Edward Vavra wrote:

> Very nice point, Scott.
>
>  
>
>  
>
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar 
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Scott Woods
> Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2007 12:15 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Instruction versus learning
>
>  
>
> Listmates,
>
> Are there any studies of the effects of grammar learning rather than 
> instruction?  That is, do any studies look at what students have 
> learned of the grammar of a language and how well they have learned 
> it, especially in relation to changes in their writing and reading 
> skills, rather than at grammar instruction, what the teacher did and 
> asked them to do?  It seems to me that we should be concerned with the 
> effects of instruction, measurable by what students learn, and with 
> the effects of learning, measurable by what students can do with what 
> they have learned.  If we jump from instruction to measuring the 
> effects of learning, without measuring the learning, we would seem to 
> be making an invalid logical inference by assuming that learning took 
> place.  Are their existing standardized tests to measure grammar 
> knowledge, including both accuracy and rate?
>
>  
>
> Scott Woods
>
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Scott,

For what it is worth, an article called "A Formula for Measuring 
Syntactic Complexity: A Directional Effort" appeared in Elementary 
English, vol. 49, 1972, beginning on p. 513. Another article, called 
"Calculating the Syntactic Density Score: A Mathematical Problem" by 
J.F. Belanger, was published in Research in the Teaching of English, in 
the May 1978 issue, no. 2, vol. 12.

Obviously, the articles are dated, but they may give you some ideas of 
what has been done, and what can be done now.

Marshall

p.s. I'd add passive voice to your list of difficult constructions to 
interpret for some readers. But I think some scholars in 
psychlinguistics has researched that area. I'd be very surprised, too, 
if reading theorists hadn't dealt with some of the issues you raise. The 
Journal of Reading is one of the most respected in that area.

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