Muriel Harris uses Hartwell's classification of "grammars" in _Teaching One-on-One_, a book that is very well-regarded among Writing Center professionals (and also intended for others who teach writing at the college level).
Brian
Brian O'Sullivan, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of English
Director of the Writing Center
St. Marys College of Maryland
Montgomery Hall 50
18952 E. Fisher Rd.
St. Marys City, Maryland
20686
240-895-4242
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Carol Morrison
Sent: Thu 10/18/2007 1:30 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Patrick Hartwell's Article
Can someone tell me whether the (5) categories of grammar that Hartwell outlines (Grammar 1-Grammar 5) are commonly referred to when one speaks of teaching grammar? The article to which I am referring is "Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar." Until reading this article, I did not realize that grammar had been divided into those classifications. Thank you.
Carol Morrison
Bruce Despain <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Bill,
Thanks for the notice, though I was stultified (proved to be of unsound mind?).
The set of symbols used as primitives and a set of rules, laws, or principles, is not unique to linguists. In fact science itself consists of this kind of model. To attack such a model is to attack science, which has a much longer track record than any linguist or English maven.
The objects to be manipulated by language are sounds. (disputable?)
The objects to be manipulated by language are meanings. (disputable?)
The objects to be manipulated by language are signs written down in symbols. (disputable?)
The objects to be manipulated by language are combinations of the above. (disputable?)
1) What seems to be the nature of neural nets doesn't mean that no objects don't exist in the model. Indisputable is that fact that there are potentials, thresholds, charges, etc. involved. The model-theoretic framework says nothing about the reality of the objects posited. The model is no more than a metaphor for what is being modeled. 2) A fully determinate system does not come to mind when the modeling is of phenomena like the weather. There are simply too many elements in the determinate version. Even the particle theory of matter must be abandoned though it is clearly determinate. The sheer number of particles involved often becomes so great as to make the model impractical in making predictions of any but the roughest statistical kind. Certainly the determinate nature of the phenomena described ought to be paralleled by that of the model that describes it. The investigator who wants to put the former in doubt, has no need for a model with full predictive power. 3) The
number of objects and rules has been a condition since the acceptance of Occam's razor by most scientists. I would think that the simple nature of these objects and the statement of these rules in the accepted vernacular of mathematics would be another consideration.
I think that there is a likely confusion between a mathematical model and a particular model for linguistic descriptions. The model-theoretic principles of mathematics are unavoidable to any formalization. Whether a specific mathematical model actually serves to describe the phenomena it claims to can always be disputed and refuted with appropriate data. But we don't thow away the language because of what people can say with it. If the phenomena we are trying to describe are indeterminate, then it doesn't make much sense to use a model that requires determinate phenomena. But the model itself had better use a determinate framework, or it would hardly be able to explain anything (have any predictive power).
I would wonder that failures in the operation (?) of the model of language could ever be made out to be performance issues. The performance of the model would have to be faultless, in order to support itself. Maybe people expect it to make predictions of the performance variety? (Present-day minimalists are often far too broad in their expectations in this area.) You say, "The problem is not the framework itself, but rather its hegemonic status." I think that what many linguists call the model-theoretic framework is their own model for natural language. This is the area of hegemony, I believe. This then pits one camp against another based on their own modeling principles established for their own purposes, not the two elements you gave for a mathematical model in science. Certain models can in fact be shown to be faulty based on the way in which the nature of the elements and mathematical relationships posited do not match in principle the behavior of the objects being
modeled. To do so does require a bit of sophistication, which, sorry to say, I do not possess. (Cf. John Casti, Reality Rules)
Bruce
>>> "Spruiell, William C" 10/17/07 1:16 PM >>>
[Fair notice: This one?Ts almost all theory, and may be entirely stultifying, albeit in a potentially amusingly pompous way]
Bruce, Craig, et al.:
I think it?Ts important to remember in this kind of discussion that by ?oformal model,? what linguists typically mean as ?omodel within a model-theoretic framework.? Model-theoretic frameworks attempt to describe things in terms of two explicit components (I know this is repeating what you already know, but I have to lay it out on the table before doing something else with it):
· A set of object (?osymbols,? ?oprimitives?)
· A set of rules for manipulating the objects
Either implicitly or explicitly, theorists also use a simplicity metric for resolving disputes about competing ways of modeling the same thing in the same system.
There are three points about traditional model-theoretic systems that are problematic when discussing language:
(1) They assume that there are objects to be manipulated.
(2) Traditionally, the operation of the system is fully determinate
(3) Traditionally (again), the simplicity metric is expressed only in terms of number of objects and number of rules.
Point (1) is problematic because, from a philosophical position, one does not have to posit objects, and, from a biological position, the neural network that language ?oruns on? seems to be all connections, with no objects. That is, while a ?orule? might be formulated that describes the operation of the network, there are no observable objects in there being manipulated. The objects may be adduced as theoretical constructs, but the theorist then has to be very, very careful to avoid circular reasoning. Otherwise, you can end up saying that the objects must be there because that?Ts the only way your model can work, when in fact you started by choosing a kind of model that requires objects to begin with. That kind of argument is based on the initial assumption that your model is correct to start with.
Point (2) makes traditional model-theoretic systems have trouble approaching inherently indeterminate phenomena ?" the kind of thing that sociolinguists sometimes try to deal with via ?ovariable rules.? In a traditional model-theoretic system, ?ovariable rule? is an oxymoron. The standard way of dealing with the problem is to say either (a) that anything indeterminate is outside language and therefore doesn?Tt need to be modeled, or (b) there is more than one determinate system, and the speaker is switching among systems. The second option strikes me as being a bit more responsible, but still lets the analyst avoid questioning the initial assumption that the system has to be determinate.
Point (3) leads to simplicity being computed relative to the model as a static whole, not relative to the operation of the model. A version that uses two objects and three rules is automatically simpler than a version that uses five objects and nine rules, even if the ?osimpler? version requires eighty steps to model a given phenomenon instead of the twenty the second version does.
Generative grammar deals with (2) and (3) via the competence/performance dichotomy ?" if we accept the dichotomy, then variability is a performance issue (and hence irrelevant) and the operation of the model when performing a given task is, again, performance ?" and hence irrelevant. It?Ts an internally consistent position.
Here?Ts the problem I have with it: People don?Tt question it enough. It?Ts one of many, many ways one might model language, but ?oformalizing? an account usually means having to make it conform to this type of system ?" objects and rules, full determinism, and atemporal simplicity metrics. The problem is not the framework itself, but rather its hegemonic status. The metrics that would establish this framework as better than others are internal to the framework itself, and while that criticism would hold as well of any comparable framework, not consciously acknowledging it leads to thinking that a statement about the model , by virtue of the fact that it?Ts expressed in terms of the model, thereby automatically becomes a statement about language. We lose sight of the fact that, while models can reflect (or metaphorically represent) explanations, the act of modeling something ?" in and of itself ?" does not constitute explanation. A valid explanation remains valid
even if it?Ts not formalized in a particular framework, and a potentially infinite number of wildly wrong explanations can be easily formalized.
Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University
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