Concrete and Grammatical Language

Looked at one way, there are two kinds of language, concrete and grammatical.  Concrete language consists of words that represent real objects or concepts — nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.  Grammatical language is definable by its function, not by its meaning; it links words, marks tense, and performs other supporting functions.

In the sentence “The leaf has fallen off the green tree,” the concrete words are leaf, fallen, green, and tree. The grammatical words are the, has, off, and the. The indicates that this is a specific leaf, and a specific tree, off indicates that the leaf has fallen from a higher place to a lower place, and has indicates that the act of falling is complete.  Tree and leaf could have several meanings, while the always performs the same function.

EXERCISE:

1.  Take a random sentence and list the concrete and the grammatical words in it.

2.  In a random paragraph, count the number of concrete and grammatical words.  In The leaf has fallen off the green tree the ratio is 4 (concrete) to 4 (grammatical).  Is this the typical ratio?

concrete language, grammar exercises, grammatical language, linguistics in the classroom

Syntax