Scott,
When I was teaching high school TEFL in Nigeria in the 60s some of the English texts were still that Latinate. And I had trouble convincing my principal that the approach made no sense, especially for students who spoke a language without any case marking at all. He, a native speaker of Yoruba, was sure that Yoruba had case and couldn't understand why I, a recent classics major, didn't get it.
Herb
Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of English
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
[log in to unmask]
________________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Scott [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: October 10, 2009 12:23 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Latin influence ; was ATEG Digest - 8 Oct 2009 to 9 Oct 2009 (#2009-210)
As far as problems coming from a study of Latin, not a living language,
I gave to admit that I had been tutoring German at MSC for two quarters
before the German professor caught up with me and spoke to me in German.
I responded to him in German that I did not speak German. He asked me in
English where I had studied German. I stated that I had never studied
German but I had studied Latin. He responded that German did not come
from Latin; I responded that I knew that but the author of the textbook
gad a Latin grammar in front of him when he wrote the German grammar
because the explanations were so Latinate. After I showed him a few
examples, he admitted that I was correct. Nonetheless, he did not
want me tutoring German. I said that he was not paying me so it was
really none of his business. He thought it over and decided that I was
right.
The only worse textbook that I gave seen was in English: it gave the
nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, and vocative for
'table' beginning with 'table' 'of the table' and ending with 'O table!'
N. Scott Catledge, PhD/STD
Professor Emeritus
history & languages
THL Colm Dubh
Herald Extraordinaire
Ensign Herald, Trimaris
Apprentice to Master Finn Normansson, Baron Seleone
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
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Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 12:01 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: ATEG Digest - 8 Oct 2009 to 9 Oct 2009 (#2009-210)
There are 2 messages totalling 343 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Delayed info on definitions of the sentence (2)
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Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2009 13:16:06 -0400
From: Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Delayed info on definitions of the sentence
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Bill,
The neat thing about having such obscure interests is that the books
are almost always on the shelf when I look for them, even if under a
layer of dust. I found myself a little hampered by only a vague memory
of Latin, but thanks much for the heads-up. Your summary seems accurate.
I was interested, too, in his comment that so many problems came from
the fact that the tradition grew up around a study of Latin, not a study
of a living language. Rhetoric, logic, literary analysis, grammar need
to be separate, but somehow complementary, and that seems, in his view,
not to be happening.
The idea of a sentence as "complete thought" appears to be a semantic
(or pragmatic) test, but it is being used to develop an intuitive feel
for the minimum syntactic requirement.
Neither rhetoric nor grammar is well served.
Craig
Spruiell, William C wrote:
>
> Hey folks --
>
>
>
> Weeks ago, we had an exchange on the definition of a sentence as "a
> complete thought," and Beth asked if anyone had ever mentioned a
> source for that definition. I thought I remembered a good discussion
> of it somewhere, but I couldn't recall exactly where. But now, I'm
> **supposed** to be working on program review documents (complete with
> mission statements), so of course I've suddenly remembered the
> reference I was looking for (and have thus provided perhaps the only
> extant example of a mission statement accomplishing anything useful).
>
>
>
> It's Ian Michaels's excellent _/English Grammatical Categories/_ (it
> focuses on English, as the title suggests, but he gives a detailed
> historical background dealing with the grammatical traditions that
> Renaissance England inherited). I'm doubtless oversimplifying the
> description Michaels provides (pp. 38-42), but in general the idea
> that "a sentence expresses a complete thought" appears to be one
> /interpretation/ of a statement made by Dionysius Thrax, a Greek
> grammarian who died around 90 b.c.e. The idea was picked up by
> Priscian, a sixth-century Latin grammarian whose text was one of the
> core books used throughout the middle ages in Church schools (and in
> Europe, those were the only kind, really). With Thrax and even
> Priscian, though, "complete" can be construed as referring to whether
> a group of words accomplishes the speaker's purpose, rather than
> whether it conforms to the more grammatically-based notion assumed in
> the modern definition of sentence. Medieval and Renaissance
> grammarians used several terms for groups of words -- 'oratio,'
> 'sententia' --but none of these conformed strictly to those
> constructions that we'd call sentences, and no others. In some cases,
> 'sententia' could be roughly equivalent to 'statement'.
>
>
>
> I'll venture a conjecture, which should not be taken as reflecting the
> views of Michaels (he doesn't discuss developments post-1800): We
> developed a specialized sense of "the sentence" that both shaped and
> was shaped by punctuation patterns, and was keyed to the idea of a
> sentence being a full statement (a subordinate clause, by itself, has
> no truth value). But we kept using a translation of Priscian's
> definition because....that had "always" been the definition (sorry,
> Brad). And under one interpretation of Priscian's definition,
> intentional fragments would be sentences.
>
>
>
> Bill Spruiell
>
> Dept. of English
>
> Central Michigan University
>
>
>
> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
> interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select
> "Join or leave the list"
>
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>
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--------------060901000201070200050809
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Bill,<br>
The neat thing about having such obscure interests is that the
books
are almost always on the shelf when I look for them, even if under a
layer of dust. I found myself a little hampered by only a vague memory
of Latin, but thanks much for the heads-up. Your summary seems accurate.<br>
I was interested, too, in his comment that so many problems
came
from the fact that the tradition grew up around a study of Latin, not a
study of a living language. Rhetoric, logic, literary analysis, grammar
need to be separate, but somehow complementary, and that seems, in his
view, not to be happening. <br>
The idea of a sentence as "complete thought" appears to be a
semantic (or pragmatic) test, but it is being used to develop an
intuitive feel for the minimum syntactic requirement. <br>
Neither rhetoric nor grammar is well served. <br>
<br>
Craig<br>
Spruiell, William C wrote:
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<div class="Section1">
<p class="MsoNormal">Hey folks –<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Weeks ago, we had an exchange on the definition
of a
sentence as “a complete thought,” and Beth asked if anyone had
ever
mentioned a source for that definition. I thought I remembered a good
discussion of it somewhere, but I couldn’t recall exactly where. But
now,
I’m *<b>supposed</b>* to be working on program review documents
(complete
with mission statements), so of course I’ve suddenly remembered the
reference I was looking for (and have thus provided perhaps the only
extant
example of a mission statement accomplishing anything useful).
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s Ian Michaels’s excellent
_<i>English
Grammatical Categories</i>_ (it focuses on English, as the title
suggests, but
he gives a detailed historical background dealing with the grammatical
traditions that Renaissance England inherited). I’m doubtless
oversimplifying the description Michaels provides (pp. 38-42), but in
general
the idea that “a sentence expresses a complete thought” appears
to
be one <i>interpretation</i> of a statement made by Dionysius Thrax, a
Greek
grammarian who died around 90 b.c.e. The idea was picked up by
Priscian, a
sixth-century Latin grammarian whose text was one of the core books
used
throughout the middle ages in Church schools (and in Europe, those were
the
only kind, really). With Thrax and even Priscian, though,
“complete”
can be construed as referring to whether a group of words accomplishes
the
speaker’s purpose, rather than whether it conforms to the more
grammatically-based
notion assumed in the modern definition of sentence. Medieval and
Renaissance
grammarians used several terms for groups of words –
‘oratio,’
‘sententia’ –but none of these conformed strictly to those
constructions that we’d call sentences, and no others. In some cases,
‘sententia’
could be roughly equivalent to ‘statement’. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’ll venture a conjecture, which should not be
taken
as reflecting the views of Michaels (he doesn’t discuss developments
post-1800): We developed a specialized sense of “the sentence”
that
both shaped and was shaped by punctuation patterns, and was keyed to
the idea
of a sentence being a full statement (a subordinate clause, by itself,
has no
truth value). But we kept using a translation of Priscian’s definition
because….that had “always” been the definition (sorry,
Brad).
And under one interpretation of Priscian’s definition, intentional
fragments would be sentences. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Bill Spruiell<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Dept. of English<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Central Michigan University <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
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--------------060901000201070200050809--
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2009 14:16:40 -0400
From: Beth Young <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Delayed info on definitions of the sentence
Thanks--this info is very interesting! (I have a stack of papers waiting =
to be graded right now, so of course I am checking through all my email. =
What a delight to find such a rewarding message. I'm going to try to =
track down Michaels' book now.)
Beth
>>> "Spruiell, William C" <[log in to unmask]> 10/08/09 5:21 PM >>>
Hey folks -
=20
Weeks ago, we had an exchange on the definition of a sentence as "a
complete thought," and Beth asked if anyone had ever mentioned a source
for that definition. I thought I remembered a good discussion of it
somewhere, but I couldn't recall exactly where. But now, I'm *supposed*
to be working on program review documents (complete with mission
statements), so of course I've suddenly remembered the reference I was
looking for (and have thus provided perhaps the only extant example of a
mission statement accomplishing anything useful).=20
=20
It's Ian Michaels's excellent _English Grammatical Categories_ (it
focuses on English, as the title suggests, but he gives a detailed
historical background dealing with the grammatical traditions that
Renaissance England inherited). I'm doubtless oversimplifying the
description Michaels provides (pp. 38-42), but in general the idea that
"a sentence expresses a complete thought" appears to be one
interpretation of a statement made by Dionysius Thrax, a Greek
grammarian who died around 90 b.c.e. The idea was picked up by Priscian,
a sixth-century Latin grammarian whose text was one of the core books
used throughout the middle ages in Church schools (and in Europe, those
were the only kind, really). With Thrax and even Priscian, though,
"complete" can be construed as referring to whether a group of words
accomplishes the speaker's purpose, rather than whether it conforms to
the more grammatically-based notion assumed in the modern definition of
sentence. Medieval and Renaissance grammarians used several terms for
groups of words - 'oratio,' 'sententia' -but none of these conformed
strictly to those constructions that we'd call sentences, and no others.
In some cases, 'sententia' could be roughly equivalent to 'statement'.=20
=20
I'll venture a conjecture, which should not be taken as reflecting the
views of Michaels (he doesn't discuss developments post-1800): We
developed a specialized sense of "the sentence" that both shaped and was
shaped by punctuation patterns, and was keyed to the idea of a sentence
being a full statement (a subordinate clause, by itself, has no truth
value). But we kept using a translation of Priscian's definition
because....that had "always" been the definition (sorry, Brad). And
under one interpretation of Priscian's definition, intentional fragments
would be sentences.=20
=20
Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University=20
=20
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface =
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------------------------------
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