- 1/ In one to three sentences, describe your understanding of the term grammar and the basis for that definition, e.g., I’ve been told that I have bad grammar by teachers because I cannot spell well, etc.
2/ Look up the definition of grammar in a dictionary. Write down the definition. Please also include the title of the dictionary from which you took the definition and the page number on which the definition was found. For example: Definition of the term grammar. The Oxford American College Dictionary (2002), p. 707.
- 3/ Your response to Question 1 is your own connotative definition of grammar. Your response to Question 2 is a denotative definition of grammar. Now, please read the essay by Sandy Chung and Jeff Pullman entitled “Grammar.” In three to five sentences, please reflect on and describe what you have learned as a result of this exercise by comparing and contrasting your connotative definition of grammar, the denotative definition of grammar, and Chung and Pullman’s discussion of grammar.
- 4/ Post your responses to Questions 1-3 as a reply to Professor Rodgers’ blog post “GA5: What Is Grammar?”
In my opinion grammar basically means writing and speaking in a standard way for a language; having proper pronunciation, spelling, punctuation marks, and sentence structure is key.
Grammar: the whole system and structure of a language or of languages in general, usually taken as consisting of syntax and morphology (including inflections) and sometimes also phonology and semantics. (The Oxford dictionaries, grammar, pg 1)
I realized there are not many differences between my definition and the denotative definition of grammar. Both definitions focused on the standard order and structure of language, not just a particular language. I did not think that a similarity that many languages shared was their word order. But what resonated with me was the fact that we treat ‘wouldn’t’ as one word. We often say phrases like “wouldn’t it hurt”, but when we break down the word ‘wouldn’t’, technically, the phrase becomes “would not it hurt.” Very awkward.
Thanks for this post, Jide. I appreciate that you at least made an attempt to cite the source of your definition! Many others did not. However, the source you listed is not a particular source. What was the title of the dictionary you used? Or, did you use a website instead? In either case, there is a specific title for the source and I would like you to list it.
Regarding your reflection on the similarities and differences between your connotative definition of “grammar” and the denotative definition of “grammar,” I’m a bit confused. What similarities do you see? Could you explain them? For I mostly see differences. Am I missing something? Thanks for clarifying these issues.
(The Oxford Dictionaries.com***). To further explain, the similarities between both of our definitions is that we define it as reading and writing, also it is not limited to any language in particular.
GA 5
5.1
The term grammar is a form speaking and writing properly. Its all about having good spelling, pronunciation, and punctation skills.
5.2
Grammar (noun) : the study of the classes of words, their inflections, and their functions and relations in the sentence . Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (2015)
5.3
Sandy Chung and Geoff Pullum essay on grammar explain how grammar is simply the collection of principles defining how to put together a sentence. From this essay I’ve learned that every language has restrictions on how words must be arranged to construct a sentence, and that restriction is syntax. I also learned that there is another aspect of grammar called morphology, which is a principle of sculpting words.
My connotative definition of grammar is different from Chung and Pullman’s discussion of grammar and denotative definition of grammar. My definition explain how grammar
is form of speaking properly but in Chung and Pullman’s discussion and denotative definition on grammar focus on the principle of words and functions when creating a sentence.
Tishima, Thanks for this post. It is a very good and complete one. However, I’m wondering if there may be a typo in this sentence, which I am having a hard time understanding as written: “The term grammar is a form speaking and writing properly.” Could you let me know?
One other, small correction that I’d like you make throughout this post is to add an -s to the verb “explain” each time you use it in this post. Do you know why I am asking you to do this? If not, please let me know and I will explain my rationale for asking this.
Finally, I am really impressed by your summary and overall comprehension of Chung and Pullman’s essay.
LJ 5: By looking at the words shown on paper and on the web both have good similar traits of reading. However, not all literature in print and online is because some people might search in a website that makes the words less similar to the print. In my point of view, I believe that the difference of the print and the web share the same article but in different words and a different perspective which can make the similarities alternate. Either way, the print and the web are similar but show different words depending by the author’s reasons.
GA 5: 1) I used to think that grammar has something to do with cookies but that was when I was a child which made me believed to be true. At first when I started to write well, I had problems with spelling out words that difficult and large to pronounce. My teachers say that I need to improve my writing in order to fully function and understand the reader.
2) Grammar (noun): language study dealing with the forms of words and with their arrangement in sentences. Webster’s New World Dictionary, pg. 264.
3) In the essay, “Grammar”, Sandy Chung and Geoff Pullum explain that Grammar is simply the collection of principles defining how to put together a sentence in definition. Grammar can be common to explain things that are good and bad but in language there is no grammar can it’s the choice of the people speak what they feel at heart. It’s called syntax where the person or group talks in an order of words that are in place in grammar.
Jose,
Thanks for your post. You are the only audience for your RJ assignments, so please do not post those on the Open Lab.
Regarding GA5, I’m curious to know why you thought grammar had to do with cookies! This is a unique and intriguing insight that your readers will be interested in hearing more about. There are a few sentences in this post that are not communicating clearly to me. I’m hoping you may be able to re-write them to clarify their meaning. These include: 1/ “At first when I started to write well, I had problems with spelling out words that difficult and large to pronounce. ” 2/ “My teachers say that I need to improve my writing in order to fully function and understand the reader.” 3/ “Grammar can be common to explain things that are good and bad but in language there is no grammar can it’s the choice of the people speak what they feel at heart. “
think grammar means a promise of a language among people how to read or write.
Grammar :
1. the set of rules that explain how words are used in a language
2.speech or writing judged by how well it follows the rules of grammar
3. a book that explains the grammar rules of a language
In the essay “Grammar” by Sandy Chung and Geof Pullum say that grammar is an arrangement of a language. We can find languages have syntax(how order words) and morphology(how to manage the structure of words)
My connotative definition of grammar is very simple. There’s no details about language of what. But Ching and Pullum explain about grammars in full.
Nami,
Thanks for this post. There are several issues that need to be addressed in it before I can comment on it. 1/ Please make sure that each sentence in your post is a complete sentence. This one is not: “think grammar means a promise of a language among people how to read or write.” 2/ What is your source for your definition of grammar? 3/ As written, this sentence is not communicating clearly to me. Could you please re-write it to make sure it does?: “In the essay “Grammar” by Sandy Chung and Geof Pullum say that grammar is an arrangement of a language. ” 4/ As written, this sentence is not communicating clearly to me. Could you please re-write it to make sure it does?: “There’s no details about language of what.”
I’ll look forward to seeing these revisions, being able to fully understand your post, and replying to it.
I think grammer is ways we setup the structer of language for speaking and writing.
GRAMMAR-(n.) 1) the set of rules that explain how words are used in a language
2) speech or writing judged by how well it follows the rules of grammar
3) a book that explains the grammar rules of a language
Min Koo,
Thanks for this post. There are two issues that need to be addressed in it before I can comment on it. 1/ As written, this sentence is not communicating clearly to me. Could you please re-write it to make sure it does?: “I think grammer is ways we setup the structer of language for speaking and writing.” 2/ What is your source for your definition of grammar?
I’ll look forward to seeing these revisions, being able to then fully understand your post, and replying to it.
I think grammar is the ways we setup the speaking and writing for language.
GA.5
1) My understanding of grammar is the form of rules of speaking or writing a language. Over all having it’s about having proper spelling, punctuation, and pronunciation.
2)Grammar (noun)the study of the forms and uses of words in sentences in a particular language. Scott,Foresman Intermediate Dictionary (1979) pg 395
3) In the essay “Grammar”, Sandy Chung and Geoff Pullum explain that grammar is the collection of principles explaining how to properly put together a sentence. After reading this essay I have learned that every language has it’s own rules on how the words must be arranged to from a sentence. And that every language has syntax. Syntax when the person or group speaks in an order of sentences that are in place in grammar.
Carinah,
Thanks for this post. I’m impressed with your summary and understanding of Chung and Pullman’s essay. How similar or different is their discussion of grammar to your connotative definition?
In essay “Grammar” by Sandy Chung and Geoff Pullum explain us how grammar are sturctured in a sentence by using different elements.We can learn that sentence of the language has syntax and morphology which mean we have a our own way how we sturcture and order words. Also explain grammer has postive and negative things. I think language is funny thing because I think its one of the thing that you will never stop learning about because some way we use bad grammar and things that doesn’t exist in grammmar such like slags
Min Koo,
I’d like you to take this paragraph with you when you go to talk to a Writing Tutor at the City Tech Learning Center. After you have met with a tutor, please bring the original paragraph and the revised paragraph to our class. I’ll look forward to talking to you about both.
GA5:
1) I think grammar is the whole structure of a language. Grammar are the rules of correct spoken and written language.
2) -Grammar (noun) is the study of words, their inflections, and their functions and relations in a sentence.
-A study of what is to be preferred and what avoided in inflection syntax.
-Speech or writing evaluated according to its conformity to grammatical rules. (The Merriam- Webster Dictionary, 2004 page 314)
3) In the essay “Grammar”, Sandy Chung and Geof Pullum explain how grammar is simply the collection of rules defining how to make a full sentence. Every language has different rules on how to structure a sentence. I learned that every sentence of a language has syntax and morphology which is how we structure our sentences and words.
My connotative definition of grammar, the denotative definition, and Chung and Pullum’s definition are all a little different. My definition of grammar is only about the language while Chung and Pullum’s definition is about the language and the structure of words and sentences. The denotative definition is similar to my definition and Chung and Pullum’s.
Thanks, Allison. This is an excellent post. As written, your connotative definition of grammar appears to share many more similarities than differences with Chung and Pullman’s definition. However, you mention that there are some differences. Is this because your connotative definition is more about the “rules of,” rather than the “structure of” a language? If you could let me know, I’d appreciate it.
G5.1
To me grammar means in each specific language the rules for reading and writing.The structure of how it’s setup so that we can understand it.
G5.2
Grammar- Manner of speaking or writing, in reference to conformity to grammatical rules. Websters Dictionary (2004) p. 75
G5.3
I’ve learnt from this weeks assignment that grammar really does differ according to language. In the essay “Grammar” by Sandy Chung and Jeff Pullman, they speak about the way grammar differs with every language. My connotative definition of grammar and the dictionary’s denotative definition of grammar pretty much said the same thing as this essay . Chung and Pullman used the words Syntax and Morphology to better explain what I had said and what the dictionary had said. Syntax and morphology is the way words and phrases are arranged to create well formed sentences which differs with each language.
Thanks, Sarah, for this excellent post. I stumbled only over this one sentence: “My connotative definition of grammar and the dictionary’s denotative definition of grammar pretty much said the same thing as this essay .” To me, your connotative definition shared some things with Chung and Pullman’s definition, but, when you write, “grammar means in each specific language the rules for reading and writing,” I wondered which rules you were referring to. For instance, were you referring to rules for syntax? Or other types of rules? Thanks for the clarification.
1) I understand the term “grammar” as a rule for any language being speaking and written correctly. The structure of the sentence has to be well developed and well understood to be consider with no grammar. When the teacher says that we have a bad grammar is because the structure of the sentence is not developed correctly between the verb, pronoun, adjective, etc.
2) Grammar: noun, no plural, rules that govern the correct use of language. A Student’s Dictionary (2008), Pg.142
3) In the essay “Grammar” by Sandy Chung and Geoff Pullum explains how every language uses grammar as a form to construct a sentence and the use of the principals of syntax and morphology for constructing them. Based on the language, syntactic principals (order of words) or morphology (structure of words) will differentiate, for example, the arrangement of the subject, verb, and object and the structure of words will depend on the rule for grammar that the language implies. My connotative is much similar to Chung and Pullum’s essay since I give more information about grammar than the denotative definition.
Maricel, Thanks for this post. I greatly appreciate your concise and accurate overview of Chung and Pullman’s essay. There are a few sentences in this post that are not communicating clearly to me. I’m hoping you may be able to re-write them to clarify their meaning. These include: 1/ “The structure of the sentence has to be well developed and well understood to be consider with no grammar.” 2/ “Based on the language, syntactic principals (order of words) or morphology (structure of words) will differentiate, for example, the arrangement of the subject, verb, and object and the structure of words will depend on the rule for grammar that the language implies. ” 3/ “My connotative is much similar to Chung and Pullum’s essay since I give more information about grammar than the denotative definition.“
The structure of the sentence in English has to be in the order of: subject, verb, objective. However, this does not apply in all languages, for example, in Japanese the order occurs as the following: subject, object, verb. The order of the words in a sentence or as called the principal of syntax depends of the language as well this happens for the structure of the words(morphology) for example: “wouldn’t it hurt?” will become after separating the word “wouldn’t” into two: “would not it hurt?”. for grammar corrections we have to check how we put together de verb, subject and object as well the structure of the words, in this case “wouldn’t”.
GA5
1) Grammar, in my understanding, is the set stucture for any language or linguistic. It provides the correct form in which language should be communicateed. Growing up writing teachers always made sure that grammar was as considered as the story, argument, reflection etc.
2)grammar
noun gram·mar \ˈgra-mər\
: the set of rules that explain how words are used in a language
3)”Grammar” by Sandy Chung and Jeff Pullman describe gammar as “an arrangment of words”. The denotive definition of grammar includes their simplified definition. My connotative definiton is the accumilation of my understanding of the word based on writing experience so I am inclined to trust their definitoin is a more refined version of the same literal definition I gave to answer question 1.
Uriah, Thanks for this post. What is your source for your denotative definition of “grammar” listed in response to Question 2?
I’m having a hard time unpacking the meaning of this “sentence,” which is not a complete sentence, but rather a collection of two and perhaps three sentences: “My connotative definiton is the accumilation of my understanding of the word based on writing experience so I am inclined to trust their definitoin is a more refined version of the same literal definition I gave to answer question 1.” If you could re-write this to clearly explain the multiple points you are making in it, I would be most appreciative. Thanks.
LJ5
To do this assignment I read the printed version and online version of the assignment to compare and contrast the two. I noticed that for some yet to be identified reason I read the former more attentively. I find that when reading something online i am more distracted and cannot focus completely on the meaning or main idea, i read the instructuions for this assignment three times and still had to look back at it to focus my thoughts. Conversely with the latter i read it once and that is when i started to write this. I noticed that even as i was reading the printed version i was answering the questions and forming thoughts in my head all while giving voice to the assignment as a speaker would do for a poem. I believe this defference stems from new web culture,where you are always looking for more, always browsing because i found my reading rushed while reading online. Even in reading texts i do not read line by line word by word line by line, i look at the screen and take in the whole message without really reading or “seeing” it. I believe this is a culture and generation effect because someone 10 years old or younger who is submereged in this new technology era may have the eexact opposite view.
Uriah,
You are the only audience for your RJ assignments, so please do not post those on the Open Lab.
GA5: What is grammar?
1) In my opinion, grammar is a very important part of writing. It is spelling words correctly, using proper punctuation and making your text eligible to other readers. To me, grammar is a little more than a set of rules. I believe that if you wish the reader to read and experience your writing how it was meant to be read, using proper grammar is the key. With English as my second language, that has always been a challenge. Although the Russian language also has certain grammatical guidelines, they are very different than here in America.
2) Grammar
: the study of the classes of words, their inflections, and their functions and relations in the sentence
: a study of what is to be preferred and what avoided in inflection and syntax
– Grammar definition, Merriam-Webster Incorporated 2015
3) Reading Sandy Chung and Geoff Pullum’s What is Grammar? was really informative and somewhat confusing to me. There are parts of grammar that I barely know about; like syntax and morphology. It was still unclear to me what the big difference is, but I did understand what role they play in the structure of words. My definition of grammar was grammar being a very strict set of rules that one must follow in their writing or speech. In the text I read, however, there are many debates on what is acceptable and grammatically correct in the English language. Therefore, I’ve learned that grammar rules in formal and informal writing differ.