Punctuation is important, but my knowledge of punctuation is not the same sort of thing as my knowledge of how to produce and comprehend utterances - that is, my knowledge that tells me that "I explained the problem to him" is an English sentence, and "*explained problem the him I to" is not.

If "grammar" simply means "that which causes you to choke on a text", then you have to conclude that languages with no writing system have no grammar. Don't you?

Originally Posted By: BranShea

Apparently in British English they count orthography in, as seen in Pummel's comments.


Pullum is American. It's not about regional dialects, it's that different linguists use different definitions.

Last edited by gooofy; 06/28/2012 1:07 PM.