ABSTRACT
Differences that separate grammar from discourse are not hard to find. Grammar describes sentences; discourse goes beyond the sentence. Grammar limits options by rule; discourse is what speakers do with the freedom that is left. Grammar is general; discourse varies at the will of its speakers and whim of their topics. Grammar is meaningless, 1 proudly so; meaning and pragmatic force lie at the heart of discourse. Grammar is pointless in a sense, possibly a good sense; discourse realizes the ends, whether communicative, cognitive, interactional, ideological, aesthetic or otherwise, that its producers seek to attain. It is no surprise that the study of grammar and the study of discourse are so often seen as worlds apart, pursued with different goals and different metbodologies by different people. And yet language itself, in its actual occurrences, would seem to display at once the characteristics that attract both the grammarian and the discourse specialist. If language responds to either approach taken, can the distance between grammar and discourse be so great as the dichotomies imply?
