[Mamzelle]

It wasn't quite as simple as that, and it explained a lot more than subject and predicate, but relationships and verb tenses. There was no dictionary and grammar, just sample sentences and the rules of the game. The interesting thing about the exercise was finding yourself understanding the meaning and purpose of a sentence without knowing a single word. That's why "Twi" was used.

Chomsky is (was) brillant as linguists go. How brilliant can any linguist be? There has to be some point at which these precious academics are excpected to produce something practical.

Some of these posts just make my eyes roll. If a linguist cannot construct a coherent, lucid sentence, who can? If a linguist doesn't want to communicate properly, who does? Goes to show how useless is about 95% of the discipline. Outright pernicious, too, if you consider the influence that some of these babbling nimrods have over language education in the schools.

[stripes1776]

It wasn't quite as simple as that, and it explained a lot more than subject and predicate, but relationships and verb tenses.There was no dictionary and grammar

Well, of course. You just gave a good definition of a grammar--particularly the relationships part. A good dictionary will tell you that a grammar is the study of structural relationships in a language and word formations--like verb tenses.

Outright pernicious, too, if you consider the influence that some of these babbling nimrods have over language education in the schools.

We are on the same page here.