Scott:

 

I think 7^th-graders are easily able to handle the basic notion of a form/function distinction – after all, kids have a lot of practice doing things like taking an old burlap sack and deciding to use it as second base in a baseball game. “It’s basically X, but we’ll use it as a Y” isn’t too much of a problem if it doesn’t get bogged down in too many technical terms.  Pronouns are lexical chameleons anyway – they show up for noun jobs, and they show up for determiner jobs. Nouns usually do noun jobs, but they can fill in for adjectives as needed, etc.  You don’t say that someone who is a plumber isn’t one anymore if s/he mows the lawn.

 

The problem I’ve seen with traditional approaches is that when they conflated form and function, they’d create contradictions – if a pronoun is a part of speech, and an adjective is a part of speech, then pronouns can’t be adjectives. But adjectives modify nouns, and “my” modifies nouns, but “my” is a pronoun and…. (at this point, if the teacher were an android, we’d have a “smoke coming out of ears” scene).

 

Bill Spruiell

Dept. of English

Central Michigan University

 

 

 

Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. 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/