[no subject]

97372509 -at- wsuvm1 -dot- csc -dot- wsu -dot- edu wrote:
: Hello everybody,

: I am happy to say somehow I made it through the public school system knowing
: exactly what a noun was. I could even diagram my sentences. I am also happy to
: say I am one semester away from having a bachelor's degree in english, with a
: technical writing emphasis.

: After reading your point about being disappointed that 6th graders do not know
: that a noun is a person, place, thing or idea, I was reminded of the shock I
: experienced in my college grammer class when the professor informed us to
: forget everything we learned in school. We were told that defining a noun as
: merely a person, place, thing, or idea was inadequate. So, to pass on some of
: my recent education, I will share the problem with this definition with you.

: The problem with this definition is that it will not allow you to pick out all
: the nouns in English. Depending on how you define "thing", you may or may not
: include "behavior" in the sentence "I was appalled at his behavior". If you
 do,
: it is difficult to see how you can exclude "behave" in the sentence "I was
: appalled at how he behaved." "Behavior" is in any model a noun; "behaved" on
: the other hand is a verb. A definition which fails to include words which
: belong to the catefory defined or which includes words which do not belong to
: that category cannot be adequate.

: I am glad that I was taught at a young age how to construct simple sentences.
: Yet, I feel a better grasp with sentence structure now that I have the simple
: steps necessary to determine what part of speach a word truly is.

: Sorry for the length of this.

: Kimberley Lackey 97372509 -at- wsuvm1 -dot- wsu -dot- edu