ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses ‘the glamour of grammar’ for a reason – grammar and glamour are historically one and the same word. Grammar happens to be the older form – it first entered English in the 1300s from French. Time influences language. Shifts in grammar, words and pronunciation occur even within one’s own lifetime. And if the time span is long enough, the changes can be truly spectacular, as these examples show. One goal of linguistic research is to find out more about universal grammar, regardless of whether one assumes this is an abstract language-specific component of the brain or the result of general properties of human cognition. The motivations for doing English grammar which we have mentioned so far have important repercussions in other fields. The teaching profession, all foreign language learning, is another obvious practical application of the study of English grammar. A detailed study of English grammar can reveal things about universal grammar.
