Grammatical Terminology Research Articles

Workshop on Grammatical Terminology for Elementary Textbooks

Workshop on Grammatical Terminology for Elementary Textbooks

Written Arabic: An Approach to the Basic Structures

Introduction Grammatical terminology The Arabic script 1. nouns and adjectives 2. Demonstratives, pronouns and the basic thematic sentence 3. The verb 4. Qualifying clauses and similar structures 5. Connectives 6. Thematic sentence forms and noun clauses 7. Modifications of the thematic sentences 8. Verbs of vague application, participles 9. Negatives 10. Intensified adjectives and similar word patterns 11. Circumstance clauses 12. Conditional sentences and similar structures 13. Terminal variations in nouns and adjectives 14. Terminal variations in the imperfect 15. Prepositional phrases 16. Queries, commands and exclamations 17. Some miscellaneous functionals 18. Dual number and numerals Appendix Arabic index English index.

A Study of the Correlation between Awareness of Structural Relationships in English and Ability in Reading Comprehension

IT HAS OFTEN been asserted that lack of gram] matical knowledge accounts for a great deal of in competence in reading, but the various studies in vestigating the correlation of knowledge of grammar and ability in reading have offered no conclusive j objective evidence to support the assertion. In fact, I most of the studies that have been made indicate that the two are not highly correlated. It should I be pointed out, however, that those who have inves tigated the relationship in question have not made a clear distinction between awareness of grammatical structure and knowledge of grammatical rules and terminology. They have generally based their find ings on measurements of the degree of mastery of the conventional English grammar course, which, in the opinion of many modern grammarians, does not adequately represent the essentials of gram matical structure.

On Grammatical Terminology and Aspect in Particular

It is over fifty years now since the formation of the Joint Committee on Grammatical Terminology, and the presentation of its Report and it seems to be high time that teachers of languages considered, first, how successful they have been in carrying out its recommendations, and secondly, what modifications are called for in the light of more recent knowledge. The Committee was a strong one, with E. A. Sonnenschein in the chair and R. S. Conway as the original secretary, both representing the Classical Association; the Modern Language Association, the English Association, and various educational bodies sent equally distinguished representatives. Their recommendations, apart from a few reservations by individuals on comparatively minor points, were unanimous, and have on the whole won fairly general neglect, not as a rule through disagreement with them, but simply because it was less trouble to go on using whatever terms one had been in the habit of using before, however inconvenient, confusing, or inexact they might be. Before discussing the recommendations it seems desirable to glance at the history of the ‘old’ terminology in order to see what was unsatisfactory about it and why it needed to be changed.

ÆLfric's Grammatical Terminology

The Latin Grammar of Ælfric, Abbot of Eynsham, was a well-known and influential book in late Old English times; the number of extant manuscripts in which it appears in whole or in part and the range of dates represented by them indicate the extent of its currency then.Less familiar to most students today, perhaps, than his homilies and other scientific and pedagogical treatises, it is still a significant part of the corpus of Ælfric's work. Investigation of its pages extends our knowledge of methods of teaching at that time and of the particular needs of English students not yet ready for the more extensive and detailed Latin grammars of Priscian and Donatus, the standard texts of the Middle Ages, parts of which are adapted and translated in the Grammar for use in English schools. More fully and in a particular way the Grammar reveals Ælfric himself at work: his aims and methods in the translation and adaptation of original Latin works for use in England; his mastery of Latin and of English; his great skill in adapting the native English tongue to new uses. There has hitherto been no adequate account of Ælfric's procedure, with the result that his aim and method in this work have been imperfectly comprehended, and critics have tended to bestow praise and blame somewhat at random. The present study attempts to present such an account, through analysis and example, and to estimate the subsequent importance of his grammatical terminology as a contribution to the development of the English vocabulary.

GRAMMATICAL TERMINOLOGY IN TEACHING ENGLISH

GRAMMATICAL TERMINOLOGY IN TEACHING ENGLISH

Is One Year of Elementary Grammar Enough?

T HE other day I had a talk with a member of the Business Administration staff here on our campus. Both of us did a fair share of complaining about the lack of background in the students of our respective fields of work and the final remark made by the gentleman in question was: You complain about the fact that your students don't know a thing about grammar; ours don't know a thing about arithmetic. Evidently, lack of knowledge in fundamentals is not entirely confined to the field of foreign language studies; and, if anything, the statement made above shows that a sound knowledge of fundamentals is an absolute necessity for the successful pursuit of studies in the various fields of knowledge. The following remarks are, therefore, intended to be somewhat of a reply to Mr. Andrew D. Roberts' study entitled LANGUAGE OR GRAMMAR? in the February 1948 issue of The Modern Language Journal. This study, to be sure, was related to Spanish only, but one cannot escape the implication that its intended significance has some bearing on other foreign languages as well. There can, of course, be no doubt that after a number of years grammatical terminology and its vital functions should, on the one hand, be largely lost to the average and immature student and that, on the other hand, some easy phrases, which by the way, could be learned and remembered by even a non-language student, be remembered and reproduced correctly. Nothing is shown in the study which would indicate how much mere exposure to grammatical terminology helped the student to learn a foreign language even without his being aware of it. The subconscious factor is, of course, one of major importance and must be taken into consideration. To check on Mr. Roberts' findings I am at the present time taking a careful count in my oral classwork on the same problem. And, contrary to Mr. Roberts' results I find that 66% of my first year students are definitely aided by their knowledge of grammar, and that among the remaining ones there are a number of students who have a flair for oral German. Thus, I wish to go on record with the statement that the trend away from sound knowledge can only be deplored. Moreover, I want to say that the time of one year which is traditionally devoted to the acquisition of a grammatical background for advanced foreign language studies is not enough; rather we should have a basic foreign language program of two years during which the study of grammar is to be

How Much Grammatical Terminology Should They Know?

How Much Grammatical Terminology Should They Know?

How Much Grammatical Terminology Should They Know?

How Much Grammatical Terminology Should They Know?

Language or Grammar?

THIS study was motivated by the novel concepts presented in a recent Spanish series for grades seven to twelve. The aim was to test the premises and techniques underlying the series on past consumers of foreign language in widely separated school systems. For this purpose fifty veterans were chosen ranging in age from seventeen to twenty-six with an average age of twenty-three. Each had completed two years of high school language: thirty-five in California, ten in the Middle West and five in the South. The individuals were asked the same set of diagnostic questions so that their responses would yield a general trend or set of conclusions. The study was concerned with the following issues: Is grammatical terminology vague or unintelligible to the average person? If so, is it a necessary framework for foreign language teaching? Can a non-native learn to speak, understand and write a foreign language satisfactorily for real-life purposes without benefit of grammatical terminology? Is it necessary for an individual to master the language of grammatical terminology in order to learn to communicate in school, or can this intermediate step be removed, or at least de-emphasized, by the teacher? Only non-native students who had taken two years of high school Spanish were studied. The interviews were conducted in as simple and elementary a way as possible in order to insure lucid responses. To prevent boredom or uneasiness on the part of the individuals a short questionnaire was constructed. The questions and the responses are summarized in the following paragraphs:

Disabilities of College Freshmen in Sentence Structure

FOR many years the Guiler-Campbell Analytical Survey Test in English Fundamentals' has been given early in the college year to Miami University Freshmen. The test covers seven phases of English usage: spelling, capitalization, punctuation, sentence organization, sentence structure, grammatical usage, and grammatical terminology. The purpose of this article is to report the results of an analytical study of the difficulties encountered by college Freshmen on the sentence-structure phase of the Analytical Survey Test. The study deals with a phase of learning the social value of which is unquestioned. Intercommunication is one of life's major activities. The things which are communicated consist of ideas. The most common carrier of ideas is language, of which the unit is the sentence. With these statements in mind, it becomes apparent that a person cannot become proficient in the performance of language activities until he possesses, along with other skills, the ability to use sentences that are structurally correct.

A Descriptive Grammar of Living German: Let Us Act Now!

UNDER THE IMPACT of war objective in instruction is rapidly shifting to speaking ability. Many of us have always been aware of fact spoken is more important than written. The reasons for our rather modest goal of a knowledge during last decades have been stated often enough to obviate a repetition here. There are in existence in United States today many German grammars. We constantly change from one to another and never find them satisfactory. We object to arrangement of materials, to type of supporting reading and exercise materials, or to grammatical terminology used by authors. Sometimes we find fault because this or has been omitted. Some few of us are aware that authors and editors cling to antiquated and disagree among themselves. Nevertheless, considering one person and sometimes two have produced these grammars, we realize product is not so bad, after all; and we readily admit we probably could not do better if we undertook a similar venture. After struggling through grammar we happen to be using, we heave a sigh of relief. Some of us embark on reading of some German text was not written in Chicago, Boston, New York, or Chapel Hill. But our students are constantly puzzled by violations of time-honored rules we have just taught in one of our grammars. To explain these violations we have learned a number of tricks. Sometimes we make up a of our own. Or we indulge in philosophic generalities, such as the so-called 'rules' may hold true in most cases; this is an exception to a 'rule' ; or language is a living, irrational, constantly growing organism. Or we say: Why, author has violated rule you have learned, to be sure. But considering his greatness in field of German literature, we must forgive him for a little slip. Above all, we are altogether too ready with word idiom for anything is not in rules. Some of us become annoyed about these embarrassing irregularities. Thus we write our own texts very neatly according to

Report of the Committee on Grammatical Nomenclature in the Teaching of German, Continued

Preliminary remarks.-The importance of having uniformity in grammatical nomenclature in the teaching of languages has been recognized by teachers and scholars in at least five great nations of the world: England, France, Germany, Austria, and the United States. Within the last twenty-five years all of these countries have published reports on grammatical terminology, which have been used as a guide by most authors and textbook makers, except in our own country and especially in the publication of German texts. The American report was prepared by a joint committee of fifteen members-five appointed by each of the three leading associations of schoolmen: the National Education Association, the Modern Language Association and the American Philological Association, assisted by a committee of the National Council of Teachers of English. After more than two years of deliberation and frequent conferences the Report of the Joint Committee on Grammatical Nomenclature was adopted by the four great associations without a dissenting voice. The National Education Association and the National Council

THE MODERN LANGUAGE STUDENT vs. ENGLISH GRAMMAR

Author's summary.— Tests given to college freshmen reveal a direct relation between knowledge of (English) grammar and proficiency in foreign language. Modern language teachers must give more systematic instruction in grammatical terminology and theory in order to give their pupils a fair chance to learn the foreign language.

A Further Word on Grammatical Terminology

A Further Word on Grammatical Terminology

The Classification of Sentences and Clauses

If you go into any grammar school and visit English classes of the upper grades, you will hear a certain classification of sentences employed-namely, into declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory-and insisted upon as of fundamental importance. It is one of the points in which students are most carefully drilled. This classification is found, in substance, in all the elementary English grammars in our schools; in the large English grammars of Sweet, Earle, Maetzner, and others; in all our American Latin grammars but one; in various English and German grammars of Latin; in various Greek grammars; in Maetzner's French grammar, Whitney's German grammar, in the recent Report of the English Committee on Grammatical Terminology, etc., etc. With a single exception, namely the Hale-Buck Latin Grammar, all books that give any scheme give this. The classification is over two thousand years old. It goes back to Aristotle,' whose scheme-a somewhat fuller one, but essentially the same-was: declarative, vocative, optative, interrogative, imperative. In spite of its venerable history,2 I believe, and have long taught, that the classification is unsound, and must be abandoned.

Some Preliminary Considerations in Planning the Revision of Grammatical Terminology

Some Preliminary Considerations in Planning the Revision of Grammatical Terminology

Some Problems of Grammatical Terminology

Some Problems of Grammatical Terminology

Note on the Work of the Joint Committee of Fifteen on Grammatical Terminology

Note on the Work of the Joint Committee of Fifteen on Grammatical Terminology