Thread by @MichaelRosenYes

Here is 'main clause': 'I ate a bun.' If I put a) 'Happily', or b) 'In the morning' or c) 'When I got up' in front or before 'I ate a bun', it's a fronted adverbial. (a) is an adverb, b) is an adverbial phrase, c) is an adverbial clause.

https://twitter.com/UniCamPrimSch/status/1349455291218325505

1. Why has this feature of sentence structure been singled out for special mention? There is no answer to this question from grammarians. An 'adverbial' can come after a 'main clause'. Why not identify and name this? No answer.

2. My point is that this bit of terminology is random and even by its own rules is illogical. You can put words and phrases in front of main clauses that modify the 'subject' of the clause rather than the verb ie they're 'adjectival'.

3. 'With a face like thunder, Michael stormed out.' Clearly this is a description of Michael. It's not 'adverbial'. The terminology is useless and arbitrary.

4. These abstract ways of 'segmenting' sentences and giving them names tell us nothing about purpose, meaning, function. They offer us no view on *why people choose to speak or write in this way - matters which are to do with who is speaking, to whom, the 'genre' in question.

5. In some languages (eg German) putting words in front of the main clause results in 'inversion' of subject and main verb: 'Alone stood he on the cliff.'

6. The main grammarian who advised the government of SPaG grammar says that Gove was asking for more terminology and the grammarian blurted out 'fronted adverbial' as an aside and Gove leaped on it and said 'Yes!'

7. The grammarian in question now regrets this because he thinks it has little or no importance in the general run of this kind of 'grammar'.

8. A further insight into the arbitrary and illogical way this was all decided: Gove told the grammarians he wanted to include the 'subjunctive'. The grammarians said no, because the subjunctive in English is a much disputed matter.

9. Some argue that what is identified as the subjunctive in English is nothing like the fully conjugated subjunctives you find in eg French. They argue that it's more like a residual oddity and should be called something different.

10. Gove insisted. The grammarians were overruled. The result is under-11 year olds hunting these rare usages, applying a name that is inconsistent with other European languages on the whim of someone who is not a linguist.

11. This field of SPaG 'grammar' is exceptionally weak in explaining or describing real usage because it ignores the reasons for our choices of how to speak and write, which are based on many things, not just the abstract rules invented by grammarians - and much disputed at that.

12. Real language in use depends on who is speaking/writing, to whom, what context, register, genre is the person speaking or writing. A useful and 'functional' grammar would or should include these elements.

13. Consequence of SPaG teaching in primary schools is giving under-11 year olds a false sense of what is right, what is 'good writing' - especially as 'good writing' is supposed to display the prescribed SPaG features eg 'expanded noun phrase' as if this is better than a 'noun'

14. This claim is nonsense because it is taking the abstract description - 'expanded noun phrase' and giving it high status separate from context, purpose, audience, register ie sometimes an 'e.n.p' might be good, sometimes useless.

15. We should remember that the historical reason for the terminology of all this 'grammar' is derived from people trying to describe one very specific use of language: the Latin written by a tiny segment of Roman society.

16. That's why when the systems of this 'grammar' are applied to real speech, real language in use in eg songs, TV, film, newspapers, grammarians keep talking about 'exceptions' or that this is 'block language' as if it is incomplete or rare. This is a nonsense too.