GRAMMAR DEVELOPMENT

1. What is traditional grammar?

Traditional grammar is a grammar which is usually based on earlier grammar of Latin and Greek. It studies language elements or part of speech separately.

2. What is typical feature of traditional grammar?

- The biggest problem in this grammar lies in the fact that it is not consistent internally.

For example, it defines the adverb as a part of speech modifying the verb (I only like him). But in fact, the adverb can modify other parts of speech as well (The only girl that I like is you).

- Another problem of this grammar is that most of the explanation of grammatical meaning given by this grammar is based on intuition, which is why it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between different grammatical concepts in traditional grammar.

Eg: The difference between gerund and present participle.

- This grammar, however, provides modern linguistics with a lot of terms.

3. As far as linguistic is concerned, what is understood by the term "constituent" in English?

Constituent is a linguistic unit (usually in sentence analysis) which is part of a larger construction.

Eg: care + ful = careful

class + room = classroom

He is a good boy. (5 constituents)

4. What is immediate constituent grammar?

Immediate grammar is a grammar studying a language layers to identify the meaning. According to this grammar, language elements do not belong to the same layer, they belong to different layers, creating different meaning.

More beautiful women are coming.

→ More women who are beautiful are coming.

More beautiful women are coming.

→ Women who are more beautiful are coming.

5. What is immediate constituent analysis in English? State the basic step in such an analysis and give example for illustration.

Immediate constituent analysis is one of the most widely used techniques for displaying sentence structure. It is based on the argument that different elements of language do not belong to the same layer. They belong to different layers and create different meanings.

This approach works through the different levels of structure within a sentence in a number of steps

At each level, a construction is divided into its major constituents, and the process continues until no further division can be made.

For example, to analyze the sentence "The police arrested the thief", the following basic steps are taken:

- Identifying two major constituents: "The police" and "arrested the thief".

- Dividing the next biggest constituent into 2: "arrested" and "the thief".

Continuing to divide constituents into 2 until we can go no further: the police → the + police; the thief → the + thief

6. What is transformational (generative) grammar?

Transformational grammar is a theory of grammar which was proposed by the American linguist Chomsky in 1957. Chomsky attempted to provide a model for the description of all languages.

Transformational grammar tries to show, with a system of rules, the knowledge which a native speaker of a language uses in forming grammatical sentences.

For example, it studies basic language pattern:

- To create sentences: S = NP + VP

- To transform sentences: NP1 + V + NP2 = NP2 + Aux + V-en + by + NP1

7. What is functional grammar?

Functional grammar proposed by British linguist, Halliday, is a grammar studying 3 basic functions of language:

- Ideational function is to organize the speaker's or writer's experience of the real or imaginary world. That is language refer to real or imagine persons, things, actions, events, states...

- Interpersonal function is to indicate, establish or maintain social relationship between people. It includes forms of address, speech function, modality...

- Textual function is to create written or spoken texts which cohere within themselves and which fit the particular situation in which they are used.

8. What is interpersonal meaning of the functional grammar in English language?

Interpersonal meaning is meaning as a form action: the speaker or writer doing something to listener or reader by means of language. It is the meaning regulated by the language users concerned.

Eg: "man", "gentlemen", "guy", "bloke" can all be used to refer to a man depending on the relationship or the degree of respect the speaker has for/ with a person.