grammarians
Rules of speech experts
Grammarians are people who study or write about grammar—the rules governing how words combine into sentences.
The term often carries a whiff of pedantry: The grammarians will tell you never to split an infinitive.
Historically, grammarians codified language rules; today the word may describe anyone who fusses over correctness.
State of being accurate
- rulesPrinciples governing behavior
- usageAct of employing something
- FowlerHunter of wildfowl
- proprietyCorrectness of conduct
standards · conventions · errors · mistakes · purists · pedants · sticklers · traditionalists
Study of structural forms
- parsingGrammatical structure extraction
- constituentsParts of a whole
- dependencyState of needing support
- transformationalCausing radical change
generative · minimalism · subcategorization · valency · agreement · tense · inflection · case
Word origin study
- philologyStudy of historical texts
- diachronicConcerning change over time
- ablautVowel gradation in morphology
- Indo-EuropeanVast language family
reconstruction · manuscripts · scribes · ancient · classical · Sanskrit · Latin · Greek
- competenceAdequate ability to function
- performanceCarrying out a task
- structuralismAnalysis through underlying systems
- functionalismTheory emphasizing purposes and roles
Attentive watching or remark
- documentationWritten proof or instructions
- corpusAssembled written works
- variationChange from a norm
- dialectsRegional language variations
registers · naturalness · attestation · frequency · patterns · tendencies · evolution · vernacular
correctness
State of being accurate
propriety · standards · conventions · errors · mistakes · purists · pedants · sticklers · traditionalists · authorities
morphology
Study of structural forms
- parsingGrammatical structure extraction
- constituentsParts of a whole
- dependencyState of needing support
transformational · generative · minimalism · subcategorization · valency · agreement · tense · inflection · case · conjugation
etymology
Word origin study
- philologyStudy of historical texts
- diachronicConcerning change over time
- ablautVowel gradation in morphology
Indo-European · reconstruction · manuscripts · scribes · ancient · classical · Sanskrit · Latin · Greek · medieval
Chomsky
- competenceAdequate ability to function
- performanceCarrying out a task
- structuralismAnalysis through underlying systems
functionalism · innateness · recursion · parameters · principles
observation
Attentive watching or remark
- documentationWritten proof or instructions
- corpusAssembled written works
- variationChange from a norm
dialects · registers · naturalness · attestation · frequency · patterns · tendencies · evolution · vernacular · colloquial
- word loverslogophile, logophiles, word nerd, word nerds, wordsmith
- language innovatorsNoah Webster, William Shakespeare, Tolkien, Lewis Carroll, lexicographers
- SanskritPanini, Sanskrit, om, Vedas, root words
- philologistsphilologists, linguists, etymologists, classicists, Latin scholars
- teachersteacher, tutor, tutors, instructor, instructors
- academicsprofessor, course, university professors, math, professors
grammariansdescriptivists
Those studying language as-is
sociolinguists · lexicographers · phoneticians · phonologists · etymologists