The role of English grammar in acquiring English in ESL/EFL situations

Abstract

As Celce-Murcia and Larson-Freeman (1999) point out, the role of grammar is not to explain rules but to intuit them. Thus, this study investigates how we can intuit grammatical rules and teach them in ESL/EFL contexts. As a possible answer to this question, we derived the linguistic intuitions that native speakers are assumed to have on grammatical systems and represented them as semantic features. Specifically, we proposed [±abstract] and [±definite] for the article system, according to which nouns with the [+abstract] feature take the null article ∅, nouns with the [-definite] feature take the indefinite article a(n), and nouns with the [+definite] feature take the definite article the. We also proposed [±transfer] for the structure of dative verbs, on which if a dative verb has the [+transfer] feature, it licenses the sequence to+IO, and if it has the [-transfer] feature, it licenses the sequence for+IO. Finally, for infinitives/gerundives, we established [±pastivity] and [±actuality], which explains the linguistic sense that if a matrix verb has the [+futurity]/[-actuality] feature, it takes infinitives, and if it has the [+pastivity]/[+actuality] feature, it takes gerundives. This approach to intuitionizing grammar systems can provide insights into the desirable direction to grammar teaching in the AI era.