Universidad de Guadalajara

Maestría en Enseñanza del Inglés como Lengua Extranjera

Module II: Linguistic Description For Foreign Language
Teaching

Reflection 3.1 Grammatical

Units

Tutor’s Name: Dra. María Luisa Arias Moreno

Name: Humberto Marino Ramírez

E-mail: humber_marino@hotmail.com

February 23rd, 2014

 Reflection 3.1
Reflection 3.1
In the reading, Lyons mentions that traditional grammar recognized four main sentence types
because that is the way Greek and Latin patterns of sentence construction were classified. What
are those four sentence types? Do you think English sentences should be classified using the
same labels? Give examples of each sentence type in your answer.

Traditional grammar recognized four main sentence types because Greek and Latin had
four formally distinct patterns of sentence construction which could be classified, roughly,
into the four semantic categories: statements, questions, exclamations and commands.

However, it must not be assumed in advance that every language will have formally
differentiated patterns of sentence-structure for each of these four major types. What must
be done is first to establish for each language independently the grammatical units and
patterns of combination valid for that language, and only then, if at all, to give them, such
labels as ‘statement’, ‘question’ etc… in terms of their semantic or contextual correlations.
The formal approach to grammatical description accepted by most linguists today implies a
rejection at any attempt to categorize sentences “functionally” (the traditional way) before
classifying them in terms of their internal structure.

It’s the same with English: before classifying sentences into the four classic categories
first it would be wise to define which are the grammatical units and valid patterns of
combination . For example the phrase “Would you please” + “infinitive”+ “?” looks
obviously like a question but it’s really a command because this grammatical construction
and linguistic units mean an order to be followed but in a polite way.

As examples of the 4 categories of sentences in English I can mention first the category
“statements”: “John is walking”, “Mark goes to the park every Sunday”, “Tim will be playing
ball until 5 o’clock”, “Martha was not at home when the accident happened”. Usually this
kind of sentences have a subject and a predicate and describe what happens in the world
around us, they can be either affirmative or negative.

Very similar to the category “sentences”, the category “exclamations” shows up and as an
example I list the following: “John is happy!”, “Megan had her first day at school!”, “Mark
didn’t show up until 9 o’clock!”, “Our neighbors are going to move away!”, “The soccer
match doesn’t start until 5:30”. Just like the category “sentences” this category has a
subject and a predicate, but what sets this category apart from the previous one is that it
shows emotions and feelings. It usually has adjectives that say how people feel (happy,
sad, excited), but other times it doesn’t have this kind of words but shows how the speaker
is feeling at a certain time: ”Megan had her first day at school!” this exclamation shows that
whoever said was excited for semantic content of the exclamation.

The next category is “questions”, examples of this category are: “What time is it?”, “What
have you been doing lately?”, “Where did you go yesterday?”, “Are sure this is what we
have to do?”, “How many times have you been here before?”, “Why didn’t you come last
week?”. In this category the speaker waits the other person to give an answer. There are
many kinds of questions: information questions, yes/no questions etc… but they all have
the same function: to ask something unknown by the speaker. It should be noted that the
questions can also be negative (“Why didn’t you come last week?”), implying that the
answer is going to be negative.

The last category is “commands”: “Take out the trash”, “Stop”, “Be quiet”, “Go to bed”,
“Make your bed”, “Don’t make that noise”, “Why don’t you go outside and play with your
friends?” “Would you please wait outside? ”,”Please go call your dad”. The verb in infinitive
is enough to make a command; adding the word “Don’t” before this verb indicates that
something must not be done. This kind of sentence can be made more polite by adding
the word “please” at the beginning, it can also be made in question type: (“Would you
please wait outside?) but still it’s not a question but a command.

In this text I have analyzed how traditional grammar classifies 4 categories in every
language: “statements”, “exclamations”, “questions” and “commands”; however modern
linguistics says that before categorizing a language this way the linguist has to identify
the grammatical units and patterns of combination valid for that language, and after that
label them ‘statement’, ‘question’ etc… In English the 4 categories can be identified but
before this the grammatical units must be analyzed. For example after examining the
question “Would you be so kind to open the window?” a pattern is identified: “Would you
be so kind to” + “infinitive” +”?”, this pattern belongs to a very polite way to ask somebody
to do something, therefore this sentence is not a question as it seemed earlier but rather a
command.
Bibliografía
Lyons, J. (1981). Language and Linguistics. . UK: CUP.