I studied French (and some other languages) during my study years in the late 70s, and that means that I got some ways to work with grammar 'under my skin', as they say - and the clearest result of that I always see grammar from not only the utilitarian angle (what good can it do for me here and now?), but also as something as a scientific challenge (how does the system actually
function?). But the posiitve side of this is that I can't read a grammar without thinking about ways to improve or rationalize the knowledge I can glean from the books - or these days: from the internet.
I have mentioned my
green sheets several times here. They are intended to sum up the essential morphology and some, but not all parts of the syntax. And I try to use at least two sources because seeing matters from at least two sides make me
think - just reading a grammar may be entertaining and I may see some interesting details along the way, but I don't get active myself. Three sources is even better.
I can also choose myself how to present the data. One example of this: it's obviously practical to have the morphology of articles, adjectives and substantives visible at one glance, but 'big' grammars can't do that because they have to mention all the special cases. However I can choose only to show the regular forms, and then the irregular ones are on another sheet or I can find them in all their splendid glory in a fullsize grammar. In the Icelandic table below the problem is that there are both strong and weak adjectives and both strong and weak substantives - but those words doesn't mean the same thing. For adjectives strong/weak depend on whether there is a definitive article around or not so all adjectives can be both, whereas substantives are inherently weak or strong. And speaking about articles: Icelandic only has definite articles, but they be independent words before the adjectives and/or substantives, or they can be postclitic, i.e. used as postfixes. I have got all that information squeezed into my table, but the price is that there aren't any reference to the (relatively few) irregular nouns, nor any tips to guessing the gender of the substantives - and that others may not be able to guess why I made a certain table in a certain way.
Besides the 'official' grammars sometimes cling to conventions that don't fit the facts. For instance the accusative in most Slavic languages borrows many of its forms from either the nominative or the genitive, and therefore the only logical position of it in the tables would be
between those two cases - but in German or Slavic grammars it is mostly put after the Dative. In my green sheets I can put it where I want it, and I want it between the nominative and the genitive.
As for the timing: I try to produce my green sheets early in my learning process because that's where I need the knowledge most. But I haven't made them for the Romance languages because I didn't invent them before it was too late. I did write my own summary of the French grammar when I studied French, but it was not nearly as concise as my green sheets. And because those sheets are so compressed I can use them for reference both when I work with texts and when I write something myself. The 'big' grammars aren't really suited for that, but I can use them to get more information or for use in more problematic cases. And sometimes I get curious about a certain syntactical feature, and then I study it using grammars and examples gleaned from texts or the internet, or I can read a whole grammar or parts thereof just for fun - but that mostly happens at a fairly late stage, when I feel that I have grasped the basics.
Icelandic-regular-nouns-etc.jpg
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