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The Teacher’s Grammar Book is designed for students who are preparing to be-come English or language arts teachers, as well as for credentialed teacherswho want to know more about gramm

The Teacher’s Grammar Book

Second Edition

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The Teacher’s Grammar Book

Second Edition

James D Williams

Soka University

LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS

Copyright © 2005 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced in any form,

by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other means, without prior written permission of the publisher.

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers

10 Industrial Avenue

Mahwah, New Jersey 07430

www.erlbaum.com

Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Williams, James D (James Dale), 1949–

The teacher's grammar book / James D Williams.—2nd ed.

p cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8058-5221-2 (pbk : alk paper)

1 English language—Grammar 2 English language—Grammar— Study and teaching I Title.

PE1112.W46 2005

CIP Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed on acid-free paper, and their bindings are chosen for strength and durability.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Grammar in the Middle Ages 7

The Age of Enlightenment 9

The Age of Reason 12

Modern Grammars 15

Recognizing the Challenges 17

Learning Outcomes 19

Grammar and Writing 23

Why Teach Grammar? 40

Best Practices 41

Suggested Activities 47

v

3 Traditional Grammar 50

Prescriptive Grammar in Our Schools 50

Form and Function in Grammar 53

Subjects and Predicates 54

From the Universal to the Particular 97

Phrase–Structure Rules 101

Tree Diagrams 107

Coordination 114

Progressive Verb Forms 130

Perfect Verb Forms 133

Nonfinite Verb Forms 154

Summary of Phrase–Structure Rules 156

The Chomsky Revolution 161

Deep Structure and Surface Structure 166

The Basics of Transformation Rules 169

Relative Clause Formation 174

The Minimalist Program 162

A Critique of the Minimalist Program 191

7 Dialects 220

What Is a Dialect? 220

How Do Dialects Develop? 221

Students and Dialects 224

Chicano English Grammar 246

Chicano English in the Classroom 248

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The Teacher’s Grammar Book is designed for students who are preparing to

be-come English or language arts teachers, as well as for credentialed teacherswho want to know more about grammar Most grammar books focus on termi-nology Some add a discussion of the connection between grammar and writ-

ing The Teacher’s Grammar Book, however, is different Certainly, it treats

terminology thoroughly, but it is far more than just a list of grammar terms It is

not a handbook and was never intended to be one The Teacher’s Grammar Book was designed to offer an easy-to-use guide to teaching methods and

grammar and usage questions, a combination that has not been readily able before In addition, it provides an overview of English grammar that is in-formed not only by historical developments in the field but also by a variety ofpedagogical, research, and philosophical issues that underlie grammar and ourefforts to understand grammar, language, writing, and teaching Out of thiswide-ranging exploration emerges the view that a teacher’s choice of grammarreflects philosophical and pedagogical orientations that influence both the con-tent and the methods of language arts instruction

avail-The Teacher’s Grammar Book grew out of my experience teaching grammar

and composition methods courses to education students since 1981 What I covered early in my career is that large numbers of prospective teachers do notfeel confident about their knowledge of English grammar They experience acertain degree of anxiety as a result Most have recognized that they will be re-quired to teach grammar—and they aren’t happy about it Many have had badexperiences with grammar in the past They “didn’t get it,” or, sadder still, they

dis-“just didn’t like it.” Nearly all are surprised when, a few weeks into my mar courses, they discover not only that they are “getting it” but that grammar is

gram-ix

actually fun The Teacher’s Grammar Book aims to take readers on a similar

voyage of discovery

What’s New in the Second Edition

The many teachers and students who used the first edition of The Teacher’s Grammar Book provided various suggestions over the years intended to make

the text better I’ve tried to incorporate their suggestions into the second edition

as much as possible, and I hope they are happy with the result of this indirectcollaboration In many respects, the finished product is significantly differentfrom the original The more important changes are:

• A new chapter providing a short history of grammar and its role in education

• A new chapter on teaching grammar that examines not only the challengesteachers face but also what research, theory, and classroom experience tell usconstitutes “best practices.”

• A significant reduction in the formalism associated with phrase structuregrammar so as to focus more on the descriptive goals of this approach to lan-guage analysis

• A complete revision of the chapter on transformational–generative grammarthat significantly reduces the discussion of transformation rules and tree dia-grams so as to focus more on other features of this approach, such as its influ-ence on teaching and psychology; also new is a summary of the model—theminimalist program—that Noam Chomsky developed to replace trans-formational–generative grammar

• A complete revision of the chapter on cognitive grammar that not only makesthe discussion more current but also more detailed, addressing how cognitivegrammar provides insight into common problems associated with teachingwriting, such as creating meaning and errors in language

• A thorough revision of the chapter on dialects to make it both more currentand more detailed; the discussion of Chicano English is significantly ex-panded, and new in this edition is a brief analysis of Spanglish and an explo-ration of code switching

• Also new is the focus on teaching grammar and language as a thread thatwinds through each chapter, making the text more thoroughly a tool to helpteachers meet the challenge of grammar instruction

Chapter One. The first chapter offers a brief history of grammar in theWestern tradition Although there are some interesting stories to tell about thestudy of grammar in places like India, China, and the Middle East, they are notvery relevant to American public education, based as it is on Greek and Romanmodels The goal of this chapter, therefore, is to give readers a sense of the place

grammar has held in Western education since the days of Plato and Aristotle sothat they can better understand and appreciate why we expect students to learnsomething about the English language.

Chapter Two. Chapter 2 explores various approaches to teaching mar, and in many respects it is central to developing an effective classroommethodology There are many different ways to teach grammar, and this chap-ter examines the most common, assessing their strengths and weaknesses withthe aim of identifying best practices

gram-Central to this chapter is the section on grammar and writing Most teachers

and many textbooks, such as Weaver’s (1996) Teaching Grammar in Context and Noden’s (1999) Image Grammar: Using Grammatical Structures to Teach Writing, advocate teaching grammar in the context of writing However, few

recognize the difficulties and faulty assumptions inherent in this approach as itusually is applied Emphasizing the linguistic perspective that informs the en-

tire book, this section makes an important distinction between grammar and usage, explaining why most of the sentence errors we see in student writing are

not problems of grammar but rather problems of usage An important feature of

The Teacher’s Grammar Book are the Usage Notes that appear at key points to

explain a wide range of common usage problems Finally, the chapter examinesexisting research and explores the most pedagogically sound ways to linkgrammar and writing

Chapter Three. Although chapter 2 is important for every guage arts teacher, chapter 3, “Traditional Grammar,” may be even more im-portant because it provides the foundation for actually teaching grammar Thesubsequent chapters are built on this foundation, and together they will elimi-nate any lack of confidence readers may have about their knowledge of gram-mar The chapter begins by introducing basic grammatical terms andexplaining their role in language study It does not assume that readers have anysignificant knowledge of grammar at all so as to create a comfortable space forlearning Taking a standard approach, grammar is divided into two categories

English/lan-of analysis, form and function.

Chapter 3 also builds on the grammar/usage distinction by introducing a

fundamental feature of modern language study—appropriateness conditions.

Based in part on Hymes’ (1971) principles of communicative competence, propriateness conditions contextualize language use and allow students to un-derstand more thoroughly the factors that make writing different from speechand that enable us to recognize that the language we use when talking withfriends over pizza and beer will be different from the language we use during a

job interview In addition, chapter 3 examines traditional grammar’s tive approach to language study and explores the implications for teaching.

prescrip-Chapter Four. Chapter 4 introduces phrase–structure grammar and plains how it emerged during the early part of the 20th century as an alternative

ex-to traditional grammar Because phrase–structure grammar provides the lytical basis for all modern grammars, the chapter devotes considerable atten-tion to helping students understand phrase–structure notation The primary

ana-focus, however, is on understanding the descriptive, as opposed to the tive, nature of phrase structure and how this orientation is central to differenti-

prescrip-ating modern grammars from traditional grammar

Chapter Five. Chapter 5 introduces transformational–generative (T–G)grammar as an historical evolution of the work in phrase structure Many stu-dents find T–G challenging, and others resist its complexities by arguing that it

is irrelevant to teaching high school language arts They often are put off by thefact that T–G grammar has undergone numerous changes over the years Nev-ertheless, in the United States, T–G grammar remains an influential tool for an-alyzing language and therefore should be part of any language arts teacher’straining The first part of the chapter examines the fundamental features of T–Ggrammar and explains in simple terms how transformations work The secondpart of the chapter examines the principles that underlie the latest evolution of

the generative approach: the minimalist program (MP) This new approach has

dropped many of the features that characterized T–G grammar, simplifying therules associated with language production while simultaneously increasing thelevel of abstraction regarding the relation between grammar and language

Chapter Six. T–G grammar and the MP can be characterized as

“formalist” approaches to language because of their emphasis on rules and theapplication of those rules Advocates of formalist grammars—most impor-tantly, Noam Chomsky—have claimed consistently that they reflect the under-lying psychological mechanisms of language That is, they have viewed thestudy of grammar as a means of developing a theory of mind This claim ispowerful, but to date scholars have had little success in supporting it Numer-ous studies have failed to reveal any connections between formalist grammarsand underlying cognitive mechanisms, leaving them with the unhappy status ofunsubstantiated theories As a result, various scholars began developing an al-

ternative approach What emerged was cognitive grammar, the subject of

chap-ter 6 This grammar draws heavily on work in cognitive science to develop a

model of language processing that is more congruent with mental operationsand that can provide important insights into teaching grammar and writing.

Chapter Seven. Many of our public schools, especially in the nation’scities, have a majority student population of nonnative English speakers andspeakers of a nonstandard dialect As a result, the need for teachers to havesome knowledge of dialects and English as a second language is greater thanever before Chapter 7 is designed to provide an introduction to the critical is-sues related to teaching these students As such, it offers a solid foundation foradditional studies in dialects and English as a second language

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Books like this are never the product of a single person’s efforts, and many

peo-ple have figured significantly in the writing of The Teacher’s Grammar Book.

My linguistics professors at the University of Southern California—JackHawkins, Steve Krashen, and Sue Foster Cohen—were inspiring teachers whoencouraged me to look deeper into language than I thought I could I am grate-ful to the many fine students I’ve worked with over the years who have shared

my enthusiasm for grammar and who have stimulated me to find better ways ofteaching an often complex subject I greatly appreciate the comments and sug-gestions of the following reviewers: Stuart C Brown, New Mexico State Uni-versity; Gerald Delahuntt, Colorado State University; Susana M Sotillo,Montclair State University; and Rosalind Horowitz, University of Texas, SanAntonio They offered valuable advice for this second edition I could not havecompleted this work without the help of my assistants, Lynn Hamilton-Gamman and Ceclia Ocampos And I am ever grateful for the support of mywife, Ako, and my son, Austin

—James D Williams

Chino Hills, California

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A Short History of Grammar

AGREEING ON A DEFINITION

Grammar is a term used to mean many different things When teachers and

ad-ministrators grow frustrated over errors in student writing, they often call for a

return to “the basics,” which they define as grammar And English teachers

know very well what the response will be when they tell anyone what they dofor a living: “Oh, I better watch what I say!” In this situation, grammar is beingdefined as how one speaks

Many years ago, Hartwell (1985, pp 352–353) organized some of these ferent meanings in an attempt to clarify our understanding of grammar by of-fering five different definitions, summarized here:

dif-1 A set of formal patterns in which the words of a language are arranged to vey a larger meaning

con-2 The branch of linguistics concerned with the description, analysis, and mulation of formal language patterns

for-3 Linguistic etiquette

4 School grammar, or the names of the parts of speech

5 Grammatical terms used in the interest of teaching writing

Hartwell’s (1985) taxonomy is certainly useful, and there is no question that

teachers need to be aware of the many ways the term grammar is used

through-out education and society Nevertheless, it can be confusing The taxonomyseems to separate “school grammar” from writing instruction when the twousually are connected Also, it does not tell us much about the differences be-tween spoken and written language, nor does it tell us anything about dialects

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