Language is primarily a tool for communication, yet many textbooks still treat English grammar as simply a set of rules and facts to be memorised by rote. This new textbook is made for students who are frustrated with this approach and would like instead to understand grammar and how it works. Why are there two future tenses in English? What are auxiliaries and why are they so confusing? Why are English motion verbs hard to use? Why are determiners so important in English? These and many o...

Oxford Modern English Grammar is Oxford's brand new and definitive guide to English grammar. This book has been written by a leading expert in the field, covers both British and American English, and makes use of authentic spoken and written examples. Arranged in four clear parts for ease of use, its comprehensive coverage ranges from the very basic to the most complex aspects of grammar, all of which are explained clearly yet authoritatively. This descriptive source of reference is invalu...

In clear, congenial style Barry Blake explains how language works. He describes the make-up of words and how they're built from sounds and signs and put together in phrases and sentences. He examines the dynamics of conversation and the relations between the sound and meaning. He shows how languages help their users connect to each other and to the world, how they vary around the world, why they never stop changing, and that no two people speak a language in the same way. He looks at how l...

Fully updated and revised, this fourth edition of Halliday's Introduction to Functional Grammar explains the principles of systemic functional grammar, enabling the reader to understand and apply them in any context. Halliday's innovative approach of engaging with grammar through discourse has become a worldwide phenomenon in linguistics.Updates to the new edition include:Recent uses of systemic functional linguistics to provide further guidance for students,...

The extensively updated fourth edition of the leading introductory textbook on theoretical syntax, including an all-new chapter and additional problem setsNow in its fourth edition, Andrew Carnie's Syntax: A Generative Introduction remains the leading introduction to the rules, principles, and processes that determine the structure of sentences in language. Comprehensive yet accessible, the text provides a well-balanced, student-friendly introduction to sy...

Filled with real examples of the way people use English in different contexts, The Routledge Dictionary of English Language Studies is an indispensable guide to the richness and variety of the English language for both students and the general reader.From abbreviation to zero-article, via fricative and slang, the Dictionary contains over 600 wide ranging and informative entries covering:the core areas of language description and analysis: phonetics a...

Language typology identifies similarities and differences among languages of the world. This textbook provides an introduction to the subject which assumes minimal prior knowledge of linguistics. It offers the broadest coverage of any introductory book, including sections on historical change, language acquisition, and language processing. Students will become familiar with the subject by working through numerous examples of crosslinguistic generalizations and diversity in syntax, morpholo...

What is Morphology? is a concise and critical introduction to the central ideas of morphology, which has been revised and expanded to include additional material on morphological productivity and the mental lexicon, experimental and computational methods, and new teaching material.Introduces the fundamental aspects of morphology to students with minimal background in linguisticsIncludes additional material on morphological productivity and the mental lexico...

The Teacher's Guide to Grammar is unique in focusing directly on the aspects of grammar that teachers need to know. Assuming little or no formal linguistic education, this concise and accessible book provides the necessary background knowledge required in the classroom context. There are detailed chapters on the nuts and bolts of language: words, morphology, sentences, phrases, verbs, and clauses. Other important educational issues concerned in the teaching of English are discussed: the gr...

Cohesion in English is concerned with a relatively neglected part of the linguistic system: its resources for text construction, the range of meanings that are speciffically associated with relating what is being spoken or written to its semantic environment. A principal component of these resources is 'cohesion'. This book studies the cohesion that arises from semantic relations between sentences. Reference from one to the other, repetition of word meanings, the conjunctive force of but, ...

Introducing Functional Grammar, third edition, provides a user-friendly overview of the theoretical and practical aspects of the systemic functional grammar (SFG) model.No prior knowledge of formal linguistics is required as the book provides:An opening chapter on the purpose of linguistic analysis, which outlines the differences between the two major approaches to grammar - functional and formal.An overview of the SFG model - wh...

The Functional Analysis of English is an introduction to the analysis and description of English, based on the principles of systemic functional linguistics. It sets out the tools and analytic techniques of Hallidayan grammar with clear explanations of terminology and illustrates these with examples from a variety of texts, including science, travel, history and literary sources. This revised third edition incorporates references to recent research, better explanations of complex ...