traditional approach to syntax

Chief concern: labelling of sentence elements and their function in the sentence plus discussion of the rules of word order (based on Latin and Greek languages)

Criticism

  1. the three classificatory criteria commonly used (notional/semantic, formal/morphological, syntactic) are not adequate for all words in the language
  2. the three classificatory criteria are mixed and applied to various word-classes, but not consistently
  3. the traditional parts of speech are based upon Latin and Greek grammar; not all languages can automatically be assumed to require the same distinctions

Advantage

  • categories and terminology are widely known and therefore easily applicable in language teaching