Towards a Reduction of Grammar Teaching a Lexical Analysis

Learning a language is essentially learning vocabulary, and it is the lexical competence that enables the learners to use the language with ease. It will be argued that such an ability includes, among the important ones, the knowledge of semantic properties and syntactic behavior of the lexical item as well as its collocation. The acquisition of the semantic properties of a lexical item is ncccssaary to support the learner's ability to distinguish different senses encoded in the lexical item, and the knowledge of syntactic behavior reflects the learner's ability to recognize and produce the syntactic variants into which a lexical item can enter. The collocational competence is the knowledge of the lexical behavior in particular that enables the learner to envisage the possible cooccurrence of other words with the given lexical item. Thus, the acquisition of lexical competence would cover a large part of syntax. This understanding of the nature and characteristics of lexicon would raise some questions on the relevance of putting great emphasis on the teaching of grammar only.

English as a second language, The formal instruction of English as a foreign language in Indonesia has irnplicitly recognized vocabulary as an essential part ofthe instruction.In the cur- rent English curicuium for secondary school (1994), the mastery of vocabulary is measured as the standard of completion of the prograrn.However, vocabuiary teach- ing has never been a priority in the English classroom.Earlier in 1990, the Depart- ment of Education and Culture reported that 54.1V0 af English teachers in Indone- sia were in favour of teaching grammar, and only 7 .3ok of vocabulary.Cunently when the communicative approach has been introduced through PKG program, the shift of orientation has been from ,qrammat not to vocabulary, but to language lunctions.The vocabularv remains controversially marginal' It is quite unfortunate that while the current English curricuium lor secondary schools puts reading as firsi priority above listening, speakrng, and writing, very little attention is paid to the teaching of vocabulary.Recent studies in second language vocabulary acquisition demonstrate a strong reciprocal relation between vocabulary and rea<ling comprehension.Laufer (1997), for example, claims that insufficient vocabulary does hinder comprehension regardless ofthe strategies the reader employs.She suggests further that clues will not be available from texts unless a minimum of 95Vo text coverage is known to the readers' Support to this claim is given by Coady (1997) who concluded that highly frequent words are needed to help beginners develop their vocabulary and be independent readers Only with this vocabulary threshold are learners able to read effectrvely, guess the meaning from clues available in the text, understand the messages, and learn more new words.
*l 9l) 'll".l.l lN.l,tttt.rrttl\1r!111,,, 1 Nrttrtl,,,t l,,lrt4rts!I<)t)t) It will be argu0d tlttotrglrorrt llris ruliclrr thrtt the acquisition of lexicon would enable the learners to usc tho llrrrguagc witlrout difliculties since what con- slitutes lexical knowledge is knowing thc words with their properties and how their syntactic behavior.Among these importanr aspects to be taken into serious considerations are the semantic and collocational behavior ofthe word and (for the verb) the argument structures.
Lexis is therefore an essential part of rearning u language, which should be incorporated into the learning materiars no matter what approacli is being em- ployed.There has been evidence rhat a large part of English grammar is lexically related.studies in second language acquisition such as those by Ard and Gass ( I 987), and Yip ( 1 994) have indicared that difficulries experienced by ESL learn- ers which appeared to be grammatical are essentially lexical.
In thrs article, rhe nature and behavior of the English verb will be exam- ined to account for the phenomena.The eviclence is derived from the lexical analy- sis of the English verb lexicon srnce the verb plays a central role in syntax.No clause is ever ibund withcut a vei-bai eleineni, and ii wiii be eviclelrt in the fbllow- ing how a verb shapes its syntactic configuration.

THE VERB ARGUMNNT STRUCTURE
In English as in many other languages, verbs are an important iexical cat- egory.vcrbs enter into relations that shape the syntactic configuration.These con- figurations can be describcd by means of arguments assigned by the verb grammatical function: Predicate.The function operatcs within the system known as Lex jcal Rules which assumes that each verb inhents two lexicai representations: a lexical semantic representation ancl a lexical syntactic representation (Levin an<l  Hovav, 1995; Pinker.1996).Levin and Hovav elaborate further that the former encodes the syntactically relevant aspects of verb meaning, and the Iatter the argu- ment-taking properties of a verb.In Lexicai semantic literature, the semantic r.epre- selltation is sometintes refered to as lexical cr-rnceptual structure and the syntactic rcpresentation known as argumcnt structure.
Thc notion ul lexical couceptual structure may ref'er to the so-called argu, rlent structure (cf.Bresnan,1982;Selkirk, 1982;pinker, l9g9;Grimshaw, 1990; Priyono, Toward.s a Retluctiort of Grammar Teaching 9l Pustejovsky, 1991 ; Fisher, 1994, among others) in that the meantng of the verb specifies the number of participants (arguments) involved and the roles played in the eventuality denoted by the verb.In a more specific terminology, thc verb's argument can be labeled in terms of thematic roles such as "Agent" and "Theme"' For example, the verb pLrt ^s in She put the dictionan, on the tabl.e,can be de- scribed as having three arguments, namely Agent (she), Theme (the dictionary), and Location (on the table).However.for a more practical feason, the concept can be simplified.Instead of using the thematic roles, Pinker (1989) has differentiated the verb's arguments in terms of Subject, Object, Second Object, and Prepositional   Object, Mth this disticntion, the argument structure of the verbs below can be described as follows: She put the dictionary on the table.
[Subj, Obj, Prep Obj] Trm has given me the moneY [Subj, Obj, Sec Obj] Bill ate the bread.
lSubi.objl with these argument{aking properties, the three verbs are differtnt respec- tiveiy in their lexical representation, The verb eat' for instance, cannot dativize as rL^.,^-k ^;,,-Th,,c *Qillnto ^o rha hrprrrl iq orammrficallv ttnacccenfnhle On the lr,\ r\luslr( rlrur."J -"'------r''' other hand, the verb give cannotleave either its difect object or beneficiary' Both *Tim.has given me and *'Tim has given the money are ungranrmatical' Likewise, pLLt never leaves the prepositional object as the goal.As is apparent, the object and the goal (Location) for the verb put, and the direct object and the beneficiary for give areobligatory.Vrolation to this principle would result in ungrammaticality.
The argument-taking property also specifies whetlter a verb must take an object or appear without it in a sentence while some verbs can be in both catego- ries.Theverbsft/l contain,pLLt,eIcalwaysrequireanounphraseobjecttoappear in a sentence, while the verbs disappea4 happen, come, elc never take any.These two categories are known as Pure Transitive and Pure Intransitive (cf' Kilby, i 984)' By contrast, there are verbs which can take and leave an obejct' lncluded in this category are the verbs edl, reacl, write, etc.These are ali illustrated in the following: I a.He never hit the ball verY far' determrne the types of syntactic structures they can shape.The properties of a verb then distinguish from others so that some verbs can enter into particular constructions, but some cannot.In this case, differnt properties assign different syntactic behavior.This will be discussed further under the section syntactic property.

SEMANTIC PROPERTY
There is a com'mon perception in second language learner's experience that learning words is the main part of learning the language (cf, Little, 1994).And the important aspect of iearning words is to know its meaning.Experience as an ESL learner shows that meaning of a word is the first lexical property to be given priority.This is quite obvious from the learner's dependence on dictionaries rather than grammar books when working with the ianguage (cf.Krashen, 1989;Little,1994).
The reliance on vocabulary could be due to the realibility of the content words for a survival communnication.Srnce a word often has more than one meaning, it is necessary for a learner to be able to identify and distinguish an intended meaning from others.Some words have a number of senses which all relate to the same origin.In a dictionary, these extended senses are listed under a single entry.This is the case of polysemy.on the contrary, there are words with multiple meanings and the same form or sound, but not relatcd to the same origin.This is the case of homonymy, To some extent, this sounds like thc rne aning of multiple-sense word can be predicted from its original meanins.However. the problem with polvsemous words is that the extension of word meaning varies (see Puste.jovsky, 1998).The matter may get even worse when Priyono, Towards a Reduction of Grammar Teaching 93 interlexical factors interferes.There is often lexical gap between two ditTerent languages.Consider the foliowing sentences wrth load' l. ,.her heart sank under a feuful load of guilt (2)' 2. ..with a load on his wagon (21) 3. ..to load up some wool on a wagon (27) 4, ..to load our trailer with wood (47) 5. .. if the van did not load the food (52)   6, Despite his heavy work load '...(71).
These six sentences convey six different senses of the word load, bil all relate to the original meaning, that is, to remgve something from one place to an- other or container.Among these different senses, three of them are nouns and others verbs.A free tranlsation into Bahasa Indonesia would yield the following expressions.
1, hatinya terasa berat dibebani perasaan bersalah 2. dengan muatan di kendaraannYa 3, mengisi kendaraan penuh dengan wol 4. memuati trailer kita dengan kayu 5. kalau kendaraannya tidak memuat makanan 6. walaupun beban kerjanYa berat Looking at the Indonesian versions, there are a,t least three different English words that could be the paraphrases of the wotdload.In sentence 1, it is equal to bnrden,in3 to fiIt up,in6 burden.For Indonesian learners of English' sense num- ber 1 may not readily be apparent.And the trace of meaningof loadinsentences 4 and 5 can be misleading.In sentence 4 , traileristhe object while in 5, the "trailer" (wagon) is the subject of the verb load.This shift of function encodes a different sense.In Bahasa Indonesia,the two senses ale represented by the following lexical items QnemrLati and memuat).
The problem with the homonymous words is that the word has the same form and sound, but the meaning cannot easily be traced from the original.These words are potentially ambiguous as illustrated in the following sentences' ?a.They stopped by the bank of the river' The word bankin 7a is completely different from 7b, and its meaning is not related or derived from either one.The same is true with the word rest in sentence 8.There seems to be no trace for guessing the meaning from the origin of in the word.

SYNTACTIC PROPERTY
The builfin property inherent in a iexical item as in the verb argument struc- ture enables the verb to enter into a relation that shape syntactic configuration.In this case the meaning of the verb determines the syntactic structures.Throughout this section it will be evident that only some verbs can enter into a resctricted range of syntactic constructions.Let us now have a look at the syntactic variants that only a number of verbs can produce.

BENEFACTIVE AND DATIVE VARIANTS i'
Dative is a very common variant of the double-object construction in English and some other languages (see Chung, 1976;Levin,1985:32).The general principle that could bc derived from the evidence is that participating verbs in Dative alternation are those with the arguments Sub.iect.Ohlccl.
andBeneficiary.Sentences l-3 display these argument structures.But there is a problem with the verbs return and construcl.These two verbs encode the same arguments as the verbs give, tell, owe, andso on, and they sit.well in the Benefactive variant.As evident from 4 and 5, however, these verbs cannot dativize.

CATJSATIVE AND INCHOATIVE VARIANTS
The English causative verb is the main feature in transitrvity alternations.In the area oflexical semantics, studies have been conducted to investigate the syn- tacticbehaviorofthecausativeverb (Smith,1970;Cruse,1972;Levin,l985;Atkns   et al, 1986; Levin and Hovav, 1994, 1995).The meaning of the transitive variant is generally described as "cause to V-intransitive" (Levin and Hovav, 1994).The following sentences illustrate the causative behavior.Sentence 6b is the para- phrase of 6a while c is the inchoative variant.
b.The boy caused the window to break.
c.The window broke.
It is important to note here that, although sentence 6a entails c, there are more principled differences between the two.First, the change of role involving the argument-taking prope rties of break points out that the object of 6a is the same referent with the subject of 6c.In 6a the causation (who does the breaking) is specified but in 6c is not.Therefore, sentence 6a is agentive while c is non-agentive.
Agentivity in fact plays an important role in causative verb alternations.
In relation to the paraphrasing of causative variants as in sentences 6a and b, Cruse   (1972),refening to the first sentence as the "covert" causative construction and the second as the "overt" causative, has used agentivity as a point ofreference to ex- plain the differences between the two.Cruse (1972:520-1) has the following ex- amples: 7a. John galloped the horse around the field b.John caused the horse to gallop around the field.
b. John caused the prisoners to march.
sentences J a and 8a are covert causative where the objects are agentive.The agentivity allows both sentences to have overt causatives (lb and gb).In addition, animacy of object and subject that corelates with the agentive role is also an important factor in covert and overt alternation.This is illustrated in the following sentences taken from Crtse (1972:521).
9a, *The floods marched the army further north.
b.The floods caused the army to march further north.
b, John caused the spark to fly.
The absence of agentive role in the subject of sentence 9, and the object of ing "Bill is a single talker", without the participation of another, the reciprocal se nse is not conveyed, Therefore l6d is ill-formed.
Priyono, To'wards a Reduction of Grammar Teaching g7 The lexicalsemantic analysis of meet (15) and collide (17) wouldreveal that these verbs are different from talk and know and that the difference is re- flected in the syntactic structure.The reciprocal alternation allows intransitive use of meet and collide to appear without the reciprocal marker (each other).The mean- ings of I 5 and i 7 are not affected in the absence of the reciprocal marker, because Faul.and Mary met, andThe car and the truck collided have already irnplied reciprocity (Dixon's inherently reciprocal).The reciprocal marker would just mean intensification of the meaning of the verbs.This semantic property is found in either talk or know.The absence of reciprocal marker in senlence 16c results in ambiguity.Meanwhile the verb know in sentence 18c does not even imply any reciprocal sense at all.Since reciprocal marker is indispensable for the verb know to express reciprocity, sentence l8c would only mean other than reciprocai.

REFLEXIVE VARIANT
The preceding section has shown that there is a problem with the intransi- tive use of the verbs talk and know because they are not inherently reciprocai.A sinular problem seems to appear with reflexive alternation.The participating verbs rn this alternation are d.ress, bathe, shave, strip, comb, elc.Some of these are illustrated in the following sentences.The evidence derived from sentence 19 shows the syntactic properties ofthe verb dress.First, the verb can be either transitive (a, b, c) or intransitive (d).Second, the transitive dress has both reflexive (b and c) and non-reflexive variant (a).'l'hird, the reflexive variant allows the reflexive pronoun to be deleted.It turns out The alterna- tion to Dative variant is characterized by the permutation of a direct object with an indirect object.Inciuded in this group of verbs are give, tell, sell, send, show, owe, write, etc.The examples below will demonstrate that some verbs dativize and some do rro[.I ^ T^-^ ^^.,^ +L^ -^^r^-r^ A -.^1 4. Jdlrc BdvL rilc IJUStcl [u r\tilttr.b.Jane gave Anne the poster.2a.Iane told the bad news to me.b.Jane told me the bad news.3a.They owe an apology to me.b.They owe me an apology.These are the verbs among others that participate in dative alternation, but the following verbs cannot enter into it.4a.Phil returned the books to the library.b. xPhil returned the librarv the books.Prit'otto, Towertls u Retlur'liott of Grtlttrnur Teuching t)5 5a.They constructed a house for me.b. xThey constructed me a house.
19a.She dressed her son.b.Her son dressed himself.c.She dressed herself immediately.d.She dressed immediately.20a.The little boy hid himself under the table.b.The little boy hid under the table.
I and 2 demonstrate that the noun phrase object is obligatory for the verbs such as /ril, and such an object must be absent for come.But sentences 3a and b indicate that the noun phrase object is optional in the surface structure for the verb write.These examples demonstrate that the built-in properties of the verbs sentences sentence 10 makes only overt causative possible.The verbs participating in this alternation incrude boil, break, burn, close, dry, meIr, open.sink,etc.OBJECT.DELETED VARIANT Quite a few verbs participate in the transitive and rntransitive alternation involving the deletion of object.Among others are the verbs read,bite, cook, draw, drive, eat, write, etc, This group of verbs is similar to causative verbs in that they take both transitive and intransitive variants, but they are different in the relation between the subject/ b Jim and his neighbour know each other.sentences l5a, b, and c, Paul, and Mary can be either Agent or Target in the same event of meeting, Therefore, they may conflate to form a subject.It is evident fiom the four instances ( I 5-l 8) that a plural or double subject is indispensable for reciprocal sense.sentences 15d, l6d, and 1Tc demonstrate that singular subject does not express reciprocity.Although l6d is a possible intransitive variant mean- c. *Jrm and his neighbour know.In