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Descriptive Grammar
Contrast It With Prescriptive Grammar

by Richard Nordquist
Updated July 10, 2018

The term descriptive grammar refers to an objective, nonjudgmental description of the

grammatical constructions in a language. It's an examination of how a language is
actually being used, in writing and in speech. Specialists in
descriptive grammar (linguists) examine the principles and patterns that underlie the use
of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Kirk Hazen notes, "Descriptive grammars do not give advice: They detail the ways in
which native speakers use their language.

A descriptive grammar is a survey of a language. For any living language, a descriptive

grammar from one century will differ from a descriptive grammar of the next century
because the language will have changed." ("An Introduction to Language." John Wiley,
2015)

"Descriptive grammar," Edwin L. Battistella notes in "Bad Language," "is the basis
for dictionaries, which record changes in vocabulary and usage, and for the field
of linguistics, which aims at describing languages and investigating the nature of
language."

The term descriptive is a little bit misleading, as descriptive grammar does provide
analysis and explanation of the language's grammar and not just description of it.

Contrast Descriptive and Prescriptive Grammar

Contrast the type with prescriptive grammar, which notes how something should or
should not be used, what is right and wrong. Prescriptive grammarians (such as most
editors and teachers) attempt to enforce rules concerning “correct” or “incorrect”

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usage.

According to Donald G. Ellis, "All languages adhere to syntactical rules of one sort or
another, but the rigidity of these rules is greater in some languages. It is very important
to distinguish between the syntactical rules that govern a language and the rules that a
culture imposes on its language.

This is the distinction between descriptive grammar and prescriptive grammar.

Descriptive grammars are essentially scientific theories that attempt to explain how
language works....People spoke long before there were linguists around to uncover the
rules of speaking....Prescriptive grammars, on the other hand, are the stuff of high
school English teachers. They 'prescribe,' like medicine for what ails you, how you
'ought' to speak." ("From Language to Communication." Lawrence Erlbaum, 1999)

Examples of the Difference

To illustrate the difference between the types, for a descriptive grammarian, the
sentence "I ain't going," is grammatical, because it's spoken by someone using the
language to construct a sentence that has meaning for someone else who speaks the
same language. However, to a prescriptive grammarian, it most certainly isn't a
grammatical sentence, because, as the adage says, "ain't ain't a word..." (though it is in
the dictionary). And just having the word ain't in the dictionary exactly illustrates the
difference between the two types—descriptive grammar notes its use in the language,
pronunciation, meaning, and maybe even etymology, without judgment. It's prescriptive
grammar that says that the term ain't shouldn't be used, especially in formal speaking or
writing.

For a descriptive grammarian to say that something is ungrammatical, the sentence

would need to be something that a native speaker just wouldn't put together. For
example, someone speaking English wouldn't put two question words at the beginning of
a single sentence. The result would be unintelligible as well as ungrammatical. In that
case, the descriptive and prescriptive grammarians would agree.

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