What do you think?
Rate this book
Mysteries of English Grammar
Despite a history of hundreds of years of research analysing aspects of English grammar, there are still open problems which continue to baffle language researchers today. Such ‘grammar mysteries’ arise for a number of because the language is changing; because different speakers of the language adhere to distinct norms and thus introduce and maintain variation in the system; because there are differences between the grammar of spoken and written English. This book illuminates some of the complexities of the subject, the areas where new discoveries await and why it matters. Through a series of accessible and engaging case studies on various aspects of grammar, from multiple negation to possession, the authors present grammar as an intellectual challenge. This book brings out into the open questions about language usage to which we still do not have good answers in a bid to make variation overt and to revel in the mystery of the English language. Both aimed at the interested general reader and the beginning student of English language and linguistics, this is a fresh take on grammar.
186 pages, Paperback
Published September 30, 2021
6 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 13, 2024
Quite a nice collection of data on several messy areas of English.
The analysis is a bit weedy. Having spent the whole book enumerating areas where (at least for theoretical linguistics) English has problems, the conclusion is bland and soporific: English is changing, speech isn't writing, language isn't monolithic, there's standard and non-standard English, form and meaning don't move in lockstep, and "grammatical features can gain subtle new meanings". And for the final rousing flourish: "there is still a lot we don't know, and there are areas where discoveries can still be made and new explanations provided." Pardon me while I sit down and catch my breath!
The writing, as writing, is not much good: this one aims at a popular and accessible style, rather than an impenetrably technical one, the other main tendency in linguistics writing. But the authors sometimes misuse words, and even make clearly incorrect judgements about 'example' sentences, which has to be a serious minus point in a linguistics book. Calude has English as a second language, and presumably her co-author Bauer was reluctant to point out all her errors (and perhaps introduced his own to be polite). To be clear, her English as represented is very good for a second-language speaker, but it's inevitably faulty, and should have been fixed by an editor, or at least by the co-author, if Routledge can't run to editors.
Anyway, this book is useful, from my point of view, as a collection of pointers to areas of interest.
The analysis is a bit weedy. Having spent the whole book enumerating areas where (at least for theoretical linguistics) English has problems, the conclusion is bland and soporific: English is changing, speech isn't writing, language isn't monolithic, there's standard and non-standard English, form and meaning don't move in lockstep, and "grammatical features can gain subtle new meanings". And for the final rousing flourish: "there is still a lot we don't know, and there are areas where discoveries can still be made and new explanations provided." Pardon me while I sit down and catch my breath!
The writing, as writing, is not much good: this one aims at a popular and accessible style, rather than an impenetrably technical one, the other main tendency in linguistics writing. But the authors sometimes misuse words, and even make clearly incorrect judgements about 'example' sentences, which has to be a serious minus point in a linguistics book. Calude has English as a second language, and presumably her co-author Bauer was reluctant to point out all her errors (and perhaps introduced his own to be polite). To be clear, her English as represented is very good for a second-language speaker, but it's inevitably faulty, and should have been fixed by an editor, or at least by the co-author, if Routledge can't run to editors.
Anyway, this book is useful, from my point of view, as a collection of pointers to areas of interest.
Displaying 1 of 1 review