Three grammars that, since the 50's, have supplemented or offered alternatives to traditional grammar are discussed in this article. The role of grammar in communicative utterances and the underlying considerations in describing a grammatical system are analyzed. Then, brief summaries about and comments on structural linguistics, tagmemic grammar,…

Discusses four definitions of "grammar" and suggests that ignorance of any of the four harms research and teaching. (DD)

Transformational grammar offers the most adequate system by which to meet the goal of grammar instruction, which is to increase the student's understanding of the nature of language. This grammar attempts to explain the mental processes underlying the production and understanding of sentences, to describe linguistic competence, to construct…

These two units of the Minnesota Project English curriculum employ transformational grammar in an attempt to make eighth-grade students aware of fundamental facts about their language. Concepts taught in the first unit are (1) that an infinite number of English sentences exists, (2) that a few basic transformations are the basis for a large number…

The approaches of traditional grammar, descriptive linguistics, and generative grammar are largely complementary rather than exclusive. Traditional grammar defines eight parts of speech according to meaning or function and concerns itself almost wholely with the written language. Descriptive linguistics postulates that English has a set of unique…

This book had two goals: to provide an introduction to transformational-generative grammar, placing it into a historical and philosophical context with other earlier linguistic traditions, and to provide a survey of the elements of English grammar from a transformational point of view. The text is intended for anyone who wishes to know the basis…

The purpose of this experimental study was to determine whether instruction in generative grammar would produce better student writing. As a secondary aspect of the study, evaluation of all students was made for growth in knowledge of grammar apart from writing or other practical applications, whether the students had been instructed in generative…

Contemporary syntactic theory rejects the idea that prescriptive grammar can provide students with any insights into how language works. For generative grammar, a term for the aggregate of methodologies which currently dominates modern linguistics, rules determining the grammaticality of a sentence do not relate in any way to the rules which make…

For secondary English teachers concerned with the theoretical and practical problems of the traditional approaches to teaching grammar, this paper proposes that a realistic solution can be found in current linguistic investigation. This solution lies not in the product of linguistic inquiry, but in the process of inquiry itself. The paper first…

This "new English grammar" textbook blends four systems of grammar: (1) the traditional, providing most of the terminology; (2) the historical, providing the historical background; (3) the structural, providing the sentence patterns; and (4) the transformational, providing the variations of the sentence patterns. The author points out the…

THIS TEST--"DOUBLE-BASE TRANSFORMATIONS"--WAS DESIGNED BY THE OREGON CURRICULUM STUDY CENTER FOR AN EIGHTH-GRADE LANGUAGE CURRICULUM. IT IS INTENDED TO ACCOMPANY CURRICULUM UNITS AVAILABLE AS ED 010 155 AND ED 010 156. (MM)

BECAUSE OF LIMITATIONS DURING THE ACTUAL STUDY, THIS PROJECT WAS DELIMITED TO THE STUDY OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING MATERIALS ADAPTED FROM STRUCTURAL AND GENERATIVE GRAMMARS UPON THE ABILITY OF SEVENTH-GRADE STUDENTS TO WRITE MORE MATURE COMPOSITIONS. FORTY-THREE STUDENTS WERE GIVEN EXPERIMENTAL LINGUISTICALLY-ORIENTED MATERIALS DESIGNED TO…

Version of a paper read at the Annual Meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English, NOvember 1969, in Washington, D.C. (DS)