Geoff, Craig, and Bill,
I'll readily admit to having a skewed bent for grammar. When I was
taking high school English, I had already had a strong does of parochial
school grammar, diagramming and all, and I was taking German and Latin
(required), so a significant portion of my life was spent on grammar,
analysis, and terminology. It didn't seem particularly strange or
off-putting; in fact, it became a part of the boarding school culture,
with multilingual puns and cracks about ablative absolutes and supines.
It delights boys in boarding high schools to translate English taboo
vocabulary into Latin, and I remember having some fun translating our
school song into a parody of Classical Greek lyric verse. We sang it at
a school banquet, but I heard about it later from some of the faculty
who disapproved of the liberties I had taken.
So, if I haven't discredited myself completely in this discussion, let
me come down firmly on the side of terminology. Without a vocabulary we
can't discuss a subject clearly or intelligently. Ever try explaining
to someone with no mechanical knowledge what's wrong with their car? It
really doesn't matter that grammarians don't agree completely on which
terms to use or precisely what the mean. Such matters rarely come up at
the high school level. And I certainly don't advocate terminology for
its own sake. We had a lengthy discussion some time back on the
nominative absolute. I think older children need to learn the
construction, one that is useful in specific conditions, but I'm not
sure that the term is all that important. Passive, and the concepts it
entails, on the other hand, is. Part of the S&S project is to determine
what terms are important and perhaps even to rank sets of terms for
relevance, but that sort of argument, while appropriate to this group,
has little place in the high school classroom.
Let's be clear that debate among grammarians is fine but that most if it
belongs among grammarians.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 9:36 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: What to do with 'put' [PPs following linking verbs]
Geoff,
Another way of talking about the difference between complements and
modifiers is that information about time and place can come up in any
sentence, but when that meaning is in complement role, it is the core
meaning of the sentence.
"They hung Tom Dooley on Tuesday" therefore differs from "Tom
Dooley's
hanging is on Tuesday" in a very substantional way. One is primarily
about the hanging and the other is primarily about the date. The second
assumes the hanging as given; the first does not.
These are not just questions about analysis, but questions about
nuances of meaning, particularly the kinds of choices a writer can
make under the pressure of context.
We can probably draw a fault line down the center of this list
between
people who think it's useful to know about language and those who feel
it's just important to use it.
"Who, what, where, when, and sometimes "why", as I was taught it, is
a
useful heuristic tool for writing classes, particularly in journalism
(hence the distrust of "why".) I'm not convinced every sentence
improves when we add additional meaning, and I'm not convinced it's the
most important meaning in every kind of genre and text. (In a lab
report, for example, you had better suppress the "who".) Certainly,
many of our sentences are just about what "is".
I'm increasingly distrustful of claims that soft understandings can
replace the need/usefulness of grammar.
I think your approach is helpful and interesting, but it doesn't
replace the need for a deeper understanding of what language is and how
it works.
Craig
Geoff,
>
>
>
> There's still a distinction between a "complement" PP and an
"adverbial"
> PP, and they are irrespective of which one is time and which one is
> place. For example, consider the following:
>
>
>
> * Fastow was in the pen after the trial.
>
> * Lunch is at noon in the pen.
>
>
>
> In both, the first PP is a complement. The second is adverbial. Only
the
> second could be moved to the front:
>
>
>
> * After the trial Fastow was in the pen.
>
> * (not) *In the pen Fastow was after the trial.
>
>
>
> * In the pen lunch is at noon.
>
> * (not) *At noon lunch is in the pen. [different meaning]
>
>
>
> Dick Veit
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
>
>
> Richard Veit
>
> Department of English
>
> University of North Carolina Wilmington
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Geoffrey Layton
> Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2006 11:31 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: What to do with 'put' [PPs following linking verbs]
>
>
>
> Before this interesting discussion runs out of steam, I wanted to add
my
> 2
>
> cents - specifically about how the interest level in this problem
varies
>
>
> based on the student audience. To a class of undergrads or grad
> students,
>
> the terminology may be of interest. To high school students, however,
> this
>
> entire discussion would be mind-numbing - except as it might generally
>
> relate to sentence development using "who-what-when-why-where-how"
>
> constructions.
>
>
>
> To use the "Fastow was in the pen" example, I have my students
construct
>
>
> sentences using "when" information first (based on using "old"
> informtion
>
> first) followed by the S-V and then "where" information.
>
>
>
> So the sentence would read, then, "After the scandal, Fastow was in
the
>
> penitentiary." They would then be encouraged to add additional "when"
> and
>
> "where" information, preferably using more varied construction,
> including
>
> dependent clauses, resulting in a sentence that might read like this:
> "Last
>
> month after the scandal while his co-defendants were still on trial,
> Fastow
>
> was in the penitentiary where he had been sent immediately after his
> trial."
>
>
>
> Please note that the terminology of all of these constructions is of
> minor
>
> importance because all native speakers already know how to use each
and
>
> every one of them. After developing sentences such as this, students
> then
>
> learn how to fill in the paragraph. For example, the old "when"
> information
>
> logically requires "who" "what" "why" and "how" explanations; the
> "where"
>
> requires additional descriptive and action information. And thus a
> story is
>
> developed using a variety of complex, logical sentences, taught with
> almost
>
> no "formal" grammar instruction whatsoever!
>
>
>
> Geoff Layton
>
>
>
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