Graham Lock

A friend who worked in a record store turned me onto Braxton in the '70s. To say that I was impressed by his wind-instrument playing abilities wd be an understatement. To say that I've referred to him as the "greatest wind player" is, indeed, true. These days I'm tempted to like my friend Ben Opie maybe a little more in that regard, but, SHEESH!, they're both amazing. I remember playing some Braxton in a bkstore where I worked back in the '80s - a customer came in & blurted out: "My grandson can play better than that!" I replied: "You must have a very talented grandson!" Idiot.… (més)

Reading this book has induced in me a kind of giddy nausea. Here’s why:

“Note also that the speech act exclamation is also often realized by a clause with no Subject, Finite, or Predicator (technically a minor clause) as in the following.
(28) What a mess!
(29) How stupid!
Such clauses cannot be analyzed for mood at all.”

This little extract chosen at random reveals the underlying assumptions behind this book: a) grammar is a discrete, unified conceptual system onto which all languages can be mapped; b) it is useful and correct to analyse bits of language in terms of their single word units Subject, Predicate etc; c) analyzing grammar consists mainly of sticking labels on bits of language: exclamation; d) the close analysis of grammar in the way put forward by this book is useful for language learners.

Hence the nausea...

Read the full review on The Lectern:

http://thelectern.blogspot.com/2007/05/functional-english-grammar-introduction.h...… (més)