Grammar Writing

Fall 2023

Instructor

Bradley McDonnell

Modified

August 21, 2023

Course number: 78782
Time: M 10:30 – 1:15
Location: Moore 203
Office hours: T R 3:30 – 4:30 (Virtual)
Virtul meeting: https://hawaii.zoom.us/my/mcdonn
Laulima: https://laulima.hawaii.edu/portal/site/MAN.78782.202410

Course description

The descriptive grammar is a pillar of documentary linguistics, an essential part of the “Boasian trilogy,” and yet its position within the field is uncertain. Important questions remain: what is the utility of a reference grammar and how does it relate to the documentation and to language maintenance/revitalization/reclamation efforts? Who is the audience, and what aspects of language structure must be recorded? Can we ever hope to capture speakers’ knowledge of their language within a single volume? What is the role of linguistic theory?

In this course we critically evaluate these aspects and others of highly regarded descriptive grammars. We also examine new approaches to grammar writing that aim to link to text corpora and media files. The goal is to deconstruct the conventions of grammar writing in order to improve documentary practice.

We also begin to practice linguistic description by discussing topics commonly addressed in grammars.

Learning objectives

At the end of this course, students will be able to:

  1. Critically evaluate different types of grammars for a diversity of audiences and purposes.

  2. Craft linguistic descriptions of different aspects of language, employing appropriate theories of language, terminology, argumentation, evidence, and citation.

  3. Create an outline grammar which aims to produce an adequate description of a language.

  4. Connect documentation to linguitic descriptions that take into account differences in data types.

Course structure

In the course, we will be simultaneously engaging in discussions of grammar writing practices as well as engaging in the linguitic description that comprises grammatical descriptions (e.g. segmental phonology, phonotactics, morphophonemics, derivational and inflectional morphology, clitics, NP structure, TAME, voice, and many others).

The prior will be the primary topic of each class, which required readings come from three primary sources (see Course Reading).

The latter will be covered as a part of student presentations each week. While discussing of the topics may come from a multitude of sources, I encourage you to start with Payne’s excellent reference for field linguists(Payne 1997) followed by Aikhenvald (2014). Other excellent sources include the Shopen volumes (Shopen 2007a, 2007b, 2007c)1 and Dixon’s three volume set on Basic Linguistic Theory (Dixon 2010a, 2010b, 2010c).

Course readings

Course readings are posted on Laulima and linked to the Reading Discussions. If you are planning to read ahead more than a couple of weeks, please check with me first to make sure that Laulima is up-to-date.

The majority of readings come from three edited collections that discuss grammar writing: Ameka, Dench, and Evans (2006); Payne and Weber (2007); Nakayama and Rice (2014b)

Below is a complete list of the required and recommended readings for this course.

Companion grammar

Carefully choose a grammar (not the grammar you are reviewing or a grammar of the language that you researching) that you will use as point of reference for class readings and discussions. This grammar will become a close companion, so take care to choose wisely. You will be asked each week to make reference to this grammar during class discussions, including comments about it in your posts on Laulima. Please bring this grammar to class each week.

Assignments & Grading

  1. Participation & reading responses 20%
  • Students are required to be at every class and participate in class discussions of the readings. When readings are assigned, students are required to send one response (approximately 2-4 sentences each) that contain commentary, criticisms, or questions on the Laulima forum about each reading by 8pm on the Saturday before the reading is to be discussed. Students will not be able to submit late responses for credit.
  1. Facilitate class discussion 15%
  • Students are required to select one reading for which they will lead the class discussion. Students leading class discussions are expected to present a short summary of the major points of the paper, prepare discussion questions based on the reading, and address relevant reading responses on the Laulima discussion forum. Students may also plan activities or lessons that increase student engagement.
  1. Presentation on a topic in language description 20%

  • Students are required to present on a topic common to descriptive grammars. Presentations should aim to be 20-30 minutes that provide an overview of the topic to the class in a concise, useful way. The presentation should provide an overview of the topic with illustrative examples that help other students understand how the topic applies to grammar writing and/or the languages of the world. Each presentation should be accompanied by slides and/or a ‘cliff notes’-style handout with relevant information and examples. Students are encouraged to consult the references mentioned in the Course structure section above. Below is a list of possible topics.

    • Phonotactics
    • Word stress
    • Intonation
    • Inflectional morphology
    • Derivational morphology
    • Clitics
    • Relativization
    • Open word classes: Nouns vs. verbs
    • Open word classes: Adjectives
    • Closed word classes
    • Negation
    • Voice
    • Grammatical relations
    • Tense/Aspect
    • Mood
    • Evidentiality
    • …
  1. Review of recent grammar 15%
  • Each student will choose a recent, published grammar to review, which they will present in Week 10. I recommend choosing a comprehensive grammar that appears to be of good quality. In Week 4, each student will share the grammar that they plan to review and why they choose the grammar. Presentations will be 10-20 minutes long and accompanied by a one-page summary of the review. Students should present an overview of the topics covered and structure of the grammar, the intended audience(s), the data on which it is based, theoretical underpinnings or assumptions, terminology, among other factors we discuss in class.
  1. Final paper: Grammar template and description 30%
  • Each student will choose a language, and based on materials available in this language, they will write a detailed outline of a grammar as well as a detailed description of a particular aspect of the grammar drawing on the priniciples that we are learning in this course. Students already working on a language are encouraged to use this language for the final project. For students who want to work on a language but don’t have access to primary language data, I encourage you to select a closely related language. Students should avoid choosing a language that already has a comprehensive reference grammar. The only exception is in the case that a student wants to develop a detailed outline and description for a pedagogical grammar, which is based upon a reference grammar. Students will need to begin to think about the language they plan to choose immediately. Students will share the language they have chosen in Week 2 and a bibiolography of the materials available in the language will be due in Week 4.

Important dates

September 4 Labor Day (no class)
December 13 Final paper due

Attendance and attentiveness

  • Attendance in this course is crucial. In order to be successful in the course, you really need to attend every class and be punctual. Excessive absences or tardiness may result in a grade reduction. If you know that you are going to be absent, please talk to me as soon as you can so that we can develop a plan.
  • Please be attentive during class. This means that you should not be multi-tasking (e.g., responding to emails, chatting in discord, or scrolling social media).
  • In each class be ready to discuss the readings and participate in the discussion.

Inclusivity policies

Diversity and Civility

I consider the classroom to be a place where you will be treated with respect, and we welcome individuals of all ages, backgrounds, beliefs, ethnicities, genders, gender identities, gender expressions, national origins, religious affiliations, sexual orientations, ability – and other visible and nonvisible differences. All members of this class are expected to contribute to a respectful, welcoming and inclusive environment for every other member of the class.

Preferred Names and Pronouns

I will gladly honor your request to address you by a preferred name or gender pronoun. Please advise me of this preference early in the semester so that I can make appropriate changes to my records.

Needs (ADA Statement)

If you have a disability for which you need accommodations in this class or any other special need (e.g. religious holidays), please inform the instructor as soon as possible. The KOKUA Program (Office for Students with Disabilities) can be reached at (808) 956-7511 or (808) 956-7612 (voice/text) in room 013 of the Queen Lili’uokalani Center for Student Services.

Course schedule

Below is a tentative list of topics and readings for the course. It is subject to change.

*I will traveling to Indonesia, although dates are still tentative.

Week 1: Course introduction

Aug 21

We will reflect on our own conceptions of grammar writing and its relationship to speakers and signers, communities, documentation, revitalization/reclaimation, linguistic theory, typology.

Week 3: NO CLASS

Sep 4

Week 4: Grammaticography

Sep 11

We will read Mosel (2006) on grammaticography (“the art and craft of writing grammars”) and Payne (2014) on balacing different tensions in grammar writing.

  • Share the grammar that you will review
  • Submit a bibliography of materials available for the language you have chosen

Week 5: Language documentation and grammar writing

Sep 18

We will read Rehg (2014) and Himmelmann (2012) and discuss tensions in the early days of documentary linguistics between language documentation and linguistic description.

Week 6*: Good grammars and best practices in grammar writing

Sep 25

We will read Rice (2006a) on what makes a grammar good and Camp et al. (2018) on best practices in grammar writing.

Week 7*: Sounds in grammar writing

Oct 2

We will read Rice (2014) about describing sounds in grammar and Himmelmann and Ladd (2008) who discuss the documentation of prosody.

Week 8*: Grammars and communities

Oct 9

We will read Mithun (2006) on the relationship between communities and grammars and Akumbu (2020) grammar writing in community based language work.

Week 9: Grammars that communicate

Oct 16

We will read Noonan (2006) on grammar writing for a grammar-reading audience and Payne (2006a) on a grammar as a communicative act.

Week 10: GRAMMAR REVIEW PRESENTATIONS

Oct 23

Students will present their reviews of the grammar that they have chosen.

Week 11: Grammar writing and theory I

Oct 30

We will read Rice (2006b) and Genetti (2014) about the role of linguistic theory in grammar writing.

Week 12: Grammar writing and theory II

Nov 6

We will read Haspelmath (2010) on Framework Free Grammar and Nikolaeva (2015) on Basic Linguistic Theory.

Week 13: Linking corpora and grammar writing

Nov 13

We will read Thieberger (2009) on the idea of an embedded grammar and Musgrave and Thieberger (2021) on the language documentation quartet. We will also look at grammars that make use of hyperlinks, etc.

Week 14: The linguistic example and data citation

Nov 20

We will read Mithun (2014) on data and examples and Gawne et al. (2017) on data citation in reference grammars.

Week 15: Eurocentrism and other influences in grammar writing

We will read Kelly and Lahaussois (2021) on influences that affect various aspects of different Tibeto-Burman grammars and Himmelmann (2006) on the diversity of ways Tagalog has been described, focussing on the prefix ma-.

Week 16: Presentations of final projects

Dec 4

Students will present their final projects to the class.

References

Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2014. The Art of Grammar: A Practical Guide. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199683215.001.0001.
Ajanki, Rigina, and Arja Hamari. 2021. “Current Trends in Grammar Writing.” Linguistics Vanguard 7 (1): 20190039. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2019-0039.
Akumbu, Pius. 2020. “Reflections on a Community-Based Approach to Writing Grammars of Endangered African Languages.” Studies in African Languages and Cultures, no. 54 (December): 71–96. https://doi.org/10.32690/SALC54.3.
Ameka, Felix K., Alan Dench, and Nicholas Evans, eds. 2006. Catching Language. The Standing Challenge of Grammar Writing. Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM] 167. Berlin ; Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110197693.
Camp, Amber B., Lyle Campbell, Victoria Chen, Nala H Lee, Matthew Lou-Magnuson, and Samantha Rarrick. 2018. “Writing Grammars of Endangered Languages.” In The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages, edited by Kenneth L. Rehg and Lyle Campbell, 1st ed., 271–71. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190610029.001.0001.
Dixon, Robert M. W. 2010a. Basic Linguistic Theory. Vol. 3. 3 vols. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.
———. 2010b. Basic Linguistic Theory. Vol. 2. 3 vols. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.
———. 2010c. Basic Linguistic Theory. Vol. 1. 3 vols. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.
Evans, Nicholas, and Alan Dench. 2006. “Introduction: Catching Language.” In Catching Language. The Standing Challenge of Grammar Writing, edited by Felix K. Ameka, Alan Dench, and Nicholas Evans, 1–40. Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM] 167. Berlin ; Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110197693.
Gawne, Lauren, Barbara F Kelly, Andrea L Berez-Kroeker, and Tyler Heston. 2017. “Putting Practice into Words: The State of Data and Methods Transparency in Grammatical Descriptions.” Language Documentation 11: 157–89. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/24731.
Genetti, Carol. 2014. “Walking the Line: Balancing Description, Argumentation and Theory in Academic Grammar Writing.” In The Art and Practice of Grammar Writing, edited by Toshihide Nakayama and Keren Rice, 121–34. Language Documentation & Conservation Special Publication 8. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4588.
Haspelmath, Martin. 2010. “Framework-Free Grammatical Theory.” In The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis, Edited by Bernd Heine & Heiko Narrog, 341–65. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.814947.
Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. 2006. “How to miss a paradigm or two: Multifunctional ma- in Tagalog.” In Catching Language. The Standing Challenge of Grammar Writing, edited by Felix K. Ameka, Alan Dench, and Nicholas Evans, 487–526. Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM] 167. Berlin ; Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110197693.
———. 2012. “Linguistic Data Types and the Interface Between Language Documentation and Description.” Language Documentation and Conservation 6: 187–207. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4503.
Himmelmann, Nikolaus P., and D. Robert Ladd. 2008. “Prosodic Description: An Introduction for Fieldworkers.” Language Documentation & Conservation 2 (2): 244–74. http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/4345.
Kelly, Barbara, and Aimée Lahaussois. 2021. “Chains of Influence in Himalayan Grammars: Models and Interrelations Shaping Descriptions of Tibeto-Burman Languages of Nepal.” Linguistics 59 (1): 207–45. https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2020-0255.
Mithun, Marianne. 2006. “Grammars and the Community.” Studies in Language 30 (2): 281–306.
———. 2014. “The Data and the Examples: Comprehensiveness, Accuracy, and Sensitivity.” In The Art and Practice of Grammar Writing, edited by Toshihide Nakayama and Keren Rice, 25–52. Language Documentation & Conservation Special Publication 8. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4583.
Mosel, Ulrike. 2006. “Grammaticography: The Art and Craft of Writing Grammars.” In Catching Language. The Standing Challenge of Grammar Writing, edited by Felix K. Ameka, Alan Dench, and Nicholas Evans, 41–68. Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM] 167. Berlin ; Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110197693.
Musgrave, Simon, and Nick Thieberger. 2021. “The Language Documentation Quartet.” In Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on the Use of Computational Methods in the Study of Endangered Languages Volume 1 (Papers), 6–12. Online: Association for Computational Linguistics. https://aclanthology.org/2021.computel-1.2.
Nakayama, Toshihide, and Keren Rice. 2014a. “Introduction.” In The Art and Practice of Grammar Writing, edited by Toshihide Nakayama and Keren Rice, 1–5. Language Documentation & Conservation Special Publication 8. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4581.
———, eds. 2014b. The Art and Practice of Grammar Writing. Language Documentation & Conservation Special Publication 8. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. https://hdl.handle.net/10125/34176.
Nikolaeva, Irina. 2015. “Reference Grammars.” In Handbücher Zur Sprach- Und Kommunikationswissenschaft / Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science (HSK) 42/3, edited by Tibor Kiss and Artemis Alexiadou, 2036–63. DE GRUYTER. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110363685-019.
Noonan, Michael. 2006. “Grammar Writing for a Grammar-Reading Audience” 30 (2): 351–65.
Payne, Thomas E. 1997. Describing Morphosyntax: A Guide for Field Linguists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2006a. “A Grammar as a Communicative Act: Or: What Does a Grammatical Description Really Describe?” Studies in Language 30 (2): 367–83. https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.30.2.09pay.
———. 2006b. “Introduction.” Studies in Language 30 (2): 235–43.
———. 2014. “Toward a Balanced Grammatical Description.” In The Art and Practice of Grammar Writing, edited by Toshihide Nakayama and Keren Rice, 91–108. Language Documentation & Conservation Special Publication 8. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4586.
Payne, Thomas E., and David J. Weber, eds. 2007. Perspectives on Grammar Writing. Benjamins Current Topics 11. Amsterdam ; Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.11.
Rehg, Kenneth L. 2014. “On the Role and Utility of Grammars in Language Documentation and Conservation.” In The Art and Practice of Grammar Writing, edited by Toshihide Nakayama and Keren Rice, 53–67. Language Documentation & Conservation Special Publication 8. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4584.
Rice, Keren. 2006a. “A Typology of Good Grammars.” Studies in Language 30 (2): 385–415.
———. 2006b. “Let the Language Tell Its Story? The Role of Linguistic Theory in Writing Grammars.” In Catching Language. The Standing Challenge of Grammar Writing, edited by Felix K. Ameka, Alan Dench, and Nicholas Evans. Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM]. Berlin ; New York: Mouton de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110197693.235.
———. 2014. “Sounds in Grammar Writing.” In The Art and Practice of Grammar Writing, 69–89. Language Documentation & Conservation Special Publication 8. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4585.
Shopen, Timothy, ed. 2007a. Language Typology and Syntactic Description: Clause Structure. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. 3 vols. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press.
———, ed. 2007b. Language Typology and Syntactic Description: Complex Constructions. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. 3 vols. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511619434.
———, ed. 2007c. Language Typology and Syntactic Description: Grammatical Categories and the Lexicon. 2nd ed. Vol. 3. 3 vols. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press.
Thieberger, Nicholas. 2009. “Steps Toward a Grammar Embedded in Data.” In New Challenges in Typology, edited by Patience Epps and Alexandre Arkhipov, 389–408. Berlin ; Boston: Mouton de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110219067.6.389.

Footnotes

  1. These are updated versions of an earlier series from 1985.↩︎