Colorless Green Ideas

Grammatical correctness and meaning are two separate functions, which don’t always coexist.  Here is a sentence, devised by Noam Chomsky, which illustrates a perfectly grammatical sentence, but has no meaning:

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

Here is a sentence which has meaning (though the reader has to construct it), but is grammatically incorrect:

Another reason why he dislikes lots of motorcycles in one area are large motorcycle rallies where a lot of people get their bikes there on pickup trucks, and just rides them around the town for show.

Exercise: Ask your students to construct a sentence which is grammatically correct, but meaningless; then ask them to construct a sentence which has some kind of meaning,  but is grammatically incorrect.

If they are like my students, and like me, the second task is a much greater challenge.

colorless green ideas, grammar exercises, linguistics in the classroom, meaning vs. grammar, Syntax

Syntax