I am having some trouble with prescriptive and descriptive rules. I have to decide whether the following sentences are prescriptive or descriptive.
1.) I will talked to you tomorrow about our plans this weekend.
2.) Joe and her love to watch Spartan football every Saturday.
Help please!
They both contain grammatical errors.
So does that make them a prescriptive or descriptive sentences?
I don't think any native English speaker would use the first sentence. Are you sure you copied it correctly?
The second is probably a descriptive sentence.
To determine whether a sentence is prescriptive or descriptive, you need to understand the difference between the two.
Prescriptive rules are based on what is considered correct or proper according to a specific set of guidelines or norms, such as grammar rules or etiquette. These rules often dictate how things ought to be done or what should be considered acceptable.
Descriptive rules, on the other hand, describe how language or behavior is actually used in practice. They are based on observation and analysis of how people naturally communicate or behave, rather than on specific guidelines of correctness.
Now, let's analyze the sentences you provided:
1.) "I will talked to you tomorrow about our plans this weekend."
In this sentence, "will talked" is incorrect grammar because the past tense of "talk" should be "talked." However, if we consider this as a descriptive rule, it may be possible that the sentence could reflect a regional dialect or colloquial speech pattern. As a prescriptive rule, though, it would be considered incorrect.
2.) "Joe and her love to watch Spartan football every Saturday."
In this sentence, the pronoun "her" is incorrect usage because it should be "she." The correct sentence would be "Joe and she love to watch Spartan football every Saturday." Similarly to the previous sentence, it could be possible that this usage is a regional or colloquial variation. However, from a prescriptive standpoint, it would be considered incorrect.
To summarize, based on prescriptive rules, both sentences contain grammatical errors. However, from a descriptive perspective, there may be regional or colloquial factors to consider where these sentences might deviate from standard grammar rules.