[B-Greek] Matthew 8:23 EMBANTI AUTWi ... HKOLOUQHSAN AUTWi and What Grammar Is/Isn't

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Nov 9 13:18:18 EST 2010


On Nov 9, 2010, at 12:14 PM, Christine Bussman wrote:
> On 11/09/10 10:31, Carl Conrad wrote:
>> Then a five-year-old who hasn't been to school and doesn't even know what
>> grammar is cannot formulate a sentence like "Bill bit the cat" or understand
>> what that sentence means when he hears it?

> I think most of this discussion comes down to a definition of grammar.  Some of us would say that that five year old is using grammar, he just hasn't yet learned the rules for that grammar.  We use the term 'grammar' to describe not just the formulation of rules that describe how we speak, but also the natural understanding of those rules that is necessary to be understood.  The five year old has only the natural understanding of grammar.  The older person who is learning English as a second language may only have the the formulated rules.  An older native speaker (hopefully) has both, and uses both as needed.
> 
> This duality of grammar is part of why some of us find the old skill of diagramming sentences so helpful.  It's another place that the two parts of grammar overlap and can help each other be understood.
> 
> Christine Bussman

On Nov 9, 2010, at 12:14 PM, George F Somsel wrote:
> Of course a 5 yr old who hasn't been to school understands.  He understands not 
> because he has been to school (which he has not) but because he has absorbed the 
> rules through hearing the language spoken.
> 
> george
> gfsomsel 

I agree that much of this discussion comes down to how we define "grammar." I want to make a real distinction between "common usage" -- the usage that is observed by the majority of speakers and writers and listeners and readers of a language in any particular era and locale -- and "rules of grammar." I think that the "rules of grammar", whether they be those handed down traditionally and taught in schools or newly-formulated by academic linguists, are endeavors to describe "common usage" and explain how and why it works. And again I call attention to the text of my subject-header: we know what that text means well enough, but we have considerable difficulty offering an altogether mutually acceptable "grammatical" accounting of it. Perhaps the author of GMt hasn't properly "absorbed the rules through hearing the language spoken."?

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)


>> My point is that there are indeed norms of usage for a time and place, but that
>> a grammatical accounting of that usage is a theoretical construct that is
>> secondary to the actual usage of speakers and writers, listeners and readers.
>> I would not equate the norms of usage with "grammar." I think that any
>> grammar is an endeavor to describe and explain the norms of usage.
>> 
>> Carl W. Conrad
>> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)









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