How "deep" do you go into grammar?

[Hunter's Moon]

This is something I've been struggling with for a bit as I've been having trouble with my grammar book.

 

I'm using Harvey's Revised Grammar and while there is an answer book, they don't always explain. The book doesn't clearly list out the rules for each noun case (nominative, objective, possessive, absolute). I know all the cases, but don't understand the rules part. For example, nominative has 3 rules, objective has 4, so on. But, they don't clearly list the rules in order in their book and sometimes don't list them at all. It is as if they expect me to know what they are.

 

Anyways, I've been wondering if knowing the general cases of the parts of speech is enough, or if diving deeper and figuring out the rules is important. I know *why* a noun is a certain case, and I believe that was the point of the rules, so do you think knowing why a noun is a certain case is good enough?

 

How deep do you go into grammar with your children?

[Crimson Wife]

I apologize if this is a really dumb question, but in English, isn't it pronouns rather than nouns where case makes a difference? In Latin, obviously the case of nouns is very important since it changes the word used. But in English, the same word is used for a noun whether it's the subject or the object.

[Hunter's Moon]

I apologize if this is a really dumb question, but in English, isn't it pronouns rather than nouns where case makes a difference? In Latin, obviously the case of nouns is very important since it changes the word used. But in English, the same word is used for a noun whether it's the subject or the object.

 

That's what I've been wondering. Everywhere I search online, pronoun cases come up, but not noun.

 

But, the book has separate "noun" and "pronoun" sections and the "noun" section has the cases listed.

[8filltheheart]

I think they are probably referring to the classification of the cases. For example:

 

My daughter, the girl in the red dress, is a jazz dancer.

 

That sentence has 3 nominative case nouns: subject, appositive, and a subjective complement (those are probably the 3 rules they are referring to.)

Edited November 15, 2010 by 8FillTheHeart

[Hunter's Moon]

I think they are probably referring to the classification of the cases. For example:

 

My daughter, the girl in the red dress, is a jazz dance.

 

That sentence has 3 nominative case nouns: subject, appositive, and a subjective complement (those are probably the 3 rules they are referring to.)

 

Possibly, but they way they list it is like they are wanting me to name a specific rule for the case. They also didn't say the specific classifications of the cases. For example:

 

The sentence is: The wind blows.

 

The parsing example answer is: Wind- noun; common; neuter; third person; singular; nominative, Rule I.

 

They split every other part up with a semi-colon, but then they separate the case and the rule with a comma, which leads me to think there are specific rules for each case.

 

Maybe this'll shed some light as well. The order of parsing listed in the book is:

1. A noun, and why?

2. Common or proper, and why?

3. Gender, and why?

4. Person, and why?

5. Number, and why?

6. Case, and why?

7. Rule for construction.

 

The definition for the Nominative case says: "The nominative case is the use of a noun or pronoun as the subject or the predicate of a proposition." I was thinking that, "....noun or a pronoun as the subject" is Rule I and ".....noun or a pronoun as the predicate of the proposition" is Rule II but for the other cases, it doesn't follow that logic.

 

The Objective case says: "The objective case is the use of a noun or pronoun as the object of a transitive verb in the active voice, or of a preposition." If I ordered the rules like I did above for nominative case, I would only have 2 rules, but the answer book says there is 4 because one sentence parsing has "Rule IV" after the objective case.

Edited November 15, 2010 by BeatleMania

[8filltheheart]

It sounds like they have simply numbered the different possible functions. Based on the example you gave, I would say that subject is rule #1 for nominative case.

 

Could you simply go through and use a couple of answers to generate the rules to match the numbers? The 4 for objective case would be do, io, op, and appositive in the ojective case. If you don't know what some of them are, you could post here and people should be able to help you.

[Hunter's Moon]

It sounds like they have simply numbered the different possible functions. Based on the example you gave, I would say that subject is rule #1 for nominative case.

 

Could you simply go through and use a couple of answers to generate the rules to match the numbers? The 4 for objective case would be do, io, op, and appositive in the ojective case. If you don't know what some of them are, you could post here and people should be able to help you.

 

Thanks. The book never taught those, but I'm sure you're right. I'll definitely be looking into them. Thank you.

[Kates]

That honestly sounds like it's making something a lot more difficult than it should be. Those parsing rules are all applicable for languages like Greek and Latin, not so much for English. For example - English nouns generally don't have gender. Yes, boy is masculine and girl is feminine, but gender really doesn't make a difference in the sentence (except for subbing in pronouns like he, she, and it, which are really pretty obvious).

 

I really wouldn't go that deep into English grammar - I would choose something that is much more applicable to the usage and construction. The point of grammar isn't to endlessly analyze every little thing...it's to be able to have a mastery of the language in order to communicate clearly. Something like Analytical Grammar or R&S (different methods, but both are aimed toward mastery and usage) would be more along the lines of what I would suggest.

[Guest]

That honestly sounds like it's making something a lot more difficult than it should be. Those parsing rules are all applicable for languages like Greek and Latin, not so much for English. For example - English nouns generally don't have gender. Yes, boy is masculine and girl is feminine, but gender really doesn't make a difference in the sentence (except for subbing in pronouns like he, she, and it, which are really pretty obvious).

 

I really wouldn't go that deep into English grammar - I would choose something that is much more applicable to the usage and construction. The point of grammar isn't to endlessly analyze every little thing...it's to be able to have a mastery of the language in order to communicate clearly. Something like Analytical Grammar or R&S (different methods, but both are aimed toward mastery and usage) would be more along the lines of what I would suggest.

 

:iagree::iagree::

[Matryoshka]

That honestly sounds like it's making something a lot more difficult than it should be. Those parsing rules are all applicable for languages like Greek and Latin, not so much for English. For example - English nouns generally don't have gender. Yes, boy is masculine and girl is feminine, but gender really doesn't make a difference in the sentence (except for subbing in pronouns like he, she, and it, which are really pretty obvious).

 

:iagree: I've never even heard of an English grammar that talks about cases past subject and object, and those only for pronouns. Then there's indirect and direct objects (which are called dative and accusative if they're going to get that technical - curious why they're getting picky about everything but that :tongue_smilie:), but in English those don't really function as cases the way they do in other languages - they're more separate functions in the sentence. I haven't seen possessive described as a case in English grammars either (though I have in other langauges, where it's the genitive). What is the absolute case? I know there's an ablative in Latin... I can't see how that would be useful in English either.

 

I'd pick a different grammar book. Learning the nuances of case is really important in some languages that have declensions for adjectives, nouns and pronouns, but English really isn't one of them. You can know that 'nominative' is a synonym for 'subject case' without writing a proof, for heaven's sake.

[Hunter's Moon]

Thanks everyone.

 

I can't buy another grammar book, but I can utilize the one I have now differently.

 

Thanks!