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Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2019 3:59 pm
by reineke
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Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2019 5:30 pm
by reineke


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Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2019 6:12 pm
by reineke


Up until its 14th edition (2007), Le bon usage ("Le Grevisse") has been described as a prescriptive grammar. After the 14th edition the authors have adopted a more descriptive approach. The book was awarded the gold medal of the Académie française. It's an enormously detailed descriptive, normative and reference grammar of the French language.

The Cambridge Grammar is a descriptive grammar of the English language. England and the US have never had any "language regulators": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators.

Nowadays some of these institutions have more of a descriptive role, like Italy's La Crusca which is also the world's oldest linguistic academy. Other countries have linguistic institutions with overseeing and regulatory roles like the Académie française and the Real Academia Española. RAE dedicates itself to language planning by applying linguistic prescription aimed at promoting linguistic unity". "The emblem of the RAE summarizes in a motto with the style of the time its aims and obligations: «Limpia, fija y da esplendor»" (It cleans, fixes (standardizes), and gives shine/splendor).

Nueva gramática de la lengua española (2009), the first academic grammar since 1931, combines a normative and descriptive approach.

I like Le bon usage for its copious examples from the best writers and that's also the reason I like Le Petit Robert and the OED. I've opened them more randomly than looking for answers.

Someone wrote:
"No wonder that André Gide liked Le Bon Usage - he is quoted on almost every page in it, and often with fairly daring constructions which I personally would be hesitant to use."

Reineke:

André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1947. He praised Le Bon Usage in 1947. At the time Le Bon Usage was 11 years old.

I have randomly opened a dozen pages and counted around 30 author names I am familiar with. I couldn't find Gide but I don't doubt he's there.

The French answer to the Cambridge Grammar and the Italian Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione (ie a purely descriptive grammar) has been in the works since 2002. It's a reference work called la Grande Grammaire du français (GGF 2200+ pages). Not sure if it has been published yet.

Monolingual French grammars:

Le petit Grevisse (384 p) written for "everyone" including L1 speakers.

Nouvelle grammaire du français: Cours de Civilisation Française de la Sorbonne. A short, neat grammar written for L2 learners.

Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2019 7:04 pm
by reineke


Pretty much done here.

Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2019 7:41 pm
by reineke

Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2019 11:05 pm
by reineke

Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2019 2:08 am
by Carmody
Three cheers for neuralplasticity! :D

Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2019 9:17 pm
by reineke

Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2019 10:44 pm
by Xmmm
reineke wrote:As far as cruising along easy pleasurable content is concerned, I think Xmmm indulged way too early in "Slozhenitsyn" and the like.


Did I ever spell it that way? I heard his name many times on American TV before ever seeing it written so it doesn't seem like a natural error for me. It would be more likely for me to misspell it as "Solzhenitysn".

Regarding grammar, I would love to learn it. I really would. I'm not trying to be childish about it. But I work the exercises, improve temporarily and ... it doesn't stick, I slide backwards. It seems like a waste of effort. I'm hoping once I have C1 receptive skills, I can just work through grammar once, everything will be perfectly obvious, and it will all click (self-deception).

Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2019 10:57 pm
by reineke


Merry Xmas