The term "grammar" can also be used to describe the rules that govern the linguistic behaviour of a group of speakers. The term "English grammar," therefore, may have several meanings. It may refer to the whole of English grammar—that is, to the grammars of all the speakers of the language, which means including a great deal of variation.^[3] Alternatively, it may refer only to what is common to the grammars of all, or of the vast majority of, English speakers (such as subject-verb-object word order in simple declarative sentences). Or it may refer to the rules of a particular, relatively well defined variety of English (such as Standard English).

"An English grammar" is a specific description, study or analysis of such rules. A reference book describing the grammar of a language is called a "reference grammar" or simply "a grammar". A fully explicit grammar exhaustively describing the grammatical constructions of a language is called a descriptive grammar. Linguistic description contrasts with linguistic prescription, which tries to enforce rules of how a language is to be used.

Grammatical frameworks are approaches to constructing grammars. The standard framework of generative grammar is the transformational grammar model developed in various ways by Noam Chomsky and his associates from the 1950s onwards.