A New Approach to English Grammar, on Semantic Principles
A New Approach to English Grammar, on Semantic Principles
Regular price
Checking stock...
Regular price
Checking stock...
Summary
Offering a general theory of English grammar, this book investigates the interrelation of grammar and meaning, and uncovers a rationale for the varying grammatical properties of different words. It also looks at grammatical topics: complement clauses; the question of transitivity and causatives; and more. It is useful for students and scholars.
The feel-good place to buy books
- Free US shipping over $15
- Buying preloved emits 41% less CO2 than new
- Millions of affordable books
- Give your books a new home - sell them back to us!
A New Approach to English Grammar, on Semantic Principles by Robert M W Dixon
Linguists often portray grammar as a kind of self-sufficient algebra. R. M. W. Dixon offers a new approach, starting from the premiss that a speaker codes a 'meaning' into grammatical forms in order to communicate them to a hearer, who recovers the 'meaning'. He investigates the interrelation of grammar and meaning, and uncovers a rationale for the varying grammatical properties of different words - why, for instance, we can say I wish to go and I wish that he would go, and then I want to go but not I want that he should go. In the first part of the book, there is a review of some of the main points of English syntax, followed by a discussion of English verbs in terms of 'semantic types'. About thirty of these types are examined, including verbs of Motion, of Giving, of Thinking, of Speaking, of Liking, and of Typing. In the last part of the book, the author looks in detail at five grammatical topics: complement clauses, which can fill subject or object slot in a main clause; the question of transitivity and causatives; passives of all kinds; promotion of a non-subject to subject slot, as in Dictionaries sell well; and the relation between constructions such as They walked and They had a walk, She punched him and She gave him a punch, and He looked and He took a look.
an ambitious and extensive account of English grammar.. Books which take a semantic approach to grammar or syntactic approach to semantics are increasingly common ... but I have no hesitation in saying that I find Dixon's book by far the most informative, the one most likely to startle readers repeatedly by telling them what they knew all along but hadn"t realized they knew. Georgetown Journal of Languages and Linguistics will certainly repay repeated reading ... deserves the attention of any serious grammarian of English Times Literary Supplement
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780198240570 |
| ISBN 10 | 0198240570 |
| Title | A New Approach to English Grammar, on Semantic Principles |
| Author | Robert M W Dixon |
| Series | Clarendon Paperbacks |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Year published | 1992-10-01 |
| Number of pages | 416 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |