CHARLEY EDDOLLS

SESSION 6 REPORT

GRAMMAR – BARBARA IMRIE

What is grammar?

“Grammar is the process of taking a language to pieces, to see how it works.”

Rediscover Grammar

David Crystal

Is it a discipline for the mind?

Will improve the command of spoken and written language?

Is it only found in standard English?

If so, is this standard English the only proper English?

Grammar is not a perfect art, it can be revised as language is always changing. Think of grammar as a ‘tool box’, it can be added to and changed as progress is made.

Knowing grammar or knowing about grammar?

Everyone reading and writing sentences and understanding them already knows grammar in the English language. Chomsky argues that grammar is instinctive and is reflected in our ability to speak English. In speech we put words together in the right order before we learn to read and write. We have evidently already learned the rules. This is ‘knowing’ grammar but it is not the same as ‘knowing about’ grammar. ‘Knowing about’ grammar is the ability to talk about it, to describe what we do. It is a conscious process in which one learns the technical terms and learns why it works.

We covered three areas in particular:

Terminology – word classes

Syntax – sentence structure

Morphology – word formation

Terminology

These descriptions are general and most word classes can be used in more complex ways. ‘Rediscover Grammar’ by David Crystal goes into this in more depth but for the purpose of this session we kept to the most definite descriptions.

nouns a naming word or prefixed by a determinate boy, machine, accident

pronouns deputy noun, to speed things up he, it, who, she

adjective express feature or quality of a noun happy, three, both

verbs action or state, a gluing word go, frighten, be, play

prepositions how two objects are related in space or time in, under, with

conjunctions a joining word and, because, if

adverbs they premodify/postmodify words happily, soon, often

determinates precede a noun, make it definite a, an, the

interjection emotional noises gosh, alas, ugh, shhh

Syntax

Sentences can be split into types – simple, compound and complex. In ‘Rediscover Grammar’ David Crystal argues that three general points apply to any English sentence:

“- It is constructed according to a system of rules, known by all the adult mother-tongue speakers of the language. A sentence formed in this way is said to be grammatical

- It is a construction which can be used on its own, without people feeling that it is incomplete.

- It is the largest construction to which the rules of grammar apply.”

A knowledge of word class is required before you can understand the structure of sentences. The various word classes make up the elements of sentence. An understanding of simple sentences is required before you can understand compound and complex sentences. Learning and understanding how grammar works has to be done as a progression.

Simple sentences – has only one verb.

A simple sentence is a one clause sentence.

subject	+	verb	+	?
Beth		hurried		home	(adverb)
Ed		gobbled a		burger	(object)
A dog		wagged		its tail	(object)

Compound sentences – has two verbs linked by a conjunction.

A compound sentence is two clauses (or simple sentences) attached by a conjunction (linking word).

clause	+	Conjunction	+	clause
Jim loved his dog		and		he walked it every day
I love Italian food		and		I eat it all the time
I went to the cinema		because		I wanted to see a film

Complex sentences – has more than one verb and will be joined by a subordinate conjunction.

A complex sentence joins multiple clauses (or multiple simple sentences) in such a way that one becomes more important than the other. The main clause is the one that can stand on its own. The subordinate clause acts to give extra information. ‘Rebecca went out’ can stand on its own, ‘because she was unhappy’ cannot. The conjunction ‘because’ makes it subordinate to the earlier clause.

main clause	+	subordinate conjunction	+	subordinate clause
Rebecca went out		because		she was unhappy
She was happy		after		Rebecca went out
I answered the door		when		Jane rang the bell

Passive verbs in sentences

We used some examples of sentences in which passive verbs were used to understand how passivity in language can deflect responsibility. In particular we used Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth. We looked at how her character uses passive verbs to shift the agent of responsibility.

We understood how an active verb shows someone/something doing something and how the use of passive verbs are less specific.

active verb	passive verb
I lost it	It got lost
I broke the window yesterday	The window was broken yesterday

There are four types of sentence in modern english:

declarative	This cake is nice.	statement
interrogative	Is that cake nice?	question
imperative	That cake had better be nice	command
exclamation	Oh gosh, that cake was good.	exclaiming

Morphology

There are two types of morphology, inflectional and derivational.

Inflectional morphology

A morpheme is a linguistic unit, the smallest unit that can affect meaning in word building.

happy – an adjective – has one morpheme

happily – an adverb - two morphemes

unhappiness – a noun – has three morphemes

Derivational morphology

black	=	adj
blackbird	=	adj + noun	=	noun
blackjack	=	adj + noun	=	noun
blackboard	=	adj + noun	=	noun
pick	=	verb
pickpocket	=	verb + noun	=	noun
handout	=	verb + noun	=	noun
skislope	=	verb + noun	=	noun

The session did not examine the depths and complexities of irregular grammar, but in understanding the basic rules of grammar we have widened our understanding of the English language. Teaching the grammar used today and understanding how and why it works we enable pupils to understand the complexities of texts written in a manner previously unfamiliar to them. In understanding texts such as Shakespeare many students will find the language and style confusing. Learn to identify and re-shuffle the elements of the text and it becomes a much less daunting task.