I'm with Jeff in finding a purely 'mechanical' approach to grammar
unsatisfactory. I'm not sure what he means by 'philosophy', though. What
I feel is crucial in discussing grammar is the inclusion of _meaning_ --
of how grammar accomplishes its function of instructing someone in how
to assemble a complex whole from the meanings of the individual words
another person has uttered or written.
In this respect, I'm not sure what meaning unit a sentence serves to
encode. It may be a discourse-level unit, since sentences often include
a number of clauses, and since reference is invariably made to other
meanings in the discourse. It may also be derived from intonation
patterns -- breath groups and the like. (These, in turn, are determined
by discourse intentions -- such as emphasis and topicalization -- in
combination with physiological constraints.)
There _has_ been discussion of what meaning unit a _clause_ encodes, and
the unit 'proposition' as known in logic has been proposed. A
proposition predicates something of a 'topic': f(x), meaning, loosely:
the property (or whatever) f is to be predicated of the entity x'. So
'blue(sky)' is encoded in 'the sky is blue'.
Of course, a phrase like 'blue sky' also encodes this proposition, so
there is some work to be done in teasing out what the meaning/function
differences might be between a phrase and a clause that result in there
being different grammatical structures to encode them.
Sentences can contain more than one clause, so the proposition as a
meaning unit won't do for sentences.
Sentences have properties that distinguish them from other grammatical
units: finiteness of the verb, and 'independence' -- some kind of
relative autonomy. The finite verb ties the event or scene being
portrayed by the sentence to real time. I consider this time-location to
be a meaning -- it is the meaning of a tense marker on the verb. The
independence is a tougher one for me to address. It's easy to tell
whether a clause is independent or not, but I'm not sure what is guiding
my intuition.
To address Ed's concern, I think that this discussion is very much on
target regarding crucial issues: "which grammatical constructions are
pedagogically important, how should they be defined, and how (and when)
should they be taught?" This discussion is about how the crucial notion
'sentence' should be defined; I doubt that anyone would discount the
pedagogical importance of the notion 'sentence' in grammar teaching. How
and when the notion should be taught is being indirectly addressed in
the discussion of whether or not the philosophical aspects of the
definition can be of use in a classroom or not.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba Assistant Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184 • Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone. 756-259
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] • Home page: http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
**
"Understanding is a lot like sex; it's got a practical purpose,
but that's not why people do it normally" - Frank Oppenheimer
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