English Grammar: The Basics

Description:

English Grammar: The Basics offers a clear, non-jargonistic introduction to English grammar and its place in society. Rather than taking a prescriptive approach, this book helps the reader become aware of the social implications of choices they make to use standard or non-standard (regional/dialect) forms.

Readers will consider:

• what grammar is and how it fits into the structure of language;

• how grammar functions in the school curriculum, the press, broadcasting and social media, as well as how these outlets reflect and reinforce our attitudes towards grammar;

• differences between speech and writing, as well as between formality and informality;

• major different approaches to theorising and describing grammar from important grammarians, including Noam Chomsky and Michael Halliday.

Featuring a glossary of key terms and practical tips and insights from the author’s 50+ years of language teaching experience around the world, this book is for anyone who has ever found themselves questioning the ‘rules’ of the English language.

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of tables
Acknowledgements
Introduction to the reader
1. Everyone knows what grammar is … don’t they?
A word for all seasons
What grammar is (and what it isn’t)
A rough definition
Traffic lights and sunrises
The rules of the road
Universal rules
Where do the conventions come from?
Prescriptions for the best medicine
Grammatical standard-bearers
Gathering more evidence
I heard it on the radio
At the click of a mouse
Corpus evidence
Describing English
Grammar and grammars
Varieties of English
Dialects
Other types of variation
This book: What it offers and what it doesn’t
The many-headed hydra
The basics
What else is in the chapters?
2. From words to sentences
Taking words apart
What’s in a word?
Morphemes
Different types of morphemes
Morphemes and words: Building the system
How do words fit into grammar?
Words and phrases
Phrases and clauses
What is a clause?
Who does what? Participants and processes
Clauses: Different shapes, different meanings
Grammar and meaning
What sort of mood are you in?
Affirmative and negative
Clauses: Who’s doing what, where, when and how?
Subjects and objects
Complements
A peaceful agreement: Concord
Adverbials: Mobility rules!
Are you running a business? Or just
running?
Let’s hear your voice: Active and passive
‘In-between’ passives
Clauses joining forces: Building sentences
What is a sentence?
Joining up 1: Three little words
Joining up 2: Subordinate clauses
Conditions
Non-finite clauses
Taking care of the relatives
Relative clauses: Common difficulties
Who knows what? Who said what? Reported
clauses
Chains or Russian dolls?
A place for everything: Word-order
Into focus
Sometimes at the beginning? Or at the end
maybe?
This section you must read
Scaling the heights
Is there life beyond the sentence?
Bigger links mean bigger chains
Linking expressions
Taking an axe to the sentence: Clefts
3. The grammar toolbox
A toolbox full of words
What are nouns for?
Naming the world
How much coffee makes a coffee?
What else can nouns do?
Building with nouns
Verbs: Being, doing, happening
Who does what and to whom?
Main verbs, auxiliaries and modals
Auxiliary ‘be’: Marking aspect
Auxiliary ‘have’: Marking aspect
Auxiliary ‘be’: Marking voice
Aspect and voice: Using the tools together
Auxiliary ‘do’: Yes or no?
Auxiliary ‘do’ for emphasis
Substitute ‘do’
Modal verbs: What’s true, what’s right
That could be true … to a degree
‘You must come to dinner sometime!’
We use small verbs as tag verbs, don’t we … or
do we?
Might I ask you a question?
How long is a piece of string?
Colouring in the world: Adjectives and adverbs
What’s it like and how did it go?
Adjectives: Telling it like it is
Adverbs: How did it go?
Adverbs as adverbials
Conclusion
4. The grammar toolbox continued
The other word classes
Small words get everywhere
Pronouns
Getting personal
Me and my sister: Subject and object
pronouns
Reflexive pronouns: Grammatical selfies
Each other and one another
Is anyone out there?
What it’s all about: Clefts
Someone or other did it
The ones which matter: Relative pronouns
Interrogative pronouns: What are they for?
Demonstrative pronouns: This is important,
that’s not
Determiners
Articles: Where’s the cat?
Interrogative determiners
Possessive determiners
Conjunctions: Getting it together
Coordinating
Subordinating
Correlative
Prepositions
What are they for?
Prepositions: Should we leave them
stranded? 94
No, nay, never …
What about all those other small words?
Conclusion
5. Theories and thinkers
Putting their thinking caps on
It stands to reason: Logic and rules
Structuralism
Noam Chomsky and his grammar
Colourless green ideas
Transformations
From the depths to the surface
Bearing everything in mind: Cognitive grammar
The mind and the world
Symbols and concepts
Constructions
Use it and never lose it
Out of the mind: Neo-Firthians
Grammar and context
Michael Halliday
Functions and systems
Grammar in society
Conclusion: Theory and theories
6. Word of mouth: Grammar in action
In a manner of speaking
Speaking and writing: A grammar for every
occasion
You thinking what I’m thinking?
This book, you never know what it’s going to say
next …
Heads or tails?
Pronouns, they work hard, they do
Mark my words
Taking chunks out of the language
We’re beginning to see a pattern here
‘I see him yesterday’: Dialect grammars
English grammar around the world
Listen up and check this out!
Conclusion
7. Grammar policy, grammar politics and grammar police
Moral panic
The lost generation
Grammar in the lockdown
What did traditional grammar look like?
Policing the grammar: Terminology
(Dis-)United States
Australia: Whole language or bits and
pieces?
The UK: From grammar to comprehensive
A balancing act
Grammar makes a comeback
From balance to moral panic
Mr Gove and Mr Gwynne
Conclusion
8. Grammar in the public eye
The grammatical landscape
Less or fewer?
Putting a (full) stop to punctuation
Punctuation and grammar
Full stops
The rise and fall of the semi-colon
Endangered species? The apostrophe
Sound–spelling grammatical confusions
Pronouns: Not so closed after all?
Adverbials: Why do people get affronted?
Telling it like it is
The linguistic landscape: Being creative with
grammar
Conclusion
Glossary of grammar terms
References
Index