MA- should a good MA have no linguisitcs/lang analysis?

[Allan]

Some time ago Metal56 linked to an article by a teacher at the British Council in Estonia, who had basically published online a rehash of Lewis combined with attacks on Swann and some added inaccuracies of the author's own devising. I attacked the paper as being 'hopelessly amateurish' and drew the wrath of Larry, but if the guy had the least formal training he would never had claimed that the 'to' in I want to see you went with 'want' and not the following verb phrase. He was attempting to refute the idea that there was something wrong with the split infinitive, but in doing so, made an ass of himself. Linguists have assigned various categories to the 'to', including that of a defective auxiliary verb, but there is no doubt that it goes at the beginning of the Verb Phrase, and the best description is probably that of a marker (the CGEL suggests a subordinator) coming before the head of the VP 'see you'.

In spoken language, you can say

Mother: No, Sally, you cannot stick your fork in the electrical outlet.
Sally: But I want to.

"I want to" used in this way is pretty common (at least in some varieties of English). If the "to" did not go with the "want" then it would be correct to say "But I want", which is a common error made by some non-native speakers.

In fact, this is an example of exactly the kind of thing taught in at least some university teacher training programmes.

[fluffyhamster]

Yes, but there is a verb phrase following on in SJ's example there, whereas your example, Allan, is a natural instance of ellipsis...

Personally, I won't be losing too much sleep over this one; the passive, however, is another matter entirely, and bears thinking through carefully, again and again (especially if you aren't quite at the level of SJ yet!). Even when you think you've found a good way to practise it, there are probably better (clearer) ways to still be found...this really is an area where I feel understanding proceeds on the basis of the strength of the examples and their relevance to the students and the more immediate context(s) - playing examples off against each other or making ones up off of the top of your head (with little basis in your experiences and how you report(ed) them) isn't the way to go.

[Stephen Jones]

The 'to' is the header to the verb phrase. It goes with the verb phrase, or in the case of the ellipsis you give here represents the verb phrase.
Want is either transitive or catatenative. "I want' is only used by babies at an early stage of linguistic development.

[fluffyhamster]

This may seem a silly question, but doesn't the verb phrase begin with the 'want', and end with 'see' (or 'to (stick)')? You're talking like there is only one in your later posts, but said 'the following verb phrase' in the earlier post, SJ.

Me, I'm happy with the CGEL 'subordinator' (subordinate VP?) thing (in an attempt to answer my own question here). 'Complement' is also a fluffy word that has a nice ring to it.

I do read through books on grammar and syntax, but little of it seems to stick!

[Stephen Jones]

You can have verb phrases inside verb phrases. You can have a verb phrase that consists of header + modifier + verb as in 'to boldly go'.

'to' is the header to the verb phrase so 'to have come' is a verb phrase consisting of a header and a verb phrase.

Either "The language instinct' by Pinker, or the CGEL have loads of the appropriate tree diagrams.

[dullard]

Boy, this is fun! I've learned a great deal from following this thread. If I may, I'd like to ask a couple of questions:

I've heard of pro-verbs (similar to pronouns but they represent verb phrases), could the to in Allen's example be such an animal? The examples I've seen all use to do, eg. I want to do so.

But I want to.

What was the verdict on Australlian on-line courses? Are they perceived as degree mills?

I find the idea of a universal grammer facinating, where can I look for good information about it?

In woodcutters examples

"They won't get away with it. Photos were taken!"
"They won't get away with it. People took photos!"

To me these aren't the same, the photos could have been taken by an automated system which isn't the same as people taking them. Or am I just being pedantic?

And finally, I'll offer two comments about what I perceive as the original question concerning the lack of grammer in the poster's TESL program of study:

First, my personal experience in attempting to learn foreign languages (sadly, as an adult) is that grammer lessons, though painful, are very helpful. Even more so because of my slovenly study habits as a child (I had retained surprisingly little grammer from grammer school). For example, when leaning French, we naturally were taught parfait, plusquam parfait, future anterior, etc. Now when I attempted other (European) languages, I found I had only to learn only the appropriate conjugations, as the usage was very similar.

And second, the stupidest thing I've ever heard, unfortunately from a teacher, was, "I teach 3rd grade, why do I need to know more than 4th grade math?"

Thanks all!