Did you know that a subject and object have a
relationship to each other in a sentence? In French, you must understand many relationships between parts of the sentence. In English, an
author seems to take more liberties with language. The teaching device of diagramming sentences helps the many hapless students of English realize that the sentence does have organization, which may not be apparent in everyday usage of the language to us.
En anglais, it seems (that) if the reader doesn't know which words modify other words as well as what essential relationships need to be present in a sentence... well, the writer expects that they should know! ...or the reader can't understand the sentence. Even more dismaying to me (is that) in English writing classes, we Americans are now taught to drop "non-essential" or awkward words from sentences. The most striking to me is the encouragement by writing instructors to drop the word "that" when it is "obvious" (that) it introduces a dependent clause (par exemple).
When I write these blogs, I often wonder if students of English find my writing rather confusing without these helpful relative pronouns.. so I sprinkle them into my writing more generously than many other English language writers.
In French, dropping relative pronouns (e.g. that, who, whom, whose, which, where, when, and why) is a really big "no no." Without them (and French has many more of these, with their various forms, to learn than in English) sentences simply become incomprehensible and unreadable... although, through my translating work, it has been revealed to me that French has its own formal and lengthy ways of hanging sentences together that can be difficult to comprehend.
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| http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/pronouns1.htm |
En anglais, it seems (that) if the reader doesn't know which words modify other words as well as what essential relationships need to be present in a sentence... well, the writer expects that they should know! ...or the reader can't understand the sentence. Even more dismaying to me (is that) in English writing classes, we Americans are now taught to drop "non-essential" or awkward words from sentences. The most striking to me is the encouragement by writing instructors to drop the word "that" when it is "obvious" (that) it introduces a dependent clause (par exemple).
When I write these blogs, I often wonder if students of English find my writing rather confusing without these helpful relative pronouns.. so I sprinkle them into my writing more generously than many other English language writers.
In French, dropping relative pronouns (e.g. that, who, whom, whose, which, where, when, and why) is a really big "no no." Without them (and French has many more of these, with their various forms, to learn than in English) sentences simply become incomprehensible and unreadable... although, through my translating work, it has been revealed to me that French has its own formal and lengthy ways of hanging sentences together that can be difficult to comprehend.
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| Preamble to U.S. Constitution http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2008/01/17/diagramming-the-preamble/ |
There are so many little details to learn, and then forget,
and then relearn in French: spelling and orthography; agreement of nouns,
verbs, adjectives, adverbs; the tenses of verbs and irregular verbs... and so
much more.
These fussy details of written French are actually quite
useful, though difficult, to acquire. French modifications (i.e. changes) create
the agreement of words and phrases in a sentence. This presents to the reader a
neat, tidy package (and tied with the bow of orthography*). In fact, there are so many details included by
the French in the written word that it would be quite difficult to include it
all in a diagram.
I think one would have to find more than 2-dimensional paper
to include all the information that is offered in a French sentence. The
nearest equivalent of diagramming French by my teachers has been their use of
multicolor pens to underline, in matching colors, words and phrases that are related to each other in a
sentence. This technique is used frequently in explaining direct object and
indirect objects.
Diagramming sentences accomplishes a similar function in
English without including every detail. I think the most obvious example is that in English we exclude
gender differences from a diagram. Diagramming is more of a skeleton of our language than
it is a road map. As you may see in the illustrated diagram above, a well done diagram becomes a puzzle to read.
So the act of diagramming sentences in English class is more a technique to
illustrate to yourself and your teacher that you understand the basic grammar
of English than anything. For the French, diagramming would not include enough language
elements to be useful. (French academicians consider all of the elements essential.)
French uses its orthography, which includes the accent symbols
on vowels, to aid in pronouncing a word as well as discriminating between homophones (e.g. ou vs. où).
(*A Definition of
orthography) In French, unlike English, a word can be "sounded
out" fairly easily once you know the system while English leans heavily on
the source of a word, its historical spellings, and current usage of the language to pronounce and spell it acceptably.
Logic is pretty much "all" in French, whereas in
English the primary proficiency skills are word recognition and a great memory for spelling and usage.
Thus, diagramming is useful in English and rather quaint
in French!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXORsn73SNI
Excellente .. Diagrams are the best way to simplify words. Picture worth more than thousand words, that phrase is golden.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Creately