Edmond, Thank you for pointing out a valuable resource, which is indeed new to me. I look forward to reading it. I don't believe this method will describe all free-verse, perhaps I should say, organic-verse or experimental poets, since they strain against syntactic groupings, but it certainly goes far toward making precise judgments possible, and describes much free-verse poetry. You may already know this, but I thought I'd mention that the groupings you identify below are also relevant to generative metrical accounts of poems written in meter. Placement of the caesura in relation to complete, or athwart, syntactic entities is one way of creating cola and rhythmical complexity within conventional metrical verse. I believe Bruce Hayes has done interesting work with this in relation to several meters. May I ask at what level are the students with whom you use this method? Natalie ________________________________ From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Edmond Wright Sent: Sun 12/7/2008 8:35 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Graphic Syntax As regards 'graphic syntax' no one seems to have noticed that they are trying to do what Francis Christensen demonstrated (pages 9-13 of his 'Notes Toward a New Rhetoric' [New York, Harper & Row, 1967]) -- as I described in my email of a few days ago, and which I use with my students. According to his method, Carolyn Harnett's sentence ought to appear thus: 1 Poets . . . chunk their poems 2 who write in traditional forms . . . (RC) 3 based on metre and rhyme (VC) but 3 in a different way from graphic syntax (PP) 4 which chunks . . . (RC) 5 based on grammatical units (VC) RC: Relative Clause VC: Verb Cluster PP: Prepositional Phrase I prefer to split 'Verb Clusters' into Past Participle Phrase (as both the examples here), Present Participle Phrase, and Infinitive Phrase; Christensen lumps them all together. Christensen's numbers indicate the hierarchy of grammatical dependence. Hence my suggestion for students of drawing vertical lines down the page to correspond. His other suggested groupings are as follows: SC: Subordinate Clause. This is an confusion, since Relative Clauses [his RC] are subordinate clauses. He already has NC for Noun Cluster. Again possibly confusing, since it looks like Noun Clause. He uses it for such extensions of meaning as 'a quick shake' in the sentence 'He dipped his hands in the bichloride solution and shook them, a quick shake.' AC: Adjective Cluster (e.g. for the two phrases attached here: 'They huddled, wild as deer, deadly as rattlesnakes.') A + A: Adjective series (e.g. For the three adjectives here: 'They huddled, gaudy, motionless and alert.') Abs: Absolute Phrase (e.g. for the two phrases attached here: He stood at the top of the stairs and watched me, I waiting for him to call me up, he hesitating to come down.') I prefer the following: ADJP (Adjective Phrase) for both his AC and A + A. NP for Noun Phrase (e.g. the noun phrase in apposition, 'an expert swimmer' in 'The scout, an expert swimmer, was soon across the lake.' ADVC for Adverbial Clause. ADJC for Adjectival Clause. ADJ PREP for Adjectival Prepositional Phrase (e.g. 'in the white suit' in 'The man in the white suit.' ADV PREP for Adverbial Prepositional Phrase (e.g. 'over the bridge' in 'The procession was filing over the bridge'). ABS for Absolute Phrase (e.g. 'He stopped at the corner, the rain lashing at the windscreen.') ING for Present Participle Phrases (e.g. The rooks, cawing in comical surprise, rose clumsily into the air.') ED for Past Participle Phrases (this included the strong verbs which do not use 'ed' to indicate the past participle -- e.g. 'thrown out of the car' in 'The gun, thrown out of the car, had disappeared into the grass.'). When I reverse the process in sentence combining (for all these can be used to indicate to students how to combine), I also include 'HYPH' for the collapsing of a sentence into a hyphenated word. For example: The child delighted them all. The child loved fun. (HYPH) Becomes 'The fun-loving child delighted them all.' One is helped by the fact that many distinguished writers enjoy creating new hyphenated words from such combining. For example: [Gerard Manley Hopkins] 'Some of the pigeons are dull thunder-colour or black-grape-colour.' [James Joyce] 'Suddenly the dog made off like a bounding hare, ears flung back, chasing the shadow of a low-skimming gull.' [Shakespeare] '. . .who knows If the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent His powerful mandate to you.' [William Barnes] 'and the sheep, little-kneed, with a quick-dipped nod' Hopkins, Barnes -- and Barnes' friend, Thomas Hardy -- were all unconsciously aware that the Anglo-Saxon words of English have rarely been hyphenated (compare the cognate German language, full of such compounds), and they started to look for original linkages. This can still provide an amusing exercise for students: for example, instead of words of Latin origin, suggest Anglo-Saxon substitutes, thus -- for OEcollision¹ a two-bang; OEauction¹ a step-buy; OEfrustration¹ foot-bind-hood; OEdentist¹, tooth-soother; OEvaccinate¹, cow-sting. Edmond Wright Dr. Edmond Wright 3 Boathouse Court Trafalgar Road Cambridge CB4 1DU England Email: [log in to unmask] Website: http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/elw33/ Phone [00 44] (0)1223 350256 > Poets > who write > in traditional forms > based on meter and rhyme > chunk their poems > but > in a different way > from graphic syntax, > which chunks based on grammatical > units. > Both, > I believe, > can make text easier to comprehend. > --- On Sat, 12/6/08, Carolyn Hartnett <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > From: Carolyn Hartnett <[log in to unmask]> > Subject: Graphic Syntax > To: [log in to unmask] > Date: Saturday, December 6, 2008, 9:51 AM > > > > > > > Isn't the way much poetry is printed somewhat similar to graphic syntax? > It makes poems easier to read, I believe. > > Carolyn Hartnett > Professor Emeritus, College of the Mainland > 2027 Bay St. > Texas City, Texas 77590To 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/ 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/