Precisely what I was saying earlier. We should essentially become our own grammars -- that's what competency in the language means, even if we can't always affix a label to what we are seeing.Ken M. Penner wrote:Stephen expressed well what I was thinking:Stephen Carlson wrote: I suppose my real issue is that I'm suspicious of a need for an intermediate grammar in the first place. Past the primer, I think students should invest immediately in the big reference books that will support them for the rest of their career. Competency should be attained by reading -- spending time in the text -- and one's reference grammar ought to be comprehensive enough to answer any question encountered during the reading. Getting specific books for an intermediate course that won't be of much benefit afterwards feels like the textbook churn that book publishers love.
My heart bleeds for the poor boy...Stirling wrote:There were a number of years after my introduction with E.V.N. Goetchius when I made use of S. E. Porter 1992 and Richard A Young. I had BDF and ATR and Moule and Moulton-Turner during these years but found myself having difficulty digesting them. Really, these fellows wrote for an audience that no longer exists. Boys who studied classics in Greek and Latin in private boarding schools in the UK. I have a friend who attended one of those schools in Canada. The last time he was over for dinner he waxed eloquent on horrors of that experience.
I think that the distance between Mounce and and the current crop of reference grammars is a huge jump. Students need a bridge to traverse the canyon.
![Sad :(](./images/smilies/icon_e_sad.gif)
No doubt the poverty of the modern educational system requires some revision of the materials. There is nearly universal agreement that while Wallace has it's good points, it's not the way to go. So, who's going to do it right, and what does doing it right mean?