a. "Each language has its own schemes. Everything depends on the formal demarcations which it recognizes." Answer= It's descriptive because it's classifying the phrase and sentence type.
b. "The language faculty is a component of the mind/brain, part of the human biological endowment. Presented with data, the child... forms a language, a computational system of some kind that provides structured representations of linguistic expressions that determine their sound and meaning." Answer= It's generative because it's describing how language is represented in a child's mind.
c. "In colloquial speech, like is sometimes used as a conjunction..., but cultured speakers prefer as, as if, or as though." Answer = It's prescriptive because it involves the study of elegant or proper language use.
d. "Linguists have increasingly realized that the context of an utterance plays an important part in determining its meaning, as do beliefs that are shared by a speaker and hearer." Answer= It's contextual because the sentence is about the study of language processing.
e. "The material in the exercises in correcting substandard English comes from..."(Preface to grammar book). Answer= It's prescriptive because grammar books prescribe language.
f. "Someone who says "he don't" for "he doesn't" has a systematic way of relating sound and meaning." Answer= It's descriptive because it's classifying a phrase and sentence type.
g. "in keeping with all these excellent qualities would you please see that the grammar used in describing your clothing is of equal quality. I am sure you are quite aware that a garment doesn't "wash easy." Is this use of adjectives in the place of adverbs an affectation or is it a stylistic quirk?" (Letter to the editor of a mail-order catalog) Answer= It's contextual because it is describing a way someone produces or interprets language.
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c) is contextual, because it refers to the situation in which the speaker is (informal versus formal speech).
ReplyDeletef) is generative because it maintains that the speaker who says "he don't" is making meaning for himself/herself out of what he/she says. It's grammatically wrong, but this person uses the wrong grammar "systematically," according to the quote. He relates sound and meaning.
g) is clearly prescriptive. The person who wrote the letter to the editor was mad about the "wrong" grammar used, and told the editor "the only right way."