User Contributed Dictionary
Pronunciation
- a UK /ˈgɹə.mæt.ɪˌkæl.ɪ.ti/, /"gr@.m
Extensive Definition
In theoretical
linguistics, grammaticality is the quality of a linguistic
utterance of being
grammatically well-formed.
Lyons 1968 defines the concept
as "that part of the acceptability of utterances which can be
accounted for in terms of the rules," the complement criterion for
acceptability
being semantic
soundness.
Generative
linguists think that for native
speakers of natural
languages, grammaticality is a matter of linguistic intuition, a competence
learned by language
acquisition in childhood and therefore strive to predict
grammaticality exhaustively. On the other hand, there is a gradual
abandonment of grammaticality in favour of acceptability by
linguists that stress the social acquisition of language in
contrast to innate factors (and who will seldom rely on phrase
structure grammar) in the tradition of Hopper 1987. Prescriptive
grammars of
controlled natural languages define grammaticality as a matter
of explicit consensus.
References
Hopper, Paul (1987): Emergent
grammar. In: Aske, Jon et al. (ed.) (1987): General session and
parasession on grammar and cognition. Proceedings of the thirteenth
annual meeting. Berkeley: BLS: 139-155.
Lyons, John (1968):
Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics. London: Cambridge
University Press.