Bob and Judy and all,

Rather than deal with actors etc., I simplify sentences for basic writers at a
community college by telling them that subjects and predicates connect to explain
who is doing what or what is happening.   We can look at these two parts as the
two slots of a sentence: the subject slot and the predicate slot.  Whether the
subject and predicate slots are long or short, they give the same kind of
information.  The subject gives the topic of the sentence, telling us who or
what.  The predicate answers the question: what about it?

This simple formula works for Bob's sentences below, and it works for my students
who gain a firm handle on the basic sentence.  I advocate it not necessarily for a
thorough systemic grammar beginning in third grade, but it makes sense to my
students.   Pam

Pam Dykstra
South Suburban College
15800 S. State Street
South Holland, IL 60473



Bob Yates wrote:

> I appreciate Judy sharing with us how she uses systemic functional
> grammar in her teaching.
>
> Judy Diamondstone wrote:
> > Some of the functional terms that I find illuminating about the nature of
> > the English language are those that show the way English language cuts up
> > the universe of experience -- they set up categories or bins that students
> > can try to 'fill' with vocabulary they find. Consider the sentence, "my
> > father died." Which bin does the noun phrase go in? Is it an Actor/Agent, a
> > Behaver,or a Goal? Which bin does the verb phrase go in -- is it Doing,
> > Behaving, or Relating? Students can categorise words taken from a set of
> > sentences, labeled in formal terms. What kinds of verb phrases goes with
> > what kinds of noun phrases? A grammarian would have various tests to apply
> > to determine which bin, but even students working intuitively can "see"
> > something about what our language makes possible and what it blurs.
>
> I am not quite sure how making students aware of these various "bins"
> help students become better writers let alone deal with whether the
> structures they have use are standard or non-standard.
>
> Here is a similar kind of description in the 1996 book Introducing
> Function Grammar (Arnold) by Geoff Thompson . Thompson is discussing
> "material process" verbs. The following sentences are his examples
> showing the various types of material processes and whether the Actor is
> human or an inanimate abstract entity.
>
>                 He has been shaving.
>                 The young girl bounded out of the gate.
>                 Edward was sawing the wood.
>                 Her mother smashed the glass.
>
>                 The car slithered off the road.
>                 Coarse grass was growing.
>                 The unhappiness disappeared.
>
>                 The fire had destroyed everything.
>                 Scores of tiny brambles scratched him.
>                 The pounding rhythm shook walls and floors.  (p 80)
>
> Here is what Jim Kenkel and I said at ATEG several years ago about this
> list.
>
> The problem with this list is that in the interest of grouping these
> verbs by meaning their syntactic properties have been ignored.  There is
> no explanation of the fact that these verbs which represent the notion
> of material process do so through a wide array of verb structures.  The
> first grouping, for example, has an intransitive verb with a zero
> complement, an intransitive verb with an adverbial complement, and two
> transitive verbs. To reiterate, this is an unlikely state of affairs if,
> to use Halliday's words, formal structures are "organic configurations
> of functions" or [every grammatical structure] can be explained,
> ultimately, by reference to how language is used."  SF provides no
> explanation of the principles by which meanings such as "material
> processes" are instantiated into linguistic form.
>
> Earlier today Martha Kolln put forth the following goal for a good
> grammar program:
>
>         A good grammar program would not pre-empt writing and literature; it
> can work with
>         writing and literature. And it can, and should, give students
> confidence
>         in their own innate grammar expertise--an important aspect of teaching
> and
>         learning grammar that is completely missing from the traditional
> grammar.
>
> I don't think that recognizing "material process" verbs is part of any
> native speakers innate grammar expertise.  More importantly, I don't
> even understand the purpose of learning such  categories to improve
> one's writing.  For example, I don't think that anyone ever says to
> herself "I am writing an X type text and an X type text requires
> material process verbs.  Oh! no! here I have used a mental process verb
> (discussed in Thompson on page 82+).  I have to change to a material
> process verb."
>
> Perhaps, I have missed something in my reading of Thompson, but I don't
> understand how these categories of SFG achieve what Martha has said a
> good grammar program needs to do.
>
> Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University