What is Grammar and Why is It Important?

Have you ever actually stopped to consider the question

"What is grammar?"

If you take the time to think carefully about it, you may

actually find that you experience problems pinning down an

interpretation of this complex linguistic field. That is exactly

why it causes so many people so much confusion.

In addressing the question of "what is grammar", the Oxford

Dictionary defines grammar as:

The way in which words are put together to form proper

sentences.

Although that is a pretty good description of grammar, the

truth is, grammar is much, much more than that.

To understand what grammar is, it is useful to consider what

our lives would be like without it.

What is grammar? A life without grammar

When complicating the question of what is grammar, it's

useful to go back to the dawn of time when cavemen first

started to communicate with each other using language. It is

highly probable that they initially started to invent words to

describe objects and phenomena around them. Perhaps they

used words such as "woman", "man", "tree", "cave", "fire",

"hot", "beast", "hunt", etc. They may have found these words

extremely useful for communicating with one another, but it

wouldn't be long until the lack of grammar became a problem,

especially when they started to combine words to increase

the level at which they could communicate.

Let's say a man tried to warn his wife that the fire was hot:

"woman" "big" "fire" "hot"

Did he warn the big woman that the fire was hot? Or did he

warn the woman that the big fire was hot?

Depending upon the way in which she interpreted his warning,

he may just have found himself being hit around the head with

a heavy stick. You see, one of the problems with words

without grammar, is that they can't really handle complicated

situations very well. Placing a string of words together without

appropriate consideration of syntax, phonetics, morphology,

and semantics entails that the meaning of these words can be

open to interpretation and easily confused.

For example, if a caveman where to shout:

"beast!" "woman!"

Is he warning the woman that there is a beast nearby? Or is

he calling the woman a beast? Is the women about to be

attacked by a beast? Or has he just slain a beast and is

declaring his success?

The problem is that words alone cannot convey the

relationship between objects and actions. If the women was

confused as to what the caveman was telling her, how should

she reply?

"beast!" "woman!"

Is she asking him whether there is a beast nearby? Or is she

questioning whether or not he called her a beast? Is she

asking if she is about to be attacked by a beast? Or is she

confirming that he just slain a beast and is declaring his

success?

...you get the picture. We now understand why we need

grammar.