Martha B. answered • 08/15/19
BA in Applied Linguistics
Grammar is extremely important because it is how we make ourselves understood within a particular linguistic system.
For example, in English, sentences generally have a Subject-Verb-Object word order. e.g. Sally likes Sam. If we ignored grammar and just concentrated on the lexicon, or vocabulary, our sentence could be completely understood. e.g. Sam likes Sally. Sam Sally likes. Sally Sam likes. To take it one step further, the morpheme '-s' is also added to the word 'like,' but if we ignored grammar, we could move it anywhere in the sentence, which would also make it easy to misunderstand. e.g. Sallys like Sam. Sally like Sams. Sams like Sally. Like Sams Sally. Even with such a short sentence with very few variables, you can see how this kind of speaking is very impractical.
The grammar of a language is the rules that a speaker uses to put the morphemes (words, affixes, etc.) together so that their message will be accurately interpreted by the hearer.
