The central focus of sentence patterns (the ones that are being used now) is
to examine verb complementation.  Each of my seven patterns examines
complementation or lack thereof of the intransitive verb, the transitive
verb, or the linking verb. I, do  hold off adverbial complementation as a
study under modification.   The patterns are simple.  Keep in mind, however,
that many of our students (not linguistics majors) are coming to us with a
nearly total void of linguistic metalanguage.  The patterns focus on
essential basic grammatical constituents in brief, uncomplicated sentences.
Once the students can recognize and name the basic constituents, it is time
to move ahead to more complicated analysis.  The patterns also work well in
the environment of the whole language pedagogy that elementary students have
become so familiar with.  They approach the study of grammar from the
sentence down rather than from the parts of speech up.  Every second-grade
student is competent in constructing sentences in most of the patterns.  So
we start from what they know and work from there, first by providing names
for the bigger parts of their own sentences and gradually moving to more
refined analysis.

When you speak of "slot-filling," you might be thinking about the formal
grammars of the 1940s.  These, indeed, left a lot to be learned about the
relationship of sentence constituents to each other.  I think you will find
that some recent approaches during the last six or seven years treat the
constituents more symbiotically and are more congenial to the analytic needs
you are expressing.  The most complete one I have found is by Gerald
Delahunty and James Garvey (1994).  They include adverb complementation as a
basic sentence pattern along with all the nominal and adjectival
complements.  They are, also, the only ones I have seen that treat the
passive voice as a basic pattern.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Johanna Rubba" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2000 9:52 PM
Subject: Re: Grammar Book + Patterns


> I agree with Bob about the sentence patterns. I think they can be
> particularly confusing, since the same verb can appear sometimes
> transitively, sometimes not.
>
> Maybe it has something to do with our training as linguists, where verb
> complementation is a hot topic, and sentence patterns invoke ideas of
transformations.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics
> English Department, California Polytechnic State University
> One Grand Avenue  . San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
> Tel. (805)-756-2184  .  Fax: (805)-756-6374 . Dept. Phone.  756-259
> . E-mail: [log in to unmask] .  Home page: http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>                                        **
> "Understanding is a lot like sex; it's got a practical purpose,
> but that's not why people do it normally"  -            Frank  Oppenheimer
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~