is bent and the other hand placed lower down the same leg. The background is plain white, which contrasts sharply with their attire. Overlaid text in bold red letters at the top reads STOP! followed by a smaller line below it reading Grammar Time! in blue text. The font used for both phrases appears to be sans-serif and is quite large compared to the person's size within the frame of the image, emphasizing the message. This description was generated automatically from image files by a local LLM, and thus, may not be fully accurate. Please feel free to ask questions if you have further questions about the nature of the image or its meaning within the presentation."> ## Stop! Grammar Time! ### Dr. Will Styler - Linguistics --- ### I'm a Professional Language Nerd - Associate Teaching Professor of Linguistics at UC San Diego - My focus is in the production and perception of speech, by humans and machines - ... but ... --- ### Today, I want to talk to you about a concept that linguists love --- ## Grammar - The unconscious rules that language users follow when they form and understand language --- ### Today's Plan - Grammar feels easy - Grammar is weird - 'Good Grammar' is complicated - Grammar is beautiful --- ## Grammar feels easy! --- ### The grammaticality meter - Thumbs up means... - I would say this - I understand this completely - This seems like something that English speakers would say - Somebody who says this is a skilled speaker of my language - This feels like the language I'm used to --- ### Let's check our intuitions about English - Thank you for inviting me to talk to you - Flames up the gobble watch purpleing - I apologize in advance for my jokes - Talk my grammar the about examples in weird are - Esta oración no es inglés --- ### Really 'Bad Grammar' is easy to spot - 'Grammatical' sentences are in harmony with the local rules - "Yes, people who speak my language tend to talk this way" - People stumble with and struggle to understand ungrammatical sentences - **When something's truly ungrammatical, it breaks communication!** --- ### So, grammar's pretty straightforward, right? - Right?!? --- ## Grammar is Weird --- ### Let's check the meter! - There looks to be a problem outside - There sounds to be somebody in there - There smells to be something rotten in there - There feels to be something in the bag - There tastes to be an issue with the cookies --- <!-- ### Continuing with the meter - Which friends has she painted a picture of them? - Open the eaten was cake - I saw the tuna, old, purple, tahitian, round, evil fish - I saw the evil old round purple tahitian tuna fish --> ### Grammaticality is gradient! - The same construction can feel better and worse with different verbs - "Which friends has she painted a picture of them?" feels wrong, but is understandable - **Grammatical isn't just 'good' or 'bad', there are states in the middle!** --- <!-- ### Let's test the meter again - Lightning Round! ## More three dogs bit than eight humans. ## More cats are on my bed than I can cuddle them. ## More sales are expected this year relative to last year. ## More tourists have been to England than to Kazakhstan. ## More people have been to Russia than I have. ## More nerds are in Linguistics than in most fields. ### Wait a second... - "More people have been to Russia than I have." - **What does this actually mean?!?** - You just accepted complete nonsense as grammatical - **Our intuitions about what's grammatical are fallible and can be fooled!** ### How about these? - *Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.* * "New York bison whom other New York bison bully, themselves bully New York bison". - *Will, will Will will Will Will's will?* - Will (being addressed), will (future) Will (a person) will (bequeath) Will (another person) Will's will (a document). ### You just realized that seeming gibberish can make sense - That's odd... --> ### There's Grammar in Speech, too! - "Did John go to the park last week?" - "Let's eat, Grandma!" - The Grocery List - "The Exit's over there" --- ### There's a grammar to speech and gesture too - The prosody, or pitch and timing you use, is important and varies a lot - Using the wrong prosody breaks people! --- ### Other hidden grammar - Prefixes go before the word - Un-do , under-cooked , e-sports , cran-apple - Suffixes go after the word - cat-s, photograph-er, small-est, dark-en - Some languages have *infixes*, which go in the middle of the word they modify - Does English have any? --- ## Abso-flipping-lutely --- ### "Flipping" is the only infix in the English language * ... and it has very strict rules where it can go --- ### Add a -flipping- infix to the word "constitutional" - Cons-flipping-titutional - Consti-flipping-tutional - Constitu-flipping-tional - Constitution-flipping-al --- ### *Expletives must occur immediately prior to the stressed syllable* * "Cali-flipping-fornia" * Not 'Ca-flipping-lifornia' * "He's a deon-flipping-tologist" * "Antidisestablishmen-flipping-tarianism" --- ### Despite it being 'bad language', you have serious flipping grammar! - We agree about the proper way to swear - Adding a flipping infix is tightly controlled by our language - **'Slang' has very real grammar too in languages!** --- ### Grammaticality Meter Time! - My cat needs groomed. - They not like us. - My tia ha comprado some snacks and a cake para tu cumple. - You might should study more linguistics. --- ### We don't always agree on what's grammatical - Different dialects have different rules that they follow - No people are 'without grammar', they just have different grammar - Different groups of people use language differently - When you have multiple languages, you can blend their grammars easily! - **Different people have different grammars, and disagree on how grammatical something is!** --- ### So, grammar is weird - 'Grammatical isn't just 'good' or 'bad', there are states in the middle! - We have grammar for spoken language and gesture too - It's flipping important, even in taboo language - Different people have different grammars, and disagree on how grammatical something is --- ### Yet, people have *strong* feelings about 'good grammar' - Let's talk about that --- ## 'Good Grammar' is complicated --- ### One more set of judgments - I never know what I should end talks with - I don't know who you invited for next time - I hope to considerably advance your grammatical knowledge - You're speaker thinks your all kind people - I ain't likely to sing today, irregardless of what you all do - **These sentences violate some 'grammar rules'** --- ### Are those really rules in the same sense as before? - To answer this, I'll ask two simple questions --- ### What's the speed limit on the 5? - How fast do people *actually drive* on the 5? --- ### What side of the road do we drive on in San Diego? - What side do we *actually* drive on in San Diego? --- ### There are rules that people *always* follow, because otherwise things go badly - ... and rules that are imposed, but often not followed - People follow them mostly when police are watching --- ### Nobody *ever* says "Flames up the gobble watch purpleing" - Yet people mix up 'there' and 'their' and 'they're' all the time - People literally misuse literally - Ain't ain't so uncommon - People say irregardless, regardless of your feelings --- ### So, we should think of *two kinds of grammar* - Descriptive Grammar - Prescriptive Grammar --- ### Linguists *describe* how people actually talk - These are facts about how languages and dialects function, and what breaks them - We focus on what makes people's grammar differ - Location, social groups, aspects of our identity, hobbies, language background (and so on...) - If two people don't follow the same rules, that's interesting variation! --- ### Grammarians *prescribe* how people *should* talk - Their rules aren't universally followed - Breaking them doesn't strongly affect your ability to be understood - They're often based in written ambiguity (e.g. there, they're, their) - They're often associated with a specific setting or institution --- ### These grammars do different things - Descriptive grammar tells how people talk - Prescriptive grammar tells people how they should talk --- ### Telling people how they should talk is pretty tricky business - Whose speech, exactly, is 'correct'? - Who updates these rules when language changes? - When is it appropriate to switch to a different set of rules? - When is it a good idea to correct people? - This isn't easy because... --- ### Attacking people's language is often used as a covert way of attacking people - "Irregardless?! You can't even write a YouTube comment, let alone have a valid opinion!" - "Swearing is a sign of an unevolved mind!" - "Somebody needs to teach these inner-city kids to be more articulate" - "You're so shrill, you should be more lady-like in your speech" - "Oh, their language is so angry/rough/primitive/harsh sounding!" --- ### Many people mean well when making prescriptive corrections! - There's value to learning how to talk like the Old People with Power want you to talk - It's nice to help people new to a language learn how it "should" work - You're allowed to be quietly annoyed by silly, random things - ... but remember that some people face a constant barrage of attack for their language - Some people's very linguistic identity is treated as 'wrong' or 'scary' or 'profane' --- ### Even if you're policing grammar because you mean well, you can easily sound like people who don't! --- ### It's a shame grammar is used to attack so often, because.... --- ## Grammar is beautiful! --- ### There's a reason Linguists spend our entire lives studying grammar - Complex systems we don't understand yet can use fluidly - Gradience and shades of acceptability which reveal incredible details - Patterns upon patterns upon patterns upon patterns... - Variation which means every person is their own beautiful grammatical snowflake --- ### So, please focus on the beauty of grammar - Be open to words and usages you've never seen before - Mind the fact that you may be using a different grammar than others - Embrace the variation that makes us all different and unique - Support people's right to use language as they see fit! - If you're struggling to understand, be curious, not judgmental - In short... --- ### Remember that no way of using language productively is wrong, just different! - ... and find the beauty in our differences wherever you can! --- <huge>Thank you!</huge> Contact me: <will@savethevowels.org> <https://savethevowels.org/talks/sunday_grammar.html>