Syntax Grammars

Steven Craig Miller scmiller at www.plantnet.com
Wed Dec 8 09:55:51 EST 1999


To: Paul Zellmer,

<<  While Brooks and Winbery is an appropriate book for the second year 
course of studies, it is, in fact, a "beginning syntax" which should be 
followed by an advanced syntax study/studies. >>

Each to their own, I guess. But it seems silly to me to try to reduce 
everything to one of two extremes so that the only categories one has to 
work with are either "beginning" or "advanced." In addition, I would take 
exception to the notion that one does not learn any syntax in most first 
years courses. In my opinion, it is more descriptive to refer to 
Brooks-Winbery as an intermediate text. While you might personally feel 
that the two categories ("beginning" and "advanced") are sufficient to 
describe all the grammars which have been published, I, on the other hand, 
do not believe that even three categories ("beginning," "intermediate", and 
"advanced") are sufficient to describe all the grammars, but at least it is 
a start in the right direction. Of course, one doesn't want too many 
categories, I think five would be about right, perhaps three could be 
tolerated, but just two seems insufferable. Why try to collapse everything 
into a bipolar world?

-Steven Craig Miller
Alton, Illinois (USA)
scmiller at www.plantnet.com
Disclaimer: "I'm just a simple house-husband (with no post-grad degree), 
what do I know?"




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