I like Veit's book too, although I no longer us so generative and formal an approach in my grammar courses. I must, however, differ with him on one point, that GG somehow deals with "how we actually produce those sentences." It's easy to interpret some of the formalisms in that way, but GG models knowledge, not behavior, and one of the major findings of generative-influenced psycholinguistic research in the 60s is that the theoretical constructs of GG are just that, theoretical constructs. They do not have any psychological reality. Formalist grammarians have become more sophisticated in their claims, and they no longer claim that transformations are in some sense real. They now claim that the modularity of the grammar, separating different functions of the grammar into different brain modules, does have psychological reality. I think this is equally misguided. I'd recommend a book like Geoffrey Sampson's Educating Eve as a response to many of these claims. Herb Stahlke <<< [log in to unmask] 2/28 6:22p >>> Dr. Veit, Thank you for your response! I for one will consider carefully the approach you have taken to making GT-grammar understandable to the lay person. Let me tell you that I think you are doing a great job. Bruce >>> [log in to unmask] 02/28/01 03:42PM >>> Generative grammar, as generally presented, is complex, abstruse, formula-intensive, and forbidding to lay persons--not surprising since much of the work is done by math types who are strangers to clear writing. We shouldn't assume, however, that the subject is closed to others. I teach a required college grammar course to education and English majors, and the model we use is generative. Many, if not most, students enter the class with low expectations (often with outright dread). On the first day I always enjoy "betting" my students that at the end of the course they will write on the anonymous course evaluations that the course was fun for them. In the great majority of cases, I win my bet. To their surprise, students find they like the course, say they learned a lot, give high evaluations, and develop a love for grammar. One strength of a generative approach is that is tries to create a model not just of sentence structure but also of how we actually produce those sentences. Because the available generative texts didn't meet my students' needs, I wrote my own. The book's approach is generative, but with methodology taking a back seat to content: learning the grammar of English. As a former primary and secondary teacher, I've always believed a generative approach is adaptable to high schools and even the lower grades. I've had a long-term goal of creating a high school text, but other book projects and administrative duties have always intervened. I hope someone else creates such a text. It wouldn't be for everybody, but grammar teachers would benefit from a choice of approaches. Dick Veit University of North Carolina at Wilmington Discovering English Grammar, 2nd edition: http://www.uncwil.edu/people/veit/DEG/ 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/ 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/