Herb,
   There are conventions that make meaning possible, and some of the
arbitrariness of conventions is inevitable. (The selection of a curved
line, for example, to mean what a comma means, or placement of question
mark after rather than before. "There" for place, "their" for
possession. And so on, with much left out, including the historic fact
that our alphabet is roughly phonetic, that we roughly map out the
sounds of what we say onto the page.)
   What I worry about, though, is that the prevailing notion of what
grammar is about is much more like etiquette (your fork holding
example) than it is about having something to say and making human
connection. Most people believe there are arbitrary rules they are
expected to follow, and they don't like the idea of being reminded of
it, and so we have a whole field full of English teachers who avoid
grammar in part because it seems trivial in comparison with "real"
attention to the work of language. The tests that measured the
ineffectiveness of grammar point out the huge chasm between those kinds
of rules and the real work of writing.
   I don't think you and I are at odds over this in any kind of
fundamental way, so I don't want this to seem like an argument. If we
shift attention to the way language works, these arbitrary conventions
fall into place, and I would just as soon have fewer of them. Grammar
matters in far more important ways, and the only reason it's so hard to
make a case for that is that knowledge about language is reduced to
somewhat trivial proscriptions. You are a wonderful exception, but most
people don't know enough about grammar to even follow a conversation.
   I want my children to be kind and gracious. Those are the "rules" that
matter to me. You don't take the last portion without asking. You offer
before taking. It's a way of caring. I admit, we put the fork on the
left, knife on the right, but that's not, to me, the essence of what
the important choices are about.

Craig

 Craig,
>
> You left out my favorite sentence adverb, "hopefully", which came into use
> as a sentence adverb in the 1920s and has for a long time been a
> shibboleth among such linguistic shamans, to use Dwight Bolinger's term,
> as John Simon.  Hopefully, he'll get over it once he comes to understand
> sentence adverbs and that "hopefully" doesn't modify "get over".
>
> As to arbitrariness, it's a part of culture.  Most of our cultural
> practices are arbitrary, but we abide by them and find them comfortable
> nonetheless.  Semi-colon usage, capitalization, and the use of
> contractions are no less arbitrary elements of our culture than are
> switching the fork to the left hand (for northpaws) in order to use a
> table knife.  And British culture differs on this as well as on points of
> comma usage and capitalization.
>
> Perhaps it's the very irrationality of cultural practices that makes them
> such matters of contention.
>
> Herb
>
>
>> Peter,
>
>     "surprisingly" and "sadly" are sentence modifiers. They tell us more
> about the speaker (tone of the message) than about the world
> represented. When you say "surprisingly, Phil likes them too", you are
> saying that you are surprised, not that Phil is.  The same is true of
> "honestly," "as a matter of fact," "to be frank", and so on. They tell
> us how the reader should take the intention of the statement. "off the
> record, the mayor is stealing our funds." It's not the mayor who is
> off the record, but the statement itself.
>    If I say "Meanwhile, Phil is sending an email of his own," "meanwhile"
> has to do with the internal world being represented. Two things are
> happening at once in two different spaces. If i say "first, I will tell
> you about..." I am using "first" as a statement about the text. I can
> also say "first he walked toward the plate," which makes "first" a
> number for the steps in the action.
>    Functional grammar calls the sentence opening position "thematic", and
> when something other than grammatical subject opens the clause, it
> becomes "marked theme." So it might make sense to say that these words
> have different functions in the discourse, but share a marked theme
> status.
>    "Outside, the cold wind blows. Inside, a warm fire glows." "Outside"
> and "inside" aren't subjects, but they are very much a stepping off
> point for the message structure of the sentence.
>    Some words are in sentence opening position by default. For the most
> part, this is true of the conjunctions (though compounding can happen
> at almost any point.) Others, like the ones above, are there by choice.
> The notions of marked theme extends to the first non-default choice.
> "As a child, he loved baseball. But, after all the scandals, he lost
> his love."
>    When I talk about discourse this way, I always feel I'm helping people
> out. The categories are functional. Like you, I get mixed feelings when
> the rules seem arbitrary. I want the categories to be highly functional
> in ways other than simply "this is the rule book rule for how you are
> supposed to do it." I want to say "this is a nice way to build a
> relationship with your reader," or "this keeps the sequence of actions
> clear."
>    Some arbitrariness is necessary (a comma and not a smiley face), but I
> would like much less.
>    To me, it makes more sense to take a goal like coherence and then
> discuss how it happens rather than just pay attention to the rules and
> then occasionally point out that they help a text be coherent. The
> whole issue of coherence is never adequately covered, especially by
> minimalist approaches.
>    I get students who write incoherent texts, but stick on a few
> transition phrases. One doesn't necessarily give you the other.
>    From a wider functional base, though, you do get a chance to see what
> is arbitrary and what is not. You almost have to say so to keep your
> credibility. It's hard to defend dysfunctional aspects of the system,
> but they are there, realities we have to deal with.
>
> Craig
>
>> In a message dated 9/11/06 11:14:29 AM, [log in to unmask] writes:
>>
>>
>>> These are frequently called "transitions" or "conjunctive adverbs".  I
>>> find
>>> it best to teach them along side subordinate and coordinate
>>> conjunctions
>>> because that is the full set of words the provide the function of
>>> linking one
>>> idea to the next.  Sentences are more tightly bound by conjunctions,
>>> but
>>> conjunctive adverbs have the same meaning effect.  They should not be
>>> taught to
>>> distantly from conjunctions because they will muddle students'
>>> thinking. 
>>>
>>
>> This makes sense, but what about the following:
>>
>> 1. Christine likes adverbs; surprisingly, Phil likes them too.
>> 2. Martha knows her grammar; sadly, Peter's knowledge is more shaky.
>> 3. Herb sent an email; later, he thought better of it.
>> 4. Herb sent an email; meanwhile, Ed was composing a similar one.
>> 5. Herb sent yet another email; finally, he went to bed.
>>
>> I expect general agreement that the words following the semicolon in
>> numbers
>> 1, 2, and 3 are, in fact, adverbs.   But what about meanwhile, in the
>> fourth
>> one.   Martha calls it a conjunctive adverb; so do Hacker, Troyka, and
>> Aaron.
>> And finally in number 5.   These do serve "the function of linking one
>> idea
>> to the next," but so does later in #3.   And so does the next day in #6,
>> but I
>> don't think anyone would want to call it conjunctive in any way.
>>
>> 6. Peter sent an email.   The next day he tried to retrieve it.
>>
>> So perhaps "the function of linking one idea to the next" is not a
>> characteristic solely of conjunctions . . .
>>
>> I realize that some do not find this discussion interesting.   Please
>> indulge
>> those of us who do.
>>
>>
>> Peter Adams
>>
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