Comprehensibility vs. Grammaticality

Junior “TRUE” Williams
Robert Fink
LING3220 - Psycholinguistics
4 September 2006

Comprehensibility vs. Grammaticality

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate and explain the difference between comprehensibility and grammaticality, which can be thought of as involving primarily the difference between words and syntax. Words convey meaning; they are the basic building blocks of language. Syntax, an element of grammar, describes the way in which words are combined to form constituents, such as phrases or clauses. Language acquisition involves more than simply memorizing the words of said language, “we use a code to translate between orders of words and combinations of thought. That code, or set of rules, is called the generative grammar.” The study of psycholinguistics differentiates between comprehensibility and grammaticality while explaining how language is both produced and understood. Although there is a positive correlation between grammaticality and comprehensibility insofar as meaning is construed from an utterance—a comprehensible utterance does not necessitate its being grammatical; a grammatical utterance does not necessitate its being comprehensible.

Differentiating between comprehensibility and grammaticality is the same as differentiating between the lexical meaning and the grammatical meaning of the words that comprise an utterance. Ungrammatical sentences can be understood when the lexical meaning—which refers to the meaning of the base (as the word run) in a paradigm (as runs, ran, running)—of words that constitute such utterances is known. Grammatical meaning is the part of meaning that varies from one inflectional form to another (as from run to ran to running).

Comprehensibility refers to the quality of comprehensible, viz., understandable, language or thought. This concept is important because it helps to explain how an utterance can be understandable but not grammatical. Most English speakers will understand the following sentence even though it is ungrammatical: ‘store now go me’. The previous sentence would likely be understood to mean: ‘I am going to the store now’.

Grammaticality refers to grammar, a system of rules that defines the structure of a language. Traditionally, grammars have been prescriptive, i.e., they prescribe rules for proper usage. The problem with prescriptive grammar is that it does not sufficiently explain how utterances can simultaneously be both grammatical and incomprehensible. Consider the following as an example of a sentence that is both grammatical and incomprehensible: ‘The fire suffered from hypothermia.’ Fire, by virtue of its being an inanimate object, cannot suffer from hypothermia; in fact, ‘fire’ cannot suffer at all.

The positive correlation between comprehensibility and grammaticality can be demonstrated with the following example: “I have will be ran to the store.” The grammatical meanings of the verb ‘to be’ and the intransitive verb ‘run’ in the previous sentence are ambiguous; however, grasping the lexical meanings of those verbs, in addition to that of the subject ‘I’ and the indirect object ‘store’, still allows for some degree of comprehensibility—viz., we know the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, and ‘how’. If the grammatical meanings, i.e. the conjugation and the tense of the verbs ‘to be’ and ‘run’, in the sentence were clear, we would know the ‘when’, in addition to the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, and ‘how’—thus we see the positive correlation between comprehensibility and grammaticality.

Differentiating between lexical meaning and grammatical meaning illustrates the difference between comprehensibility and grammaticality. Comprehensibility refers to the degree to which an utterance can be understood, while grammaticality refers to the degree to which the rules governing a language’s use are applied in producing its utterances. I have demonstrated the positive correlation between comprehensibility and grammaticality; further, I have demonstrated two exceptions to this correlation: a comprehensible utterance does not necessitate its being grammatical, and a grammatical utterance does not necessitate its being comprehensible.

WORKS CONSULTED

Altmann, Gerry T. M. the Ascent of Babel: An exploration of language, mind, and understanding. Toronto: Oxford UP, 1997.

Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct. “How Language Works.” William Morrow, 1994.
p.83-125.