Lindemann, Chapter 11, Words

I take issue with something that Lindemann has stated.  1) "a word itself has no meaning, nor even a 'part of speech,"' until the writer relates it to some other word" (179). I disagree because a word is a signifier for a signfied sign, unless it's the form of the verb "to be."  Small point, but I thought I'd make it. As a writer who will compose around some special word, to me it's reductive to refer to words in this way.

Additionally, I think as a teacher, I would be more concerned with vocabulary expansion first, before syntactical rules.  For example, the teaching of suffixes and affixes, as well as Greek and Roman roots, a student can increase their vocabulary exponentially. Since students typically do well with Jabberwocky, when it gets down to it, they can place various words in their correct positions. I'd rather an expansion of vocabulary resources over grammar issues.