Course Description
English grammar as represented in alternative modern approaches, including terms and concepts from traditional and structural grammar.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will be responsible for a more extensive syllabus, for secondary reading, and for more ambitious, sophisticated writing.
Athena Title
English Grammar
Undergraduate Prerequisite
ENGL(LING) 3030 or ENGL(LING) 4005/6005 or LING 2100
Graduate Prerequisite
Permission of department
Semester Course Offered
Not offered on a regular basis.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Students will be able to discuss alternative modern major theories of grammatical analysis, including traditional, structural, generative, corpus-based, and systemic functional grammar. Students will be able to manipulate parts of speech, inflectional forms, and basic sentence patterns found in modern English, to perform accurate grammatical analyses of English sentences. Students will be able to apply grammatical principles to their own writing and to the teaching of writing, and to appreciate English grammar in its social context.
Topical Outline
Topics will consist of readings in the areas of grammatical analysis and will include morphosyntax, relationships between grammar and semantics, differences between prescriptive and descriptive grammars, pedagogical applications of modern grammatical analysis, and alternative theories underlying different models of grammatical analysis. Specific topics vary by instructor and at different times. Periodically during the semester, students will perform a number of graded tasks, including some combination of tests and out-of-class papers. In-class exams and the final exam will require essays as well as objective questions and problems. Substantial out-of-class writing will be required, including at least one short paper (c. 5 pages), and a prospectus (c. 3-5 pages) that proposes an idea for a major paper due at the end of the term (c. 20 pages).