According to Wiktionary, the adjective grammatical means:
(linguistics) Acceptable as a correct sentence or clause as determined
by the rules and conventions of the grammar, or morpho-syntax of the
language.
In the linked related question, Can “grammatical” mean “grammatically correct”?, Berrie England wrote:
To say that a sentence is grammatical is to say that it conforms to
the rules of English grammar as found in the way in which native
speakers normally use the language and... Describing any construction as incorrect is unhelpful and inadequate. That is why, in most cases, it it makes more sense simply to say whether or not a construction is grammatical.
I have seen some occasions where there are two different explanations about a grammatical issue. For example, the linked question “The earthquake, along with its subsequent aftershocks, HAS/HAVE …” asks whether it is grammatical to use have or has after "The earthquake, along with its subsequent aftershocks..."
There are two distinctly different answers posted by two users, one says we have to use has as the earthquake is the subject and along with... is a prepositional phrase, and the other says has is right, but we could consider using have as along with... has a potential to be considered as a conjunction.
Which is grammatically correct? Both of them are grammatical as long as you could quote the right reference in a grammar book.
Should we use are or is after dummy there when there are plural words following the verb? Should we use are or is after a collective noun such as family, team, etc. Can we use an indefinite article before a mass noun? Should all the English adjectives be placed before a noun? How about something special?
There are countless number of grammatical questions that could be answered in more than two ways. And some say A is grammatically correct, but B is broadly used colloquially.
What does colloquially exactly mean, then? Does it mean it is not grammatical?
I would have called you if you would have let me know it was that
urgent.
Is the above sentence grammatical? Related question, “If I would have lost you” vs “If I had lost you”.
The answer is no. But it is used colloquially by some people especially in the U.S.
If A writes a grammar book that says we can use would have + PP after the conjunction if, the above sentence would be grammatical in accordance with the grammar book written by A, but it would be ungrammatical according to B, C, D, etc.
But we can't always say which book or grammar you are referring to when you say some sentences or clauses are grammatical, then, the word is as ambiguous as it gets and should be avoided unless you are sure about which grammar book you are referring to.
I think grammatical is often times synonymous with "it makes sense to my native ears" and it could be used when you talk about uncontroversial rules that are so obvious that you don't have to quote any grammar book. But saying it is grammatical should be avoided when you are not sure about what grammar rules you are referring to.
It's grammatical. As per my answer at SAH's question, it's grammaticality is flushed out when one adds what has been (or can be taken to have been) elided, so:
I am who/m God made me to be.
For which I vote for who based on "it sounds better" (the be-all-and-end-all of descriptive linguistics).
Thus
I am who God made me (to be)
is grammatical...
as is the reordered
I am who God made me.
Best Answer
[1] a. It is the third-leading cause of death for young people ages 15 to 24.
b. While parents are off shopping, children ages 3 to 8 can play in the
glass-enclosed child-care center.
c. Nearly one-third of the people ages 15 to 34, and more than half of
those ages 35 to 44 had hypertension.
1. Acceptability. It is true that some native speakers do not find constructions such as those in [1] acceptable (this is evident from the discussions on this website). (EDIT: as documented in Araucaria's answer on this page, this seems to be an AmE vs BrE split, with the construction being very standard in American English, but far less universally acceptable in British English.) Nevertheless, on the whole, balance of evidence shows that this type of construction is nowadays part of Standard English at least in the context of news and in scientific/medical literature. (And at least in American English.) Below, I will present several representative pieces of evidence for this, one of which is an explicit endorsement of this construction from a style manual (Urban Institue Editorial Style Guide).
2. Syntactical analysis. It is uncontroversial that if the sentences in [1] are acceptable, then the boldfaced parts are noun phrases (NPs). It is also uncontroversial that (if the sentences in [1] are acceptable, then) the constructions ages 15 to 24 etc. are themselves NPs, functioning as some sort of dependent in the larger, matrix NP.
I have been unable to find a treatment of this particular construction in the literature. But, for what it's worth, it seems to me that there are at least two ways to analyze the function of these 'internal' NPs within their matrix NPs:
(a) NP as a post-head modifier in a matrix NP. True, NPs are rare in this function, but not unheard of. Examples include expressions such as (CGEL, p. 446)
[2] a man my age shoes this size
the results last year houses this side of the lake
As CGEL says about these examples, 'modifiers with NP form are limited to those denoting age, size, and similar properties' (emphasis mine).
(b) NP as a complement of the preposition of, where we have an ellipsis of the preposition. On this account, people ages 15 to 24 is really people of ages 15 to 24, where the preposition of has been ellipted. In the non-ellipted version, ages 15 to 24 is a complement of of, and the whole preposition phrase (PP) of ages 15 to 24 is a post-head modifier of people, which is the head of the matrix NP. In its discussion of post-head modifiers, CGEL says that (p. 445, emphasis mine)
Of course, one could similarly say that the examples in [2] are all cases of preposition ellipsis (a man of my age, shoes of this size, the results from last year, houses on this side of the lake). Note, however, that CGEL does not do this. They don't explain why. All I can tell you is what I think, and it is this: to a linguist, an ellipsis is always a last resort, something one postulates to explain how a construction that doesn't seem to fit into the larger system of syntax could nevertheless fit into that system. But there is no reason why English should absolutely disallow NPs as post-head modifiers in a matrix NP; certainly there are other languages that allow them (and without any invocation of an ellipsis). Thus, we might as well say that such constructions are allowed, if rare. Other than this principle ('ellipsis is a last resort'), I do not know how to decide whether (a) or (b) should be preferred.
Evidence of acceptability
Garner's Modern American Usage uses the following example in its discussion of enclose/inclose on p. 297 (emphasis mine):
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary gives the following sentence as an example of usage in its entry for age (here). The sentence is taken from an article in a major daily newspaper:
The Urban Institue Editorial Style Guide (here) gives the following recommendations for 'age':
This construction is not restricted to plurals:
In Clinical Handbook of Psychotropic Drugs for Children and Adolescents: 3rd ed we find
And in Straight A's in Pediatric Nursing, we have numerous instances of constructions such as
All of the above is just the tip of the iceberg. This type of construction is simply super-well attested in edited scholarly and journalistic publications, written by well-educated native speakers.
Let me close with just one final example: the journal article 'The Processing and Interpretation of Verb Phrase Ellipsis Constructions by Children at Normal and Slowed Speech Rates' by Sarah M. Callahan, Matthew Walenski, and Tracy Love (J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res. 55, 710-725, 2012; full text available here):