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Each semester, at the first meeting of my Structure of the English
Language course, I make a non-financial "wager" with my students. I bet
them that, when they fill out their anonymous evaluations at the end of the term, they
will write that they found the course to be fun. I always see skepticism reflected
in many faces. But after the course has ended and the evaluations are returned, I
learn in a large majority of cases that I have won my bet. The following response
from a student is typical: "When you said this course would be fun, I thought you
were crazy. I always hated grammar, and I only took the course because it was required.
Now I have to admit you won your bet. Drawing trees was fun, and every
exercise was like solving a puzzle."
I wrote Discovering English Grammar because I believe a textbook in
syntax should reflect the joy and excitement that I feel for this fascinating
subject. The many goals I had in mind as I wrote the book are as follows:
 | To teach a transformational approach to syntax
Transformational grammar is unquestionably the dominant school of modern linguistics.
No other approach provides equivalent insights into the structure and workings of
our language, nor does any other approach lend itself so successfully to undergraduate
teaching.
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| To provide broad coverage of the major constructions of the English
language
Many textbooks, particularly those that teach transformational syntax, focus principally
on the methodology of their approach, while examining a relatively few
"interesting" constructions. In contrast, my purpose in this book is to
offer a genuine survey of English grammatical structures. Methodological
considerations have been made secondary to the goal of providing an understanding of the
language itself.
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| To offer instruction that is clear to undergraduates in the liberal
arts and in education
Many students who are not technically inclined have difficulty understanding advanced
syntactic analysis, which can be quite complex and abstract. Accordingly, I have
provided a "broad," rather than a "narrow," coverage of
transformational syntax. When confronted with a conflict between complexity and
clarity, I have always opted for clarity. I have eliminated many formalisms that are
not necessary for students’ understanding of the language, and I have generally
chosen simpler, "classical" transformational analyses over more advanced but
more difficult ones.
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| To teach grammar as a process of discovery
As its name implies, Discovering English Grammar does not teach grammatical
information as received truth. Instead, it engages students as participants in an
inductive search for the structure of the language. Students are asked to help
discover the grammar of English by examining sentences and supplying hypotheses to account
for them. In addition, the method of discovering grammar without relying on previous
assumptions makes this book accessible to students who lack previous training in grammar.
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| To arrange material in a pedagogically useful way
Topics are not arranged according to a classification of constructions or parts of speech;
instead, they are arranged in a practical teaching sequence. Simpler and more easily
understood concepts precede more complicated ones. Concepts in later chapters build
upon those in earlier chapters.
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| To offer frequent, useful exercises
Exercises are frequent and located throughout the text, not just at the ends of chapters.
They provide experiences that reinforce lessons taught in preceding sections, and
they challenge students to make their own discoveries about English grammar. Students are
impelled not just to know grammar but to do grammar. Optional "discovery"
exercises challenge students to think like grammarians as they solve syntactic problems on
their own. Answers to selected exercises, posted on the
book’s website, allow students to monitor their progress.
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| To prepare future teachers of grammar
For those users of this book who will teach grammar in the schools, the best preparation
is a thorough understanding of the English language. Although the approach of this
book is transformational, readers will be prepared to teach with whatever materials and
methods are mandated by their school systems. I have used widely accepted terminology
throughout, and Chapter 19 focuses directly on teaching grammar in the schools.
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| To prepare students for more advanced syntactic study
For students who go on to more advanced work in linguistics, Discovering English
Grammar offers the best preparation of all—a thorough familiarity with the
structure of the language. Furthermore, the inductive method of this book instills a
spirit of scientific inquiry that trains students to challenge hypotheses and to form new
ones. Students who use this book will be well prepared to accommodate additional data and
new theories and methods. Finally, Chapter 18 offers an introduction to advanced
syntactic analysis.
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| And, as I said, to stimulate students
I have treated grammar with the same attitude of intellectual excitement that I feel for
the subject. I have attempted to treat my readers with respect and to make my
writing clear, straightforward, personal, and interesting.
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New in the Second Edition
The second edition of Discovering English Grammar represents a
thorough and painstaking revision. The aims and methodology have not changed, nor is
the look of this edition strikingly different from the first. The difference is in
the details. Having taught the book nearly every semester since its first
publication, I have had constant opportunity to discover where students needed help with
clearer explanations, less confusing formalisms, and additional or different exercises.
To address those needs, I have added, modified, rearranged, and deleted, where
appropriate. This edition also reflects the greater understanding of English syntax
and grammar pedagogy that I have gained in the last decade. I have revised and
class-tested the book repeatedly, and the result is the most teachable classroom text of
which I am capable.
A few of the specific changes are the following:
| I have made the greatest revisions in areas where my students had the
most difficulty, including the discussion of prepositional phrases, possessive
determiners, and relative clauses.
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| I have posted answers to selected exercises
on the World Wide Web. Comparing their work with these answers allows students to
monitor their success and learn from errors. I have not provided answers to all
exercises, however, because students also need to be able to do grammar without a safety
net. Many other answers can be found in the online Instructor’s Manual.
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| I have added a new chapter, Chapter 18: A Taste of Theoretical Syntax,
to give interested students an introduction to advanced syntactic analysis.
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Richard Veit
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