The order and behaviour of the premodifier (an adjective, or other modifying word that appears before a noun) has long been a puzzle to syntacticians and semanticists. Why can we say 'the actual red ball', but not 'the red actual ball'? And why, conversely, do some other premodifiers have free variation in sentences; for example we can say both 'German and English speakers' and 'English and German speakers'? Why do some premodifiers change the meaning of a phrase in some contexts; for example 'young man', can mean 'boyfriend', rather than 'man who is young'? Drawing on a corpus of over 4,000 examples of English premodifiers from a range of genres such as advertising, fiction and scientific texts, and across several varieties of English, this book synthesises research into premodifiers and provides a new explanation of their behaviour, order and use.

English historical linguistics is a subfield of linguistics which has developed theories and methods for exploring the history of the English language. This Handbook provides an account of state-of-the-art research on this history. It offers an in-depth survey of materials, methods, and language-theoretical models used to study the long diachrony of English. The frameworks covered include corpus linguistics, historical sociolinguistics, historical pragmatics and manuscript studies, among others. The chapters, by leading experts, examine the interplay of language theory and empirical data throughout, critically assessing the work in the field. Of particular importance are the diverse data sources which have become increasingly available in electronic form, allowing the discipline to develop in new directions. The Handbook offers access to the rich and many-faceted spectrum of work in English historical linguistics, past and present, and will be useful for researchers and students interested in hands-on research on the history of English.

Using increasingly sophisticated databases, this volume explores grammatical usage from the Late Modern period in a broad context.

What makes the noun phrase 'the man I saw' more complex than 'the man'? This book explores that question.

Using corpus-based analyses, the book challenges widely held beliefs about grammatical complexity, academic writing, and linguistic change in written English.

An Introduction to English grammar provides a comprehensive overview of all aspects of English grammar, and can be used in the classroom, for self-study, or as a reference book. The book is organised in two parts – on grammar and its applications – and provides everything a beginning student needs to get to grips with the theory and practice of English usage, including sections on style, punctuation and spelling. This third edition has been fully revised and updated to include an expanded section on English in Use, usage notes highlighting common errors, updated exercises, a glossary and a companion website with further graded exercises.

Presenting the linguistic basis for courses and projects on translation, contrastive linguistics, stylistics, reading and discourse studies, this book illustrates grammatical usage through authentic texts from a range of sources, both spoken and written. This new edition has been thoroughly rewritten and redesigned to include many new texts and examples of language in use. Key features include: chapters divided into modules of class-length materials; a wide variety of authentic texts and transcriptions to illustrate points of grammar and to contextualise structure; clear chapter and module summaries enabling efficient class preparation and student revision; exercises and topics for individual study; answer key for analytical exercises; comprehensive index; select biography; suggestions for further reading; and a companion website. This up-to-date descriptive grammar is a complete course for first degree and postgraduate students of English, and is particularly suited for those whose native language is not English.

Syntax puts our meaning (“semantics”) into sentences, and phonology puts the sentences into the sounds that we hear and there must, surely, be a structure in the meaning that is expressed in the syntax and phonology. Some writers use the phrase “semantic structure”, but are referring to conceptual structure; since we can express our conceptual thought in many different linguistic ways, we cannot equate conceptual and semantic structures. The research reported in this book shows semantic structure to be in part hierarchic, fitting the syntax in which it is expressed, and partly a network, fitting the nature of the mind, from which it springs. It is complex enough to provide for the emotive and imaginative dimensions of language, and for shifts of standard meanings in context, and the “rules” that control them. Showing the full structure of English semantics requires attention to many currently topical issues, and since the underlying theory is fresh, there are fresh implications for them. The most important of those issues is information structure, which is given full treatment, showing its overall structure, and its relation to semantics and the whole grammar of English. As of October 2024, this e-book is Open Access under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

The completely redesigned Grammar of Spoken and Written English is a comprehensive corpus-based reference grammar. GSWE describes the structural characteristics of grammatical constructions in English, as do other reference grammars. But GSWE is unique in that it gives equal attention to describing the patterns of language use for each grammatical feature, based on empirical analyses of grammatical patterns in a 40-million-word corpus of spoken and written registers. Grammar-in-use is characterized by three inter-related kinds of information: frequency of grammatical features in spoken and written registers, frequencies of the most common lexico-grammatical patterns, and analysis of the discourse factors influencing choices among related grammatical features. GSWE includes over 350 tables and figures highlighting the results of corpus-based investigations. Throughout the book, authentic examples illustrate all research findings. The empirical descriptions document the lexico-grammatical features that are especially common in face-to-face-conversation compared to those that are especially common in academic writing. Analyses of fiction and newspaper articles are included as further benchmarks of language use. GSWE contains over 6,000 authentic examples from these four registers, illustrating the range of lexico-grammatical features in real-world speech and writing. In addition, comparisons between British and American English reveal specific regional differences. Now completely redesigned and available in an electronic edition, the Grammar of Spoken and Written English remains a unique and indispensable reference work for researchers, language teachers, and students alike.

Answering key questions such as 'Why study grammar?' and 'What is standard English?', Introducing English Grammar guides readers through the practical analysis of the syntax of English sentences. With all special terms carefully explained as they are introduced, the book is written for readers with no previous experience of grammatical analysis. It is ideal for all those beginning their study of linguistics, English language or speech pathology, as well as students with primarily literary interests who need to cover the basics of linguistic analysis. The approach taken is in line with current research in grammar, a particular advantage for students who may go on to study syntax in more depth. All the examples and exercises use real language taken from newspaper articles, non-standard dialects and include excerpts from studies of patients with language difficulties. Students are encouraged to think about the terminology as a tool kit for studying language and to test what can and cannot be described using these tools. This new edition has been fully revised in line with recent research. There is a new chapter on World English, a new glossary and a free website with extensive further reading and answers to the exercises.