A Grammar of Contemporary English

Abstract

The first attempts at producing a grammar of English were made when there were less than ten million speakers of English in the world, almost all of them living within100 miles or so of London. Grammars of English have gone on being written during the intervening 400 years reflecting a variety (and growing complexity) of needs, while speakers of English have multiplied several hundredfold and dispersed themselves so that the language has achieved a uniquely wide spread throughout the world and, with that, a unique importance. We make no apology for adding one more to the succession of English grammars. In the first place, though fairly brief synopses are common enough, there have been very few attempts at so comprehensive a coverage as is offered in the present work. Fewer still in terms of synchronic description. And none at all so comprehensive or in such depth has been produced within an English-speaking country. Moreover, our Grammar aims at this comprehensiveness and depth in treating English irrespective 3 of frontiers: our field is no less than the grammar of educated English current in the second half of the twentieth century in the world's major English-speaking communities. Only where a feature belongs specifically to British usage or American usage, to informal conversation or to the dignity of formal writing, are 'labels' introduced in the description to show that we are no longer discussing the 'common core' of educated English