Johanna,
   I suspect this is just a disagreement about how we are using the 
terms.  To me, descriptive versus prescriptive, as most people 
understand it, conjures up a long-standing dispute that cannot be won by 
either side. The fragment issue is a case in point.  We can declare that 
they are always wrong (the prescriptivist approach) or point out that 
they show up in the work of successful writers (Ed's very useful 
description), but neither of  those seem particularly satisfying.  From 
a more "functional" perspective, we can ask what work the writer is 
trying to accomplish and whether that fragment, in that context, helps 
accomplish the larger goals of the piece. But something more than 
describing is involved in this. I'm trying to make the case for a 
different frame of reference from the ones that stalemate the usual debate.
     You seem to be assuming that I am making an argument for "logical" 
understanding of language, (something like Fish's point, I think, that 
we can intuitively discover the logical relationships by studying 
sentences in isolation.) But that's not what I have in mind.
     I love Herb's description of how Frost's verb phrases shift from 
ditransitive to simple transitive when the star is now too distant to be 
talked to.  He is making a sensitive connection between the form of the 
poem and the meaning of the poem, implying without directly stating it 
that the form is not a neutral conveyor of content, but deeply 
implicated in the production of meaning. A sentence is not an isolated 
unit, but a move in a series of related moves, and the fact that the 
speaker wanted to talk to the star is very key, because we want our 
relationship to the cosmos to be personal even when it's not; the poem 
is a poem about longing for something that the star cannot and will not 
give us.. If that's what you mean by descriptive--looking at successful 
texts to see what makes them work and bringing ourselves more deeply 
into the heart of the meaning--then I have no problem with it.
    One key, I think, though, is how to determine that a text is 
successful. Grammar as traditionally described or prescribed seems too 
mechanical.  To fully appreciate and understand the grammar, I think we 
need to interpret the text, to see the whole as more than the sum of its 
parts.  It means close looking, for sure, and agreeing to listen to each 
other as we contribute our own sense of it.  Those of us involved in 
interpretation of text may be more familiar with this than the average 
linguist.  The notion that there's a right way to interpret the text or 
that a writer says one thing to mean another, these are enemies as well. 
 The text means what happens to us when we interact with it. But  if 
someone offers a way of interacting that is rich and thoughtful and 
moving, it is contagious, and it somehow becomes my own.  Not final or 
closed, but deeply satisfying. (Is that a successful fragment?  Not if I 
move it to another place.)
    I think describing is not the word I would use for this kind of 
meaning centered activity.  
    Fish's best point, which Herb emphasizes so well, is that the 
current tendency is to use the text as a stepping off point for ideas. 
 The language itself hardly matters.  But it seems to me that Fish 
misses the point when he minimizes the notion of content or assumes that 
all this can be discovered through looking at sentences in isolation.  A 
sentence is effective insofar as it works in harmony with other 
sentences and in harmony with evolving purposes. There are "descriptive" 
approaches that fall far short of that insight (though I wouldn't think 
of you as making that mistake.)
    Describing, as you describe it, is immensely important to the 
enterprise.

Craig

Johanna Rubba wrote:

> Hi, Craig,
>
> I don't understand why you say that the descriptive approach to 
> language cannot "work in
> harmony with composition".  This approach describes all levels of 
> language, including the text/discourse level, and it is how we find 
> out how successful texts work. We cannot teach about good writing 
> unless we know how it is structured in reality -- knowledge that can 
> be discovered only through descriptive research on actual discourse. 
> Relying on things like logic is not enough: the concerns of formal 
> logic are relevant, but impoverished compared to the amount of 
> information that is relayed by structures that emerge from the 
> particular way the human mind and body work with respect to things 
> like where to locate focus points, breath groups in relation to phrase 
> structure, iconicity in phrase structure (which is what motivates us 
> to put modifiers near what they modify), things that are important to 
> humans, but not to logic, such as whether information is first-hand or 
> second-hand, etc.
>
> It is absurd to think we can teach anything about language without 
> being grounded in how real language is structured -- it would be like 
> teaching biology without worrying about what biologists have 
> discovered over the last few centuries. Many of the problems 
> associated with grammar and composition teaching stem from inadequate 
> training of teachers in how language actually works.
>
> Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
> Linguistics Minor Advisor
> English Department
> California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> Tel.: 805.756.2184
> Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
> Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
> URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>
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