Message-ID: <3B8E4D3E.4CC93908@csi.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 10:27:11 -0400
From: John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com>
Organization: No Conspiracy Here...
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Subject: Re: English has no grammar? (was: Strange (human?) languages for IF)
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Magnus Olsson wrote:

> In article <3B8E3051.F6DC1E83@csi.com>,
> John Colagioia  <JColagioia@csi.com> wrote:
> >"John W. Kennedy" wrote:
> >> Magnus Olsson wrote:
> >> > But I think many peopel confuse "grammar" with "inflections".
> >> Millions of people make that mistake.  But, even more generally, the
> >> truly nave always believe that their language has "no grammar".
> >Well, actually, it's a fairly logical conceptual progression.  Once one
> >has been immersed in a language, that person begins to understand which
> >rules can be broken without changing or hiding the meaning of what is
> >being said.  Once that becomes second nature, the language (or, at
> >least, the pseudo-dialect that ends up being used) ceases to have a
> >formal grammar.
> You're confusing two things here:

Actually, I ended the sentence too early.  Append "for them" to it, and it's
a little better.


> The person in question isn't consciously using English grammar
> anymore, the way he/she did as a beginner (assuming him/her to
> be a non-native speaker, of course).
> And most native speakers *never* consciously use grammar when
> speaking.

Right.  It becomes (ahem) "intuitive."


> But of course that doesn't mean that the language _per se_ ceases to
> have a formal grammar, just that the person in question isn't aware of
> it.

Well, it's not so much awareness so much as conscious use.  I mean, there
certainly is a formal English grammar beyond "things that don't sound
awkward," but fluent speakers have mostly internalized that information so
that it no longer becomes an effort-consuming task.


> >That is, English "has no grammar," because I can say, "English
> >good-talker me is," and the vast majority of readers will understand the
> >meaning.
> If you think of it a little, you still have to use English grammar to
> parse that sentence: once you've identified "is" as a verb, you hav
> eto use the grammatic rule that says that the role of the verb in a
> sentence is to indicate (loosely) what action is taking place, for
> example.

I'm not so sure that's necessary.  To a certain extent, it's a matter of
vocabulary.  "Is" may be a verb, but alone, it typically defines equivalence
of whatever else is around.

What you've said is the "right" way to approach it (that is, the approach
that will work in the largest set of problematic sentences), of course.  But
there are many wrong ways that'll still do the job.  And, I suspect that too
many native speakers approach these things in the wrong ways, simply because
they do work.


> And yes, Virginia, that is a specific feature of English
> grammar; there are languages that on't have verbs in that sense.

Absolutely.


> Also, I suspect that 99.99% of all English speakers will sense that
> there is something wrong with "English good-talker me is", even if
> they can't define exactly what is wrong. And what's wrong with it?
> well, it doesn't conform to standard English grammar, of course!

Well, you're right in that it doesn't conform to the standard.  However, what
about something more innocuous, like, "The ability to speak coherent English
fluently is one of which I am in posession."  It conforms fine, but is
extremely awkward, and a good percentage of people will probably look for a
fault with it.

Ironically, that sentence can be made less awkward and more understandable by
violating a few rules (some of which, incidentally, have been discarded as
rules).  Split the infinitive verb ("to speak") with the adverb "fluently,"
and end the sentence with the preposition "of," and it's much smoother,
though an older English teacher would cringe.


> So the people who say that English has no grammar really don't have
> any idea of what they're talking about.

This is true.  But, again, it's a perfectly understandable mistake, and one
that I imagine isn't exclusive to English.

English spelling, on the other hand, at various points in history...


