The aim of this text is twofold. First, it is to synthesize the most useful elements of the traditional and the linguistic viewpoints, in order to make grammar a more practical tool for students in their writing. Second, it is to give students the widest possible experience with the structures of written English in building sentences.
Clearly, then, this book is grounded in the belief that a knowledge of grammatical principles, and practice with them, is related to skill in composition. Traditional grammar, it is true, has failed to the extent that it does not provide an accurate description of our language. Structural grammar has provided valuable correctives — new insights into the structure of English and a more accurate description of it. But the grammar of the structuralists has been largely a "pure science." Except by uncompromising devotees, there have been few attempts to infuse its findings into the composition class, and fewer still in manageable form. To teachers and students traditionally trained, the host of new concepts and terms is bewildering, and the relative lack of concern with improvement seems alien and irrelevant to their needs. This is a real misfortune, for structural grammar has a great deal to offer in the composition class, if only it can by some process of apperception be made to buttress and inform what teachers and students know already. That is what this book seeks to do: to harmonize the achievements of linguistic research with the grammar of the schools and apply the most helpful parts of both to the improvement of writing. Because the nomenclature of traditional grammar is so firmly embedded in the language, we are retaining as many of the old terms as possible, introducing new ones only for new concepts.
David A. Conlin