Friday, April 06, 2007

Thoughts on Kolln

One thing that I noticed in the first chapter of Kolln, something I had never thought of before, was the fact that grammar can be defined in a lot of different ways. I had always thought of grammar as a formal system of rules designed to help us speak and write properly (kind of a combination of Grammars 2 and 3), but there is a lot more to it. I never thought of my innate knowledge of the English language as a form of grammar. Also, I didn't know about prescriptive and descriptive grammar, or any of the ideas discussed in the Modern Linguistics section of the chapter. Did anyone else have this same experience, or one similar?

Also, I was wondering if anyone else had problems in the diagramming homework with the pedestal for prepositional phrases? I get confused about when to use the pedestal and when to keep it on the main line.

7 Comments:

At 4:51 PM, Blogger Hamza matar said...

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At 1:20 PM, Blogger Miss Marjie said...

I was acquainted with a number of ideas from the Modern Linguistics section. I've found that most of what I learned about grammar came not from grammar instruction in school, but from taking foreign languages. Russian and German taught me far more about English than any of my English classes did. I've also spent a lot of time just thinking about the ways in which we view language and how people tend to take a very ethnocentric view of it. I certainly wouldn't feel bad if I were not familiar with those sections though, as many of the things I've read in the chapter are not those which have been addressed previously in school. I imagine the same is true for a lot of people, and I've learned new things in every chapter so far. :)

 
At 8:09 AM, Blogger Britta said...

I too have been having troubles with the silly prepositional pedestal and am not sure if I have it figured out yet or not. I also was not familiar with much of what Kolln has discussed in the first two chapters. The majority of what I have learned about grammar has come from being marked down on written papers for incorrect grammar, a small amount from my Spanish classes (although I do not remember much of the language now, it did provide insite into grammar to be applied to English).

 
At 1:04 AM, Blogger Josh said...

Yeah, I had trouble with those too. From looking in the book, it seems that one would use the pedestal when a prepositional phrase is a subject compliment.

 
At 9:42 AM, Blogger grammar gal said...

Yeah the pedestal thing really throws me into a tizzy. It seems like it should be underneath like everything else. It's one of the exceptions of diagraming that I hate.

 
At 7:02 PM, Blogger jeremytd said...

Yes, I was a little confused by the pedestal format. However, the longer I stared at it when it was demonstrated to me, the more sense it made. Conversely, I haven't done any excercises in which the pedestal may have been required, so I don't know if I actually learned it or not.

 
At 6:53 AM, Blogger Jason said...

I did have problems with the pedestals myself. There were a number of times where I felt that I really didn't know what was being asked (and still don't). I also found that there was considerable fluidity in grammar, though I had already been aware of this from when I taught in Thailand.

 

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