Julie:

You might want to check out Patrick Hartwell's article "Grammar,
Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar". It's written for writing
teachers, and it deals with the different senses of the term
"grammar".

As for textbook grammars, there are too many of these to list. Just
look in any writing handbook. These tend to focus only on written
language and they deal with some combination of the following: the
correction of errors, ESL issues, issues of formality, the
idiosyncrasies of usage and punctuation. These tend to be simplified
in part for pedagogical purposes, and they don't address the issues of
the English language that most of us master without instruction (i.e.
they don't have to say "put the article before the noun").

In terms of a descriptive/empirical grammar (what you call a
professional reference grammar), I would recommend the works of
Huddleston and Pullum. Their "Cambridge Grammar of the English
Language" is quite long and technical, and might be a little
off-putting, but it is incredibly thorough. They have a simplified
version of it in "A Student's Introduction to English Grammar," which
might be a better starting point.

--Dan Roth
Contra Costa College

On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 1:54 PM, Julie Nichols <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I'm interested in John's reference to "a 'real' English grammar," and the difference between textbook grammars and professional reference grammars. Could you point me to titles/authors of each?  (Remember, I'm fairly new to the list and neither a linguist nor a grammarian--"just" a creative writing prof with lit background who's a little obsessed w/good sentence-making. Speaking of which, in the "Great Courses" catalog (audio/video lecture series not associated with any one university), there's a "Building Great Sentences" series of lectures taught by Brooks Landing of the U of Iowa. Looks rich. Anybody know anything about it?)
>
> Best,
> Julie
>
> Julie J. Nichols, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor
> Department of English and Literature
> Utah Valley University MS 153
> 800 West University Parkway
> Orem UT 84058
> 801-863-6795
>>>> "John Dews-Alexander" <[log in to unmask]> 07/28/10 2:43 PM >>>
> I agree with Dan that this is a feature of English that seems to be acquired
> by all native speakers without explicit instruction. ...
> For the budding language nerds in the class though (I remember being one!),
> it may not satisfy. They might be more delighted with an introduction to a
> "real" English grammar (I don't mean to be disparaging, but I think we can
> mostly agree that there is a big difference between textbook grammars and
> professional reference grammars).
>
> ...
> John
>
> On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 3:17 PM, Dan Roth <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Anthony:
>>
>> You are dealing with the issue of subject-auxiliary inversion. From a
>> purely empirical perspective, it is grammatical to invert the subject
>> and the leftmost auxiliary verb to form certain types of question
>> constructions, but I believe it is ungrammatical to invert the subject
>> with anything else. This explains why you cannot invert the subject
>> with the string "do not" (your second example)--it is more than just
>> an auxiliary verb. If you treat an the contraction of auxiliary plus
>> negation as a sub-type of auxiliary, then that predicts that you
>> should be able to do inversion, which is the right prediction.
>>
>> The above describes the empirical facts, but it doesn't give a deeper
>> rationale for "why". I'm not in a position to give a good reason why,
>> beyond observing that it's just how English is. A lot of how the
>> language functions is idiosyncratic. Why does the earth rotate one
>> direction and not the other? That's just how it is, and it could
>> easily have been otherwise.
>>
>> I'm not sure how much of what I've said will help your student. I
>> think it might just overwhelm them--but I hope it at least helps you.
>>
>> I'm not sure how much you even need to explain though. I doubt it's
>> common that any students make the error of inverting "do not" with a
>> subject. I suspect that the principle that you can only invert a
>> subject with a single auxiliary is principle of the English that is
>> mastered very early by children.
>>
>> --Dan Roth
>> Contra Costa College
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 12:53 PM, Anthony DeFazio <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> > Can someone explain, please, why we can say "Why don't you like her?" but
>> > not "Why do not you like her?" A student asked and I was at a loss for an
>> > explanation. Thank you, Tony DeFazio, LIU
>> > To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
>> interface
>> > at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or
>> leave
>> > the list"
>> >
>> > Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>>
>> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface
>> at:
>>     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
>> and select "Join or leave the list"
>>
>> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>>
>
> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
>     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
> and select "Join or leave the list"
>
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>
> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
>     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
> and select "Join or leave the list"
>
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/