I can see where I am going to have one helluva time teaching grammar. I
agree with Herb that we must have "honest alternative explanations" but I
find that with the present limited knowledge and abilities of my students I
can barely scratch the surface. I have students in grade eleven and twelve
who are unable to distinguish verbs and nouns, who cannot identify
prepositions, and for whom recognizing subordinate clauses is an incredible
intellectual feat. They have had no instruction in grammar at all. My own
experience is limited (probably obvious in my postings here), and I am
primarily interested in providing a minimum of instruction that will not eat
up too much time from my already meagre allotment (85-87 75-minute periods
for a typical semester English course). I have worked in tutorials with
individual students, clarifying concepts and deepening their understanding,
but classroom instruction remains difficult. When I am faced with questions
such as these (the IO discussion), I am faced with a choice: give my
students a straightforward explanation that will be relatively easy to
recognize (prepositional phrase) and leave it at that, knowing that some of
them will later discover further subtleties in forums such as this listserv,
or spend too much time providing highly nuanced instruction. I can't afford
to do the latter.
It seems clear to me why most of my English teaching colleagues don't even
bother to teach grammar. I will continue to do my best, and I do appreciate
the efforts that you people bring to the subject, but sometimes I think that
the job is impossible, especially as there is no easily adopted, clearly
presented grammar for my situation.
I have worked with Ed Vavra's material for some time, adapting it to my
situation with some limited success. There is a systemic difficulty in my
school district that I think must be the case elsewhere as well: we have no
prescribed curriculum covering grammar. Nobody is required to teach it. My
students frequently have had no instruction. Tell me how to teach grammar
to four classes of 35 sixteen year old students in a semester of 85 days,
using only 10-15 minutes per day. Give me a book with instruction,
exercises, and other resources, such that I can start on page one and work
my way through with little experience of my own, and I will probably be able
to persuade more teachers to teach grammar. Remember that very few of the
students know anything of grammar, and very often their teachers aren't much
better off. (Although they know little else, my students are quick to remind
me that "you are not supposed to start a sentence with "because"." They
learn this in school!)
By the way, once I am past the basic instruction, my students and I work
with the literature we are studying and with texts produced by the students
themselves. We have had surprises in our study of poetry, having applied a
syntactical analysis before anything else. Poems such as Frost's "Silken
Tent" become not only more accessible, but more intriguing after even a
simple grammatical analysis. For us, grammar is a tool for understanding as
well as expression.
I admit that I sometimes do not understand what some of you are talking
about; I am not a linguist. But I do get some helpful ideas here, and I
will continue to read. If some of my students show up in your classes at
university, and don't immediately appreciate the IO function of a
prepositional phrase, don't judge them too harshly; be grateful that they
can recognize a prepositional phrase. And have mercy on me -- I am barely
ten yards ahead of them.
Respectfully,
Len Wyatt
Port Coquitlam, BC
Canada
[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Stahlke, Herbert F.W.
Sent: September 22, 2004 11:23 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: IO
Carol makes a good point, that we have many options for saying things in
English, and, to draw from an ongoing NPG discussion, this flexibility
has to be an important topic in grammar instruction. Students need to
know what their options are and how to use them appropriately.
On the IO, the genitive, etc., Carol points to the fact that what we
call IO is not a discrete thing but a cluster of properties that select
different kinds of verbs as the properties vary. Beth Levin's English
Verb classes and Alternations (Chicago 1993) is the most thorough
treatment that I know of that uses such properties and syntactic
behaviors to cross-classify English verbs. IO, DO, genitive, subject,
etc. are prototypes rather than strictly definable categories.
I realize the prototype approach might not work too well in upper
elementary grades, but as students get more sophisticated they also
begin to poke holes in the strict categories of traditional school
grammar, and we have to be ready at that point to give them useful and
honest alternative explanations.
Herb
I hold to the strict definition of the indefinite object as the V IO DO
pattern.
However, English is interesting because it has occasionally has two
different methods of achieving the same goal, each with slightly
different implications, which I assume is why both remain. We have the
two ways of expressing transfer. V IO DO and V DO prep Object (an
adverbial phrase saying "where did it go", the equivalent of "He went to
the mall.")
Other dual methods of "saying the same thing with different
constructions"
We have the inflectional possessive: "book's cover"
The periphrastic (added words) possessive: "cover of the book"
In some cases, we have the inflectional comparison: "purpler" (by the
two
syllable rule, equivalent to "greener")
the periphrastic comparative: "more purple"
We can make a possessive through inflection: "improve the students'
learning"
We can use a noun modifier: "improve student learning."
English is rich in possibilities of conveying subtle differences in
meaning!
C.W. Pollard
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stahlke, Herbert F.W.
Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 1:36 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: IO
Johanna,
When I present ditransitives, I present V IO DO and V DO PP as
alternative structures. We talk about pragmatic factors governing
choice between them, and I give them examples of verbs like "explain"
that allow only V DO PP and verbs like "wish" that allow only V IO DO.
We also talk about verbs like "warn" that take V IO PP (Mary warned John
of the danger) and false ditransitives like "Mary gave the wall a coat
of paint". While I present seven different verb types, based on
complementation, I want them to understand that these are major types
but don't come close to exhausting the classification.
Herb
My students also often bring up the IO terminology problem. I tell them
it is a matter of different use of terminology by different analysts.
Then I tell them I will use IO to refer only to the noun phrase
following the verb, not the PP.
That leaves the question of what to call the PP. I'd like to say it's
adverbial, but it doesn't fit the structural diagnostics for adverbials.
For instance, adverbials answer "when, where, why, how, and for what
purpose" questions. PP-IO's don't answer such questions; the questions
for such PPs are "who(m) did you give it to' or "who(m) did you make it
for".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba Associate 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. 756-2596
* E-mail: [log in to unmask] * Home page:
http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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