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From: grass@uiuccsb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: For what is grammar good? - (nf)
Message-ID: <6397@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 25-Mar-84 22:55:50 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.6397
Posted: Sun Mar 25 22:55:50 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 27-Mar-84 00:38:37 EST
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#R:proper:-108100:uiuccsb:10500024:000:1284
uiuccsb!grass    Mar 25 12:51:00 1984

Somewhere in my former life as a linguist, the origin of this "rule"
of English grammar was discussed (the one saying no prepositions at the
end of a sentence).  It seems that many centuries ago, when scholars
first started to pay attention to vernacular languages, the only
existing books on grammar concerned the classical languages:
Latin and Greek.  The scholars who began writing grammars of
"vulgar" languages modeled them on existing proscriptive
grammars for those languages with the intention of demonstrating
that their native languages were as good as the classical
languages (they had at least some nationalistic motivations.. which
I could elaborate on, but we'll leave the language politics of the 
14-16th century alone...).  Part of proving a language was as good
as Latin in those days was to demonstrate a relation to Latin, 
usually in terms of similar grammar.  The rule saying sentences may
not end in prepositions is a rule of all the Romance languages, but
ALL germanic languages use final prepositions (and verb particles that
LOOK like prepositions as in the verb "to turn off").  The insistence
on this rule today goes back to the non-English English rules
proscribed by these very first grammars.  Once an authority, always
an authority....
			-Judy Grass.