Although patterns can be confusing, especially for ESL students like myself,
they are necessary in the process-analysis of understanding the structure
and logic of English sentences. By using these patterns, we can analyze any
verb no matter how confusing verb could be. Nowadays, unfortunately, we have
a problem in our educational system: Linguists didn't come up with the
standard system that could be used in elementary and middle schools. Many
people, after a completion of high schools, don't know anything about
grammar at all. Any ideas?

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Johanna Rubba
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2000 7:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
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
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