Syntax

I do not think Chapter 5 in Finegan could be written any more technichal than it is. Yes, the book provides you with great information, but it is very difficult to understand and hard to translate into the classroom. One thing I found interesting in this chapter is that not all languages use word order rules to express meaning for example "she ate the cat" means she ate the cat. " You can not switch she and the cat without changing the meaning of the sentence, but in other langauges for instance you can. I would like to know why there is this difference between languages. What has influenced the language in its history to create differences like this?
Freeman is like a breath of fresh air. So easy to read and understand. I like Freeman so much because it does take into account different perspectives about learning and relates them to teaching. In this chapter Freeman asserts tahat students have trouble learning and applying grammar rules when they speak and write. In chapter 9 Freeman also provides a plethora of examples of tree diagrams. These diagrams were very easy for me to understand and I was able to see a variety of sentences some that included conjunctions, auxillaries, and compound sentences. While I read about auxillaries, seeing them in a tree diagram helped me put them into perspective and made them easier for me to identify them.