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Articles on Grammar

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Pieter Bruegel the Elder / Wikimedia

Do languages become less complex with more new adult speakers? Research shows it’s not that simple

The idea a language should grow simpler if people need to learn it as adults has an intuitive appeal. But an analysis of more than 1,200 languages shows this doesn’t quite stack up.
Is living in a language-rich world enough to teach a child grammatical language? kate_sept2004/E+ via Getty Images

AI is changing scientists’ understanding of language learning – and raising questions about an innate grammar

Linguists have long considered grammar to be the glue of language, and key to how children learn it. But new prose-writing AIs suggest language experience may be more important than grammar.
Humans are constantly changing our languages in terms of sounds, words, meanings, and grammar, so much so that it becomes increasingly difficult to understand our own distant relatives across time and space. (Unsplash/Lucrezia Carnelos)

Curious Kids: How are languages formed?

A young reader asks: How are languages formed?
Children begin to learn grammar well before they start school, when they craft their first short sentences. RonTech2000/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Why does grammar matter?

Grammar isn’t a way to bully people for making mistakes, says a longtime English instructor. It is a way to understand how our language operates, in all its many written and spoken varieties.
Quotation slips for the first Oxford English Dictionary. Owen McKnight/Flickr

Book review: The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

A new book, which weaves fiction into the origin story of the Oxford English Dictionary, was declared a hit even before its release. Readers will judge whether it lives up to the hype.

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