Bob -

I have always looked to you as the linguistic link between native and 
non-native speakers.  As you may have noticed, a lot of my thinking is based 
on what I perceive to be the basic grammar knowledge of the native speaker - 
in other words, no native speaker eliminates prepositions ("She put the book 
the table") or objects ("She put the book on"); no native speaker makes word 
order errors ("The book she on the table put"); nobody eliminates verbs or 
subjects from sentences("She the book on the table" or "The book put on the 
table") .  Everybody knows how to use adjectives and adverbs.  Nor would any 
native speaker fail to substitute a pronoun for a noun ("John lost John's 
book at the game").  Native speakers know how to create dependent clauses 
("I was late because I missed the bus" not "I was late.  I missed the bus.") 
  Therefore, native speakers don't have to be taught however many arbitrary 
parts of speech there are today.  Nor is it necessary for these students to 
go looking for them in sentences ("Find the PART OF SPEECH in the following 
paragraph").  In fact, neither the ACT nor the SAT ever asks students to 
identify any part of speech.  Am I on track with this line of argument?

Geoff



>From: Robert Yates <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar              
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: knowledge about language
>Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 11:15:48 -0500
>
>Herb makes a good suggestion.
>
> >>> "Stahlke, Herbert F.W."
>
>By the way, Geoff, a book or a few articles dealing with "writing in
>the context of grammar" might be a good antidote to Weaver's very widely
>known work. I find among our graduate composition and rhetoric students
>that if there's anything they know about grammar it's Weaver.  There's a
>need for a good, strong antidote.
>
>**************
>I humbly suggest an article that examines the context of student
>innovations and proposes that sentence level grammar categories are
>inadequate to describe what students are actually doing in their
>handling of information in the texts they construct.
>
>For example, we propose that the run-on that Craig presented, from the
>student perspective, is purposeful.
>
>Kenkel, J. & Yates, R. (2003).  A developmental perspective on the
>relationship between grammar and text.  Journal of Basic Writing, 22(1),
>  35-49.
>
>We have a paper under review that broadens this claim to both native
>and non-native speaker developmental writing.
>
>Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
>
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