There are several cool new issues to respond to in recent messages.

1 - terminology: who is  'expert' enough to contribute.

Linguists aren't the only people with grammar-term expertise. Grammar
teachers certainly have loads of experience, and this is meant to be a
full two-way interaction.

I really liked the suggestion that we get input from other subscribers on
what terms have been most useful/clear/learnable to them/their students,
and in what order of presentation. That is VERY relevant information for
our SSS mission, as well as this list's mission of sharing what works in
the classroom.

- functional grammar

As to functional grammar, I've been reading up on it -- not finished yet
-- but I see only two big problems so far. One is terminology. Most SFG
terms can be translated into terms that are more familiar to both
linguists of other persuasions and 'traditional grammarians'. The other is
that their account is incomplete and perhaps inaccurate in some places,
according to what other linguistic theories have found out.

I think SFG could be adapted very, very well to grammar instruction. It
provides the necessary motivator of connecting form to function and
meaning, and can have immediate applications in students' writing and
other language-awareness activities. In fact, I'd say its textual
perspective is _imperative_ -- it _must_ be included in order to connect
grammar to context. Thank the goddess SFGers have been doing this work, so
that we don't have to start from scratch. By the way, the related field of
discourse analysis also has much, much, much to offer, such as
speech/writing grammatical differences.

- including function as well as form
Also imperative, I would say. I have a syntax handout that I use that does
both. I'll try to get it on my website so y'all can access it. Then we
could exchange ideas about it.

- 'actant' for 'noun'
'Actant' for either 'noun' or 'subject' is too restrictive. Linguists have
a set of terms for 'case roles': agent, experiencer, beneficiary, patient,
oblique, goal ... there aren't many more than that. Their usefulness is
well-attested by cross-linguistic research. I am wondering if these roles
can be successfully incorporated into grammar teaching. I have had some
success with them in grad courses (grad students who were _very_ poor on
grammar), but I've only tried it once or twice.

As for notions such as 'subject' vs. 'actor', again, we need to have a
more complete description of language to truly understand these terms.
'Subject' does several things in grammar: (1) it fills the role of
'argument' in the 'argument/predicate' propositional structure said to be
the 'underlying meaning' of any clause; (2) it maintains continuity with
foregoing discourse, usually by naming something already mentioned and
quite topical in the discourse (which is why so many subjects are
pronouns). No other definitions -- actor, doer of the action, 'what the
sentence is about' (a clumsy attempt at 'argument of the proposition the
sentence expresses') are either general enough or specific enough to do
the job.

What needs to be decided is _when_ it is appropriate to introduce the term
subject, and whether all of its functions should be taught at once, or
spread out in a sequence.

Also, there are many techniques to find a subject without defining the
term at all, such as tag formation (subject appears as pronoun in tag),
yes-no question formation (subject appears between AUX and main verb),
etc. Noguchi, de Beaugrande, and others use these techniques. They have
worked very well in my classes.

Some of the questions raised -- e.g., having to go through the arduous
task of testing terms for accuracy -- have been answered in linguistic
research. How teachable and usable the terms are, on the other hand, is a
whole different question! Most terms that cut across linguistic theories
work quite well for a variety of languages, and are based on well-known
facts about how languages work. The problem is how hard it is to grasp
these terms for novices to linguistics. My intuition is, if a set of terms
is arrived at, and taught in the proper sequence from fourth grade
onwards, there will be a natural mastery from less to more difficult. In
other words, to some extent, turn grammar teaching into linguistics
applied to English. There are already a few linguistics books for
elementary school out there. I have no idea how well they work. But again,
we have to keep in mind making reasonable demands on working teachers.
They shouldn't have to go get a degree in linguistics. So we need a
reasonable compromise between full-bore linguistics and traditional
grammar.

As to traditional grammar terminology having gone through much refinement,
I'm sorry to say there is still an inadmissable amount of inaccuracy to
just continue using them. For instance, 'pronouns' do not take the place
of nouns. They take the place of noun _phrases_ ('noun groups' in SFG).

-The tall girl scored the first goal. ->
-She scored the first goal. NOT
-*The tall she scored the first goal.

'She' replaces 'the tall girl', not just 'girl'.

And pronouns  aren't the only pro-forms out there: adjective and adverb
phrases and verb phrases all have proforms:

- She told me to call you, and I did _so_. ('So' replaces 'call you', a
verb phrase in linguistic terms) 'Do' is also a pro-verb phrase:
- Will you call Rose? I already _did_. (I know there are analyses in which
this is considered a shortened from of 'I did call Rose').
- We need a large, transparent ruler. But there is no _such_ ruler in this
room. ('such' replaces 'large, transparent').

I could give plenty more examples, but Robert Allen already did a lot of
this work in his 1972 book, Grammar, Grammars and the Teaching of Grammar.
A must-read for all grammar teachers. If we want students to learn grammar
well, we have to teach them the real facts of the language, not the small
sample, sometimes incorrectly termed and defined, that makes up a large
part of traditional grammar. Obviously, students will not learn to analyze
their writing or anybody else's if they are taught untrue or insufficient
descriptions of language.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics              ~
English Department, California Polytechnic State University   ~
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407                                     ~
Tel. (805)-756-2184     Fax: (805)-756-6374                   ~
E-mail: [log in to unmask]                           ~
Office hours Winter 1999: Mon/Wed 10:10-11am Thurs 2:10-3pm   ~
Home page: http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba                     ~
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