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The author drew a distinction between making a grammatical mistakes, and a vernacular dialect. He didn't claim that there were some vernacular dialects that em

by pg 17y ago

The author drew a distinction between making a grammatical mistakes, and a vernacular dialect. He didn't claim that there were some vernacular dialects that embodied mistakes and others that didn't. I can't imagine any linguist who would. What I'm saying is that all vernaculars have consistently observed (surely you don't literally mean well-specified) grammatical rules. Their speakers couldn't understand one another otherwise. So if your definition of mistake = inconsistency, then (by definition) you'll never find a vernacular that embodies mistakes.

grandalf 17y ago
A linguist would argue that it's a mistake only if an adult speaker learned the language after the critical period and didn't manage to grasp all of the rules. If a child (or someone who grew up in the language environment) made the "mistake" then it's an example of language change in action... unless the child is so young that it's simply a language learning artifact such as "I goed to the store today, daddy" (which, incidentally, is logically consistent with other past-tense forms yet ungrammatical b/c of social norms)...
_pius 17y ago
Thanks for the clarification. The author drew a distinction between making a grammatical mistakes, and a vernacular dialect. He didn't claim that there were some vernacular dialects that embodied mistakes and others that didn't. I can't imagine any linguist who would. Fair enough. When you said "vernacular variants" (as opposed to dialects) it sounded as if you were including all vernacular variants including simple grammatical mistakes, sporadic use of slang, etc. What I'm saying is that all vernaculars have consistently observed (surely you don't literally mean well-specified) grammatical rules. I agree that all vernacular dialects have consistent rules. And you're right, I did mean consistently observed, not well-specified.

by pg 17y ago

grandalf 17y ago

A linguist would argue that it's a mistake only if an adult speaker learned the language after the critical period and didn't manage to grasp all of the rules. If a child (or someone who grew up in the language environment) made the "mistake" then it's an example of language change in action... unless the child is so young that it's simply a language learning artifact such as "I goed to the store today, daddy" (which, incidentally, is logically consistent with other past-tense forms yet ungrammatical b/c of social norms)...

_pius 17y ago

Thanks for the clarification. The author drew a distinction between making a grammatical mistakes, and a vernacular dialect. He didn't claim that there were some vernacular dialects that embodied mistakes and others that didn't. I can't imagine any linguist who would. Fair enough. When you said "vernacular variants" (as opposed to dialects) it sounded as if you were including all vernacular variants including simple grammatical mistakes, sporadic use of slang, etc. What I'm saying is that all vernaculars have consistently observed (surely you don't literally mean well-specified) grammatical rules. I agree that all vernacular dialects have consistent rules. And you're right, I did mean consistently observed, not well-specified.