An Introduction to English Grammar Second Edition H A N I N T R O D U C T I O N T O E N G L I S H G R A M M A R Second Edition SIDNEY GREENBAUM GERALD NELSON PEARSON EDUCATION LIMITED Head Office: Edinburgh Gate Harlow CM20 2JE Tel: +44 (0)1279 623623 Fax: +44 (0)1279 431059 London Office: 128 Long Acre London WC2E 9AN Tel: +44 (0)20 7447 2000 Fax: +44 (0)20 7240 5771 Website: www.linguistic-minds.com First published in Great Britain in 2002 © Pearson Education Limited 2002 The right of Sidney Greenbaum to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. ISBN 0 582 43741 5 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book can be obtained from the Library of Congress All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP. This book may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the Publishers. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Typeset in 10.5/13pt Ehrhardt by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong Printed in Malaysia The Publishers’ policy is to use paper manufactured from sustainable forests. Contents Preface to the Second Edition xi Acknowledgements xii 1. Rules and variation 1 1.1 What is grammar? 1 1.2 Grammar and other aspects of language 1 1.3 Grammars of English 2 1.4 National varieties 2 1.5 Standard and non-standard English 3 1.6 Variation according to use 4 1.7 Descriptive rules and prescriptive rules 5 1.8 Why study grammar? 5 Exercises 6 Part I: The Grammar 2. The sentence 13 2.1 What is a sentence? 13 2.2 Irregular sentences and non-sentences 14 2.3 Simple and multiple sentences 15 2.4 Sentence types 16 2.5 Positive and negative sentences 17 2.6 Active and passive sentences 17 Exercises 18 3. The parts of the simple sentence 20 3.1 Structure, form, function 20 3.2 Subject, predicate, verb 21 3.3 Operator 22 3.4 Do, Be, Have 23 3.5 Subject and verb 23 3.6 Subject 25 vi Contents 3.7 Transitive verbs and direct object 26 3.8 Linking verbs and subject complement 27 3.9 Intransitive verbs and adverbials 28 3.10 Adverbial complement 29 3.11 Direct object and indirect object 30 3.12 Direct object and object complement 31 3.13 The basic sentence structures 32 3.14 The meanings of the sentence elements 34 Exercises 37 4. The structures of phrases 46 4.1 Phrase types 46 The noun phrase 4.2 The structure of the noun phrase 47 4.3 Determiners 48 4.4 Modifiers 48 4.5 Relative clauses 49 4.6 Appositive clauses 50 4.7 Apposition 50 4.8 Coordination 51 4.9 Noun phrase complexity 52 4.10 Functions of noun phrases 53 The verb phrase 4.11 The structure of the verb phrase 53 4.12 Main verbs 54 4.13 Tense, person, and number 55 4.14 Aspect 56 4.15 Voice 57 4.16 Expressing future time 59 4.17 The sequence of auxiliaries 59 4.18 Finite and non-finite verb phrases 61 4.19 Mood 62 4.20 Multi-word verbs 64 The adjective phrase 4.21 The structure of the adjective phrase 67 4.22 Functions of adjective phrases 68 The adverb phrase 4.23 The structure of the adverb phrase 69 4.24 Functions of adverb phrases 69 The prepositional phrase 4.25 The structure of the prepositional phrase 70 4.26 Functions of prepositional phrases 71 Exercises 72 Contents vii 5. Word classes 86 5.1 Open and closed classes 86 5.2 Word classes and word uses 87 Nouns 5.3 Noun suffixes 88 5.4 Noun classes 88 5.5 Number 90 5.6 Gender 90 5.7 Case 90 5.8 Dependent and independent genitives 91 Main Verbs 5.9 Verb suffixes 92 5.10 Regular and irregular verbs 92 5.11 Classes of irregular verbs 93 Adjectives 5.12 Adjective suffixes 95 5.13 Adjective classes 95 5.14 Gradability and comparison 96 Adverbs 5.15 Adverb suffixes 98 5.16 Gradability and comparison 98 Pronouns 5.17 Pronoun classes 98 5.18 Personal pronouns 100 5.19 Possessives 101 5.20 Reflexive pronouns 102 5.21 Demonstrative pronouns 102 5.22 Reciprocal pronouns 103 5.23 Interrogative pronouns 103 5.24 Relative pronouns 104 5.25 Indefinite pronouns and numerals 104 Determiners 5.26 Classes of determiners 106 5.27 Central determiners 106 5.28 The articles and reference 107 5.29 Pre-determiners 109 5.30 Post-determiners 109 Auxiliaries 5.31 Classes of auxiliaries 110 5.32 Meanings of the modals 111 5.33 Conjunctions 111 5.34 Prepositions 112 Exercises 113 viii Contents 6. Sentences and clauses 121 6.1 Sentence types 121 6.2 Questions 121 6.3 Imperatives 123 6.4 Exclamatives 123 6.5 Speech acts 124 6.6 Compound sentences 125 6.7 Complex sentences 125 6.8 Non-finite and verbless clauses 126 6.9 Functions of subordinate clauses 127 6.10 Sentence complexity 129 6.11 There-structures 130 6.12 Cleft sentences 131 6.13 Anticipatory it 131 Exercises 132 Part II: The Applications 7. Usage problems 141 Subject-verb agreement 7.1 The general rules 141 7.2 And 142 7.3 Or, nor 143 7.4 With 144 7.5 Collective nouns 144 7.6 Indefinite pronouns 145 7.7 Quantity phrases 146 7.8 Singular nouns ending in -s 147 7.9 Who, which, that 147 7.10 What 148 7.11 There is, There are 149 7.12 Citations and titles 149 Case 7.13 Subject complement 149 7.14 Coordinated phrases 149 7.15 After as and than 150 7.16 After but 150 7.17 After let 151 7.18 Who, whom 151 7.19 Case with -ing clauses 152 Auxiliaries and verbs 7.20 Problems with auxiliaries 153 Contents ix 7.21 Lie, lay 153 7.22 Present tense 153 7.23 Past and -ed participle 154 7.24 Past and past subjunctive 154 7.25 Multiple negation 155 Adjectives and adverbs 7.26 Confusion between adjectives and adverbs 156 7.27 Comparison 157 7.28 Only 158 7.29 Dangling modifiers 158 Exercises 159 8. Style 168 8.1 Style in writing 168 Emphasis 8.2 End-focus 168 8.3 Front-focus 169 8.4 There-structures and cleft sentences 169 8.5 Parenthetic expressions 170 Clarity 8.6 End-weight 170 8.7 Misplaced expressions 171 8.8 Abstract nouns 173 8.9 Modifiers in noun phrases 174 8.10 Subordination 174 8.11 Parallelism 175 8.12 Repeated sounds 176 8.13 Pronoun reference 177 Consistency 8.14 Pronoun agreement 178 8.15 Tense consistency 178 Exercises 179 9. Punctuation 183 9.1 Punctuation rules 183 9.2 Sentence fragments and fragmentary sentences 184 9.3 Run-on sentences and comma splices 186 9.4 Coordinated main clauses 188 9.5 Direct speech 189 9.6 Citations 192 9.7 Questions 193 9.8 Restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses 194 9.9 Restrictive and non-restrictive apposition 195