Craig - Your post focuses precisely on the reason why I avoid terminology 
and concentrate instead on meaning.  I like your example of poor Tom Dooley 
(HOW MANY TIMES HAS POOR TOM DOOLEY HUNG DOWN HIS HEAD AND DIED - PROBABLY 
THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN A LONG WHILE!).  It's an interesting question to 
pose to students - how can you create one sentence that focuses on the 
hanging and another on the time of the hanging?

The problem I have with the examples you provide is that the meaning seems 
based more on the verb tense than the arrangement of the complements and 
modifiers.  For example, let's focus on the past - "They hung (SHOULDN'T IT 
BE 'HANGED'?) Tom on Tuesday."  I'll agree that this focuses on the hanging 
rather than the day.  However, "Tom's hanging is on Tuesday" re-directs the 
focus not by the complement/modifier but by the verb tense.  Keeping the 
same tense, it would seem to me that "On Tuesday, they hanged Tom" would 
re-focus the meaning while keeping the past tense; or even better, "It was 
Tuesday when they hanged Tom".  (IT'S AT THIS POINT THAT ALL MY FRIENDS RUN 
AWAY WHEN I'M TELL THEM WHAT I DO WITH MY DAY!).

The point is simply this - making students learn terminology is confusing.  
Every  example that we've used is perfectly within the capability of every 
native speaker.  Therefore, the so-called "journalistic" questions are much 
more than simple tools - they are the essence of meaning itself.  And I 
agree - a good sentence is not one that is jam-packed but rather one that 
leads the reader, following from what has preceded it; introducing and 
suggesting what follows.

It's not merely journalism that uses these tools - every novel creates 
meaning by answering the journalist's questions, and the answers are created 
by using specific grammatical constructions that every native speaker 
already knows (any young child, for example, knows that the answer to the 
question "Why did you break the lamp?" is answered by a dependent clause 
sentence fragment:  "Because my sister pushed me!").

Therefore, instead of teaching dependent clauses (or other pieces of 
grammatical terminology), it's more important to teach how to create "why" 
meanings (there 4 ways - simple explanations, cause/effect, conditional 
cause/effect, and comparison/constrast) or "when" meaning or "where" 
meaning, etc.  This is not to say that a student should never utter the word 
"dependent clause" - only that learning the term is much less important than 
learning how to construct the meaning and that learning how to construct 
meaning does not depend on learning the term.

Therefore, the approach isn't about "replacing the need for a deeper 
understanding of what language is and how it works."  My contention is that 
we should re-direct our efforts from endless definitional arguments that 
most of the world finds stultifying to finding ways to help students create 
meaning by using the language they already know.

Geoff


>From: Craig Hancock

>     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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> >
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> >
> >
> >
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> >
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