GRAMMAR WITHIN AND BEYOND THE SENTENCE

Rules of grammar operate within a sentence. For example, if someone begins a sentence with ‘The…’ we know that any
word cannot follow it. The rules of grammar allow only certain words after ‘the’. Are there rules that operate beyond the
sentence? In other words, are there rules within discourses which decide what kind of sentence can follow another? If we
violate rules of grammar within the sentence, we will get incorrect sentences of three kinds in addition to those with writing
errors of spelling and punctuation.
There are rules of grammar beyond the sentence, within the discourse. These rules will decide which sentence can follow
another one. If we violate these we will get sequences of sentences that lack coherence. This will affect communication. For
example, consider the two sequences of sentences given below:
A. The boy ate all the mangoes. His stomach became upset.
B. The boy ate all the mangoes. The frog was in the pond.
The sequence of sentences in A will be accepted as an appropriate one for discourse whereas that in B will be rejected as it
fails the test of coherence.
But we cannot come to a ready conclusion like this in the case of B. There is nothing “wrong” about it because we can cook
up a story which will contain this sequence. All what we need is stretch out our imagination by virtue of which we can create
a context for the appearance of sequence B.
At this point we have two possible answers to the problem of how we identify a piece of language as unified and meaningful.

i. Invoke rules of grammar that operate within the sentence as well as within the discourse.
ii. Make use of our knowledge - of the world, of the speaker, of social convention, of what is going on around us as we read
or listen
It follows that factors outside language also are important for making a stretch of language coherent. In order to account for
discourse we have to look at the situation, the people involved what they know and what they are doing. These factors help
us construct a piece of language as discourse, which has a meaning and unity for us. We account for correct or incorrect
sentences in a different way, by virtue of our knowledge about grammar. For doing this, facts outside language are not
required.
Already we have seen that all sentences in a discourse may not be full-fledged ones. Sometimes there may be even linguistic
fragments within a discourse. These fragments are taken for granted as appropriate provided their occurrence is justifiable by
the context. For instance, consider the piece of conversation given below:
Husband: I have to go to Madras.
Wife: Why do you have to go to Madras?
Husband: I have to attend a conference there.
Wife: What conference do you have to attend there?
Husband: It is a conference on the teaching of English phonetics.
Wife: It is the most boring subject I can think of.
Husband: It is the most boring subject anyone can think of.
Wife: Then why do you have to attend the seminar?
Husband: I have to attend the seminar because I am teaching phonetics.
Wife: How long will you have to stay there?
Husband: I will have to stay there for three days.
Wife: What will you buy for me from Madras?
Husband: I will buy a sari for you from Madras.
Wife: If you are buying a sari for me please buy a costly one.
Husband: If I am buying a sari for you I will certainly buy a costly one.

Every sentence included in the dialogue is grammatical. Nevertheless, as a piece of conversation it fails the test of
authenticity. Anyone who knows English will easily identify the above piece as a hypothetical one. In real life situations it is
quite unlikely that any husband or wife will have involved in a conversation like this. Of course they may speak like this if
they want to be funny and for doing so they will have to articulate each sentence intentionally. Nevertheless, that is not the
way people talk in natural situations. People do not move around talking to one another by sequencing well-formed and full-
fledged sentences one after the other. The above stretch of language satisfies the requirements of sentence grammar but it
will be rejected by discourse grammar.
More than fifty per cent of learners fail to operate and write English with accuracy and fluency even though they apparently
can do the grammar exercises in their text books correctly. This is probably because they know “about” grammar and are
able to attempt the fill-in –the –blanks items quite successfully. So where lies the problem? It is in the way we teach
grammar. Functional grammar is promoted as this being the call of the hour. There are experts who argue that it is necessary
to orient teachers on teaching grammar in an interesting and flexible manner using authentic discourses and grammar games.

Teachers, whether they teach mother tongue or a second language, put forward several arguments in defence of
concentrating on sentences while teaching a language:
• In the case of mother tongue, students already know how to communicate orally. What they need is to learn where to put
full stops and how to write grammatical sentences.
• In the case of second languages what students need are formal skills and knowledge in terms of pronunciation, vocabulary
and grammar which will provide the basis for communicating and interacting.
• These skills are demanded by examinations and are signs of acceptable language behaviour.

When a child acquires the first language, she does not “learn” grammar in a formal way. She internalizes the grammar of the
mother tongue through exposure to the language. Similarly, in second language acquisition, we must concentrate on giving
exposure to the learners using interesting and authentic text which will make them aware of the structures as well as the
functions of the second language. Discourse–oriented pedagogy has been conceived with a view to facilitating language
acquisition at the primary level through experiencing a variety of linguistic discourses. In the modular approach the sub-
modules of language are transacted in such a way that the learners will be able to intuitively distinguish the so-called
grammatical utterances from the ungrammatical ones. This obviates explicit teaching of grammar at the primary level.

 What kind of grammar should we teach at the secondary and higher secondary levels?
There are different types of grammar such as lexical grammar, categorical grammar, relational grammar,
functional grammar, phrase structure grammar, generative grammar, transformational generative grammar and the
like to mention a few. Each one of these approaches language as a system from different points of view. ELT
experts of our own times across the world say that if at all we have to teach grammar it is functional grammar.
They argue that learners of English as a second language should have a clear idea about what kind of expressions
are to be used for specific communicative functions. This is why books on functional grammar comes out with a
list of several communicative functions such as making an apology, agreeing or disagreeing with others, inviting
people and so on. Children are persuaded to learn these. The implicit assumption is that if learners are well-
familiarised with the structures that will serve these purposes they will be able to maintain both fluency and
accuracy while communicating with others using English.
We have acquired our mother tongue through meaningful discourses and we will be able to use it doing full justice
to its functional aspects. We do not have to learn separately how to invite people or how to apologise. Acquiring a
language implies acquiring both its structures and functions. Native speakers of any language will be able to use it
by virtue of the intuitive structure consciousness they have acquired. Therefore there is no point in teaching
functional grammar. We cannot go for the other kinds of grammars too.
At the secondary and higher secondary levels we will be focusing on lexical, phrasal and clausal categories of
language and how these are interconnected in different ways to yield different structures. Also the learners will
learn what structural changes are in operation in a given configuration and how licit and illicit structures are
generated by these operations. This implies that the learners will have to get sensitized on some aspects of
transformational generative grammar.
The knowledge of language is acquired non-consciously and precisely this is the reason why we have replaced the
fragmentary approach to teaching language with discourse-oriented pedagogy. As has been already mentioned, this
helps the learners with acquiring both the structural and functional aspects of language. Of course, as part of
discourse construction they will be generating both grammatical and ungrammatical sentences, especially at the
beginning stages. The syntactic and morphological errors and the errors of spelling and punctuation that they may
make are taken up and rectified through the process of editing. It is to be remembered that editing at the primary
level implies editing within the domain of sentence grammar. At the secondary level we will have to go for
different levels of editing as mentioned below.
1. Editing related to sentence grammar
• Syntactic editing
• Morphological editing
• Editing errors of spelling and punctuation
2. Errors related to discourse grammar
 3. Thematic editing
4. Editing related to discourse features

Discourse Grammar (DG) is a grammatical framework that grew out of the analysis of spoken and written linguistic
discourse on the one hand, and of work on parenthetical expressions, including Simon C. Dik's study of extra-clausal
constituents, on the other. Initiated by Gunther Kaltenböck, Bernd Heine and Tania Kuteva, the framework is based on the
distinction between two organizing principles of grammar where one concerns the structure of sentences and the other the
linguistic organization beyond the sentence.
In accordance with the perspective adopted in this framework, linguistic units such as formulae of social exchange,
interjections, discourse markers and other prefabricated expressions, which tend to be assigned a more marginal status in
many models of mainstream linguistics, are interpreted as playing an important role in structuring linguistic discourse.
DG is composed of all the linguistic resources that are available for designing texts, irrespective of whether these are spoken
or written (or signed) texts. It is viewed both as an activity, a real-time interactional tool, and a knowledge store consisting of
a set of conventional linguistic units plus their combinatorial potential. An elementary distinction between two main domains
of speech processing is made, referred to as Sentence Grammar and Thetical Grammar.
Sentence Grammar is organized in terms of propositional concepts and clauses and their combination. It has been the only,
or the main subject of mainstream theories of linguistics. The concern of Thetical Grammar is with theticals, that is, with
linguistic discourse units beyond the sentence, being syntactically, semantically, and typically also prosodically detached
from expressions of Sentence Grammar. These units include what is traditionally referred to as parenthetical constructions
but are not restricted to them. The main categories of Thetical Grammar are conceptual theticals (including comment
clauses, discourse markers, etc.) as well as various other extra-clausal categories such as vocatives, formulae of social
exchange, and interjections.While being separate in principle, the two domains interact in multiple ways in shaping linguistic
discourse.The main way of interaction is via coopration, an operation whereby chunks of Sentence Grammar such as clauses,
phrases, words, or any other units are deployed for use in Thetical Grammar.