My posting had buried in it a reference to the fact that some verbs are
'verbier' than others. There is a scale of 'activeness' that verbs can be
arranged along.
 
My training in semantics has been very helpful with regard to
understanding how verbs work. Languages all over the world seem to divide
up human experience in broadly consistent ways, and this is often directly
reflected in the grammar of their verbs and case-marking of subjects. Some
broad categories are: verbs of cognition (think, believe, understand),
verbs of emotion (feel, fear, hope, enjoy, be pleased), verbs of physical
posture (sit, stand, lie are the main ones), verbs of physical motion
(walk, run, jump, etc.) verbs of perception (hear, see, feel, smell).
There are some verbs that are hard to classify, since they really act as
linking verbs with some kind of special nuance attached (resemble, look as
in 'look sick, look nice', appear).
 
All of these verbs will naturally interact with their subjects, since they
imply different degrees of activity/inactivity as well as agentivity
(intentional outward direction of the action by the subject towards some
goal). Another thing that seems to be important in a lot of languages is a
sort of 'balance of power': is the subject in control, or is something in
control of the subject. An example of this from earlier English is the
expression 'me thinks'.  This is equivalent to 'it seems to me'; 'think'
has a special meaning here like 'seem', and 'me' appears in the objective
case because something external to the subject is affecting it, and the
subject is merely 'receiving' the impact of that thing. Note that in 'it
seems to me' this directionality is directly expressed; 'me' is object of
a goal-marking preposition 'to', which is the equivalent of dative in
languages like German or Latin.
 
Again, some of this information is pretty high-level stuff, but it can
also be simplified for presentation to younger learners and also sequenced
in such a way as to coordinate well with children's growing abilities to
generalize and think abstractly. I have to say again that from my own
experience linguistics training has given me the answer to many questions
that 'traditional grammar' simply doesn't help with.
 
Linguistics isn't any harder than mathematics or physics or biology or
social sciences. These subjects have been carefully sequenced to match
children's developing abilities. We also know that children can become
very good at complex stuff in the higher grades. The legwork of doing the
same with linguistics (with respect to English) just has to be done. I
think Ed is issuing a call -- 'let's get started'.
 
To address the question of why we should teach grammar, the practicality
argument (handmaiden to composition) is probably the strongest in terms of
getting public and institutional support. It is much harder to advocate
grammar for its own sake, however much we might love it. This isn't really
a problem -- if grammar is taught well, and if its usefulness is
immediately apparent, that just raises students' interest level in grammar
as a subject for its own sake. If we once have students who are trained
from the earliest grades, in a gradual, effective sequence, to stand back
from language and talk about it, analyze it, and look at it objectively,
they will be much better prepared, not just to write well, but to take an
interest in language for its own sake. We can hope that the rest of the
school curriculum will simultaneously be training their critical thinking
skills and opening their minds to how fascinating the world in general is.
This creates a whole mindset that leads to an educated person, a lifetime
learner.
 
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Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics              ~
English Department, California Polytechnic State University   ~
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407                                     ~
Tel. (805)-756-2184  E-mail: [log in to unmask]      ~
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