Really?

[Tony A. Wright]

Carl Mills wrote:

>Technically, I suppose, both Profs. Bates and Haspelmath are correct.  Of cou
>bookshelves of language teachers and in the minds of linguists.  A more inter
>exist?"  Or more precisely, "Is the notion 'grammar' necessary or even useful
>Vic Yngve thinks not, and I, from a slightly different perspective, agree.  I

My mail reader chopped off the right hand side of this message, for some
reason, but what I got from it raises a question in my mind.

Don't we still have to account for things like subject - verb agreement,
for example, or all the intricate vagaries of clitics in French
and Italian, along with a whole host of other stuff we've been analyzing
and calling 'grammar'?  If we do, and decide to simply not call it 'grammar',
what difference does it make?

--Tony Wright