English Syntax and Argumentation

This book provides a complete and detailed overview of modern English syntax, and offers a thorough grounding in the essentials of sentence structure and syntactic argumentation. Clear, accessible and comprehensive, it contains a wealth of material to support readers in consolidating their learning and knowledge at every step, from basic concepts to more advanced topics. Now in its sixth edition, this textbook includes: - fully updated chapters - refreshed learning materials - a fully revised glossary, list of reference works, and bibliography Equipped with lists of key concept, exercises and further reading suggestions in each chapter, as well as a detailed answer key at the end of the book, this highly accessible, engaging and supportive text covers all the topics needed for a confident understanding of English syntax. Cover Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page Dedication page CONTENTS PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION PART I GRAMMATICAL FORM AND GRAMMATICAL FUNCTION 1 INTRODUCTION 2 GRAMMATICAL FORM: WORDS, WORD CLASSES AND PHRASES 2.1 The notion ‘word’ 2.2 Nouns and determinatives 2.3 Adjectives 2.4 Verbs 2.5 Prepositions 2.6 Adverbs 2.7 Conjunctions 2.8 Interjections 3 GRAMMATICAL FUNCTION 3.1 Subject and Predicate 3.2 Predicator 3.3 Direct Object 3.4 Indirect Object 3.5 Adjunct 4 MORE ON FORM: CLAUSES AND SENTENCES 4.1 Clauses and clause hierarchies 4.2 The rank scale 4.3 Clause types 4.4 More on tree diagrams 5 THE GRAMMATICAL FORM-GRAMMATICAL FUNCTION INTERFACE 5.1 Grammatical form–grammatical function relationships 5.2 Realisations of the Subject 5.3 Realisation of the Predicate and Predicator 5.4 Realisations of the Direct Object 5.5 Realisations of the Indirect Object 5.6 Realisations of Adjuncts 5.7 Motivating the analyses in this chapter PART II ELABORATION 6 PREDICATES, ARGUMENTS AND THEMATIC ROLES 6.1 Predicates and arguments 6.2 Thematic roles 6.3 Grammatical functions and thematic roles 6.4 Selectional restrictions 6.5 Three levels of description 7 CROSS-CATEGORIAL GENERALISATIONS: X-BAR SYNTAX 7.1 Heads, Complements and Specifiers 7.2 Adjuncts 7.3 Cross-categorial generalisations 7.4 Subcategorisation 8 MORE ON CLAUSES 8.1 The I-node 8.2 Subordinate clauses 9 MOVEMENT 9.1 Verb Movement: aspectual auxiliaries 9.2 NP-Movement: passive 9.3 NP-Movement: Subject-to-Subject Raising 9.4 Movement in interrogative sentences: Subject–AuxiliaryInversion 9.5 Wh-Movement 9.6 The structure of sentences containing one or more auxiliaries 10 TENSE, ASPECT AND MOOD 10.1 Time and tense 10.2 Aspectuality and aspect 10.3 Modality and mood PART III ARGUMENTATION 11 SYNTACTIC ARGUMENTATION 11.1 The art of argumentation 11.2 Economy of description: Linguistically Significant Generalisations and Occam’s Razor 11.3 Further constraints on description: elegance and independent justifications 11.4 Evaluating analyses 12 CONSTITUENCY: MOVEMENT AND SUBSTITUTION 12.1 The Movement Test 12.2 Substitution 13 CONSTITUENCY: SOME ADDITIONAL TESTS 13.1 The Coordination Test 13.2 The Cleft and Pseudocleft Test 13.3 The Insertion Test 13.4 The Constituent Response Test 13.5 The Somewhere Else Test 13.6 The Meaning Test 13.7 A case study: the naked pizza eating construction 13.8 Some caveats regarding the tests 14 PREDICATES AND ARGUMENTS REVISITED 14.1 Establishing argumenthood 14.2 Two further types of verb + NP + to-infinitive construction: persuade and want 14.3 Concluding remarks PART IV APPLICATION 15 INFORMATION PACKAGING 15.1 Preposing 15.2 Postposing 15.3 Inversion 15.4 Cleft constructions 15.5 Existential constructions 15.6 The passive construction 16 GRAMMATICAL INDETERMINACY 16.1 Category boundaries and gradience 16.2 Subsective gradience 16.3 Intersective gradience 16.4 Concluding remarks 17 CASE STUDIES 17.1 Negated modal auxiliaries 17.2 Noun phrase structure 17.3 Verb complementation 17.4 Subordinating conjunctions and prepositions 17.5 Concluding remarks GLOSSARY REFERENCE WORKS: DICTIONARIES, ENCYCLOPEDIAS, GRAMMARS AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE BIBLIOGRAPHY ANSWER KEY FOR THE EXERCISES INDEX