Q 1 i) Strengths and Weaknesses of Traditional Grammar

• Traditional grammar established the eight parts of speech. These parts of speech were
established in English and other languages and are still in use in linguistic discourse till date.
Moreover, the Subject-Verb, Verb-Object relations as well as Case, Mood and other categories
apply in most languages of the world.
• Another strength of Traditional grammar is that it is the most widely used model for teaching the
English language especially in Africa (Wallwork 1969, Lamidi 2000). It is also considered to be the
easiest form of understanding the grammar of English.
• Traditional grammarians were the first to identify the structural relations which hold among
sentence constituents. Also, the concept of the sentence was defined as a complete thought and
classified into statements. Questions and Commands are original to traditional grammar. These
classifications have remained till today. Despite the advantages of the Traditional grammar model,
there are many criticisms leveled against it. The following are some of them:
• Its prescriptive nature. The tendency to prescribe rules for languages was a major weakness of
this model of grammar. Modern scholars of language studies observe the behaviour of languages
and describe them.
• Traditional grammar is also criticized for not adopting scientific methods in studying language.
Their studies were not empirical such that the claims they that were made about languages forms,
structure and behaviour were based on intuitions.
• Traditional grammar did not view individual languages as unique linguistic systems, but was
more concerned with legislating on how people should speak and write that language. (Ndimele,
p.78).
• Another weakness of traditional grammar relates to its definition of parts of speech. For
example, the definition of verbs as action words is inconsistent with similar terms in English. If
verbs are action words, what actions do words like “seem”, “appear” “is”, “been”, etc express?
Moreover, it would be difficult to classify the English words “dare”, “need”, “fire” as nouns or
verbs since they are capable of being used
as either nouns or verbs.

 13. STRENGTHS OF GENERATIVE GRAMMAR This grammar will generate well-formed syntactic
structures (e.g. sentences) of the language. This grammar will have a finite (i.e. limited) number
of rules but will be capable of generating an infinite number of well-formed structures. The rules
of this grammar give ‘recursiveness’, that is the capacity to be applied more than once in
generating a structure. This grammar is also capable of revealing the basis two other
phenomena: How some superficially distinct sentences are closely related. How some
superficially similar sentences are in fact distinct.
 14. WEAKNESSES OF GENERATIVE GRAMMAR • It is far from clear what contribution
Generative- Transformational Grammar is likely to make to language teaching methodology." •
Silalahi (1993), "
 15. WEAKNESSES OF GENERATIVE GRAMMAR Many teachers of English as a Second Language
assume that Generative- Transformational Grammar is pedagogically unadaptable to the needs of
a secondary curriculum. It means that it is not applicable to language teaching.
 16. WEAKNESSES OF GENERATIVE GRAMMAR There are two important reasons: • The first
reason is that the explication of the theory is directed more towards linguists, psychologists and
mathematicians than toward teachers of English. • The second reason is that the criticism of this
theory by other linguists made the concept more complicated.

Strengths and weaknesses of SFG (systemic function grammar)

One of the strengths of SFG is that it addresses the need for a wide range of factors to be included
in language processing systems, as described in the Introduction in the case of machine
translation. The factors discussed by [Tsujii 1986] - semantic, pragmatic, discourse - are included in
SFG as functional systems in the three metafunctions - ideational, interpersonal, textual -
described in Section 1.2.3. Of course, there is nothing special about the number three, except that
we feel easier thinking in three dimensions. In fact Fawcett distinguishes not three but eight
functional areas of language - experiential, logical relationships, negativity, interactional, affective,
modality, thematic (theme-rheme structure), informational (given-new structure) [Fawcett 1980].
A closely related but distinct strength is that these factors are not organized as separate strata at
different levels, but are multidimensional. In SFG, there is a separation into two levels: the level of
function and the level of form. Realization is the mapping between these two levels. However, at
the functional level, all the metafunctions apply in parallel. This means, in non-SFG terminology,
that semantics, pragmatics and discourse are on the same level. This contrasts with some other
approaches in which syntax, semantics and pragmatics are considered to be three distinct levels.
Fawcett describes SFG as ``holistic'', and considers this as a strength:
``...My point is that many of these matters are already incorporated into a HOLISTIC system in SFL -
and, moreover, that many of the choices in the language system that have in some approaches
been relegated to `pragmatics' are in fact integral to the semantics and syntax of the clause...''
[Fawcett 1988]

Strength of structural grammar

The most important is that it provides the mechanics for clear and concise communication in line
within commonly understood parameters. Without a proper understanding of how sentences are
put together, expression is necessarily inhibited. 6 Weakness of structural grammar
Chomsky criticized – corpus bound, neglect of meaning Structurism ignores explanatory adequacy,
meaning, linguistic universals, native speaker’s intuition and his competence of generating infinite
number of sentences from a finite set of items 7 Weakness of structural grammar
Structuralism analysis the date of a given corpus by means of inductive methods, and formulates a
grammar based on discovery procedures of data. To structuralists, grammar is a catalogue of
elements classified of with restrictions enumerated, and relations made physically manifested. 8
Weakness of structural grammar
Total corpus cannot be captured or verified. Language is not merely an inventory, or catalogue of
items, as structuralists imagined. Structuralists failed to capture all ambiguities and relations. It
does not include the idea of creativity 9 Weakness of structural grammar
It does not account for the degree of grammaticality and acceptability, nor does it stop the
generation of ungrammatical sentences. Grammar is not predictive and explicit; it does not explain
inter-relatedness of sentences. Grammar should not merely be a record of data
10 Weakness of structural grammar
It should establish the general and innate properties of the language based on intrinsic properties
of human mind. Linguistics is a sub-class of cognitive psychology. Language is both nature and
nurture. Grammar should also specify, what to say; when and why
11 Weakness of structural grammar
Structural grammar does not fulfill all these goals. It is not a whole but a part of the whole – an
inventory of units such as phonemes, morphemes, words , lexical categories, phrases. Descriptive
grammar is just one aspect of generative grammar.
12 Weakness of structural grammar
Structuralism fails to speak anything about nature of language and fails to establish a relationship
between sound and meaning. A grammar should also account for deep structures. It should give a
factually accurate formulation of rules.
13 Weakness of structural grammar
It should give such rules that generate deep and surface structures. It should give such rules that
discover the iner-relatedness of sentences. It should give such rules that give phonetic
transcriptions of surface rules and semantic interpretation of deep structures.
14 Weakness of structural grammar
The units logically prior to the grammar; the grammar is logically prior to the units. It concentrates
on structuralism and ignores the native speaker’s competence. It also ignores the psychological
and sociological side of language.
15 Weakness of structural grammar
It is interested in data more for the sake of data than in capturing the creative power that
generates an infinite set of sentences. It does not speak of the internalization – the emergence of
Transformational Generative Grammar
The advantages and weaknesses of conventional grammar and structural linguistics are the
subjects of this pamphlet. Reasons given for the widespread attack on conventional grammar are
that it has resulted in repetitive and time-consuming instruction, has not improved the students'
language skills, has been confused with language usage, and does not accurately describe present-
day English. However, certain concepts associated with conventional grammar (logical sentence
completeness, modification and subordination, coordination and parallel construction, basic
sentence patterns, and simplified sentence diagraming) are shown to be applicable in preventing
some serious errors in expression. An examination of the concepts of structural grammar draws
attention to the structuralists' emphasis on the spoken language and to the ways that intonation
can be a guide to punctuation.

ictionary.
Plural Noun Rules
There are many plural noun rules, and because we use nouns so frequently when writing, it’s
important to know all of them! The correct spelling of plurals usually depends on what letter the
singular noun ends in.
1 To make regular nouns plural, add -s to the end.
cat – cats
house – houses
2 If the singular noun ends in -s, -ss, -sh, -ch, -x, or -z, add -es to the end to make it plural.
truss – trusses
bus – buses
marsh – marshes
lunch – lunches
tax – taxes
blitz – blitzes
3 In some cases, singular nouns ending in -s or -z, require that you double the -s or -z prior to
adding the -es for pluralization.
fez – fezzes
gas –gasses
4 If the noun ends with -f or -fe, the f is often changed to -ve before adding the -s to form the
plural version.
wife – wives
wolf – wolves
Exceptions:
roof – roofs
belief – beliefs
chef – chefs
chief – chiefs
5 If a singular noun ends in -y and the letter before the -y is a consonant, change the ending to -ies
to make the noun plural.
city – cities
puppy – puppies
6 If the singular noun ends in -y and the letter before the -y is a vowel, simply add an -s to make it
plural.
ray – rays
boy – boys
7 If the singular noun ends in -o, add -es to make it plural.
potato – potatoes
tomato – tomatoes
Exceptions:
photo – photos
piano – pianos
halo – halos
With the unique word volcano, you can apply the standard pluralization for words that end in -o or
not. It’s your choice! Both of the following are correct:
volcanoes
volcanos
8 If the singular noun ends in -us, the plural ending is frequently -i.
cactus – cacti
focus – foci
9 If the singular noun ends in -is, the plural ending is -es.
analysis – analyses
ellipsis – ellipses
10 If the singular noun ends in -on, the plural ending is -a.
phenomenon – phenomena
criterion – criteria
11 Some nouns don’t change at all when they’re pluralized.
sheep – sheep
series – series
species – species
deer –deer
You need to see these nouns in context to identify them as singular or plural. Consider the
following sentence:
Mark caught one fish, but I caught three fish.
Plural Noun Rules for Irregular Nouns
Irregular nouns follow no specific rules, so it’s best to memorize these or look up the proper
pluralization in the dictionary.
child – children
goose – geese
man – men
woman – women
tooth – teeth
foot – feet
mouse – mice
person – people

What is the difference between regular adjectives and irregular adjectives?

the most common difference is that irregular adjectives are those adjectives that do not use
suffixes "er" for comparative and "est" for superlative for example:
the adjective "bad" it does not use the suffixes "er" and "est" but rather it form its comparative as
"worse" and its superlative as "worst". it doesn't use the suffixes "er" and "est" unlike regular
adjectives.
Examples irregular adjectives

Examples of regular adjectives

Big bigger biggest

Small smaller smallest …………………………

Pedagogy can be defined as the art of teaching. Pedagogy involves being able to convey
knowledge and skills in ways that students can understand, remember and apply. Pedagogical
skills can generally be divided into classroom management skills and content-related skills.

Planning is the thinking skill that helps an individual develop strategies to accomplish goals. It helps a child to think about
how to complete a task before attempting to begin it. ... Many games require the use of Planning where sequencing of
activities, setting goals, and anticipating the future is required.

Creativity simply means being able to come up with something new. Therefore, creative thinking is the ability to
consider something – a conflict between employees, a data set, a group project – in a new way. Employers in all
industries want employees who can do this.

Be sure to highlight your ability to think creatively in your job applications. To do this, you first need to recognize
your own creativity.

Evaluative skills are used to assess the credibility of the claims people make or post, and to assess the quality of the reasoning
people display when they make arguments or give explanations.