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. Broadly conceived, linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ... Theoretical linguistics studies diverse questions: how certain languages managed to communicate, what properties all languages have in common, what knowledge a person must have to be able to use a language, and language acquisition. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word phone = sound/voice) is the study of sounds (voice). ... Phonology (Greek phone = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), or phonemics, is a subfield of linguistics closely associated with phonetics. ... Morphology is a subdiscipline of linguistics that studies word structure. ... In linguistics, syntax is the study of the rules, or patterned relations, that govern the way the words in a sentence are arranged. ... In general, semantics (from the Greek semantikos, or significant meaning, derived from sema, sign) is the study of meaning, in some sense of that term. ... Lexical semantics is a field in computer science and linguistics which deals mainly with word meaning. ... Stylistics is the study of style used in literary, and verbal language and the effect the writer/speaker wishes to communicate to the reader/hearer. ... In linguistics, prescription is the laying down or prescribing of normative rules for a language. ... Pragmatics is generally the study of natural language understanding, and specifically the study of how context influences the interpretation of meanings. ... Applied linguistics is concerned with using linguistic theory to address real-world problems. ... 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. ... Generative linguistics is a school of thought within linguistics that makes use of the concept of a generative grammar. ... Cognitive linguistics is a school of linguistics and cognitive science, which aims to provide accounts of language that mesh well with current understandings of the human mind, and is generally opposed to the more syntactocentric approaches to meaning in generative linguistics. ... Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the logical modeling of natural language from a computational perspective. ... Descriptive linguistics is the work of analyzing and describing how language is actually spoken now (or how it was actually spoken in the past), by any group of people. ... Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time, by means of examining languages which are recognizably related through similarities such as vocabulary, word formation, and syntax, as well as the surviving records of ancient languages. ... In historical linguistics, etymology is the study of the origins of words. ... The following is a list of linguists, those who study linguistics. ... Broadly conceived, linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ...

Despite the fact that modern linguistics rejects it, traditional grammar 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. Broadly conceived, linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ... Broadly conceived, linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ...

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. In linguistics, prescription is the laying down or prescribing of normative rules of the language. ... In linguistics, prescription is the laying down or prescribing of normative rules for a language. ... In linguistics, prescription is the laying down or prescribing of normative rules for a language. ... Broadly conceived, linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ...

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. Broadly conceived, linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ...

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." The accusative case of a noun is, generally, the case used to mark the direct object of a verb. ...

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): Broadly conceived, linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ... Broadly conceived, linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ...

• 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.

The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ... The Sanskrit language ( संस्कृता वाक्) is one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family and is not only a classical language, but also an official language of India. ...

See also

• Linguistics
• Grammar
• Prescription and description