I'm thinking of both pedagogical grammar books such as "English Grammar in Use" and more academic, descriptive grammars such as "The Longman Grammar of Written and Spoken English". I'm interested both in broad areas-such as spoken language or the noun phrase-and specific grammar points, such as the future continuous or the passive.
Functional pragmatics and text grammar are often missing. They are essential if you you are e,g, a native Chinese speaker.
Thank you for your answer. Originally, I was thnking more of specific grammar points rather than larger areas, but you are quite right to consider broader areas of grammar as well. I have changed my question accordingly.
@George. Both grammar and mathematics should not only be about rules. They can provide a broader understanding of the functioning of languages, This includes different levels. For language teaching it is essential not only to be aware of rules, but also to have an abstract knowledge of the more general functioning of language and communication. So language teaching is not only about correctness, but about participating in communicative live by constructing communicative competence.
The use of definite and indefinite articles. A few pages of explanation are available, yet the actual uses of those grammar items seem to defy the currently existing explanation.
Dear George, I always made the distinction between the operational dimension and the conceptual one of mathematics. The first one is about rules how to do something, the second about understanding the logic behind. The conceptual approach is a sustainable and indirect way to correctness, which matters in both mathematics and language.
George and Charles: your discussion is very enjoyable, as is the intellectual tension that sparks from your exchanges. In fact, the subject of the differences between language and mathematics can be used to examine many logic-based theories of language. However, perhaps we could examine this in another question.
As self-appointed question moderator, may I ask you both to suggest areas of grammar that are poorly explained in grammar books? Charles's first answer did this extremely well before he allowed George to drag him into a different and probably far more interesting area.
Following Chris's admonition: I think it would be helpful to explain the distinction of topic (theme) and comment (rheme, focus) in a grammar. This would allow the study of functional phrase perspective. Whereas word order is very often arbitrary in the light of classical syntax, you can understand it by analyzing the communicative functions of the different parts of a phrase. You can also analyze the thematic concatenation in a text, which will help to understand its coherence. All these open the way to functional grammar as designed by M.A.K. Halliday. Being aware of those language phenomena, helps you e.g. to translate. So it is both about correctness and a deeper understanding of language. Working with children you will notice that spontaneously they discover these kind of patterns. Teachers very often do not understand them, because these contents are not in their grammar books.
Thanks a lot Charles. There are certainly aspects of systemic functional grammar, such as information focus and grammatical and lexical cohesion, which should be incorporated more thoroughly into pedagogical grammars.
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