Modern Grammar - Assignment 2 James Madison University

Instructions: [This assignment will be marked only as an acceptable or unacceptable effort.]

1. For each of the following rules, state whether it is a rule of prescriptive grammar (a normative rule) or a rule of descriptive grammar (a constitutive rule) for English:
   1. Don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
   2. The preferred third person singular reflexive pronoun form should be "himself" rather than "hisself".
   3. Adjectives precede the noun they modify.
   4. Regular count nouns are made plural by the addition of the suffix /s/.

2. For the same four rules above, state which are rules concerning syntax and which are rules concerning morphology.

3. Give an example of an English "sentence" (one you create or one overheard "in the wild") that is truly ungrammatical, not just prescriptively nonstandard/dispreferred.
4. Give an example of each of the following (not one from a textbook or other grammar reference source):
   1. A pair of homonyms in English.

   2. Two words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently (i.e., homographs).

   3. A word spelled with one or more silent letters.

5. Make up four new "words" that all both sound like English and could be spelled in more than one way. Write down your own spelling choice for just two of these four "words". (Don't worry about coming up with a meaning for these new "words." :) ) Then recruit at least two or three friends as anonymous volunteers and do the following:
   Show your two written "words" to your volunteers and ask them how they'd pronounce them. Were they sure? Was it what you expected?
   and
   SAY the OTHER two words aloud and ask your friends how they would spell them. Write down the results, labelling your friends just person1, person2, etc.