Archive for Joel Deacon
The peculiarities of prescriptive versus descriptive grammar
–Article by Joel Deacon To get the basics of what grammar is and the distinction between prescriptive and descriptive grammar, please read Lee Ballard’s blog post “What is Grammar?” Prescriptive and Descriptive Grammar in the Classroom: Perhaps the term prescriptive grammar is more relevant when one is teaching a language…
Syntax: A Generative Introduction
by Andrew Carnie –Review by Joel Deacon Carnie’s Introduction to Syntax is a decent place to begin an exploration of syntactic theory. Carnie is often cited in many syntactic papers and proves himself to be a fairly easy read. If one is serious about syntactic theory or if you are…
“The Cosmopolitan Tongue: The Universality of English”
Response to what people are saying about the John McWhorter article. –Article by Joel Deacon Perhaps I just feel like being a devils advocate, but I would guess McWhorter’s opinion is not completely wrong. Moreover, in any argument one must acknowledge their biases, and the biases of a linguist might…