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C Cambridge University Press 2008

English Language and Linguistics 12.1: 169209. 


Printed in the United Kingdom

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doi:10.1017/S1360674307002535
Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy, Cambridge grammar of English: A comprehensive guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. x + 973 pp., optionally
with CD-ROM.
Reviewed by Rodney Huddleston, University of Queensland
This is a grammar of British English for those concerned with English as a Second
Language (ESL). It results from a seven-year research project informed by the
Cambridge International Corpus of 700 million words, including the Cambridge and
Nottingham Corpus of Discourse in English (CANCODE) containing 5 million words
of spoken English.
The book contains an Introduction (19 pp.); an AZ component dealing with over
a hundred individual words, or groups of words (141 pp.); 33 unnumbered chapters
grouped into sets named Spoken language (78 pp.), Grammar and discourse (54 pp.),
Word and phrase classes (22 pp.), Nouns (77 pp.), Verbs (43 pp.), Adjectives and
adverbs (24 pp.), Prepositions and particles (9 pp.), Word formation (15 pp.),
Sentence and clause patterns (112 pp.), Time (40 pp.), Notions and functions
modality, speech acts, etc. (140 pp.), Information packaging (48 pp.); nine
appendices Punctuation, North American English grammar, etc. (64 pp.);
Glossary (41 pp.); Bibliography (5 pp.); Index (37 pp.).1 The book can be bought alone
or with a useful CD-ROM containing the text in searchable format, audio recordings
of examples and links to The Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary. The ESL
orientation of the book is reflected in the inclusion of numerous helpful error warnings
drawing attention to mistakes commonly made by ESL learners.
The ordering of the material means that the basic description of the grammar does
not begin until p. 295, though a good deal of it is inevitably presupposed in the early
chapters. It seems likely that this order of presentation is motivated by the wish to give
prominence to the discussion of spoken English, for Carter & McCarthy (henceforth
C&M) regard it as a major feature of the book that the CANCODE corpus has enabled
them to avoid the bias towards the written language that is found in most books on
English grammar (p. 9). It is certainly good to have a large number of examples from
a spoken corpus, and the Spoken Language set of chapters provide a useful account of
features that are characteristic of speech rather than writing. However, C&M do not deal
satisfactorily with the problem of dysfluency and performance errors in spontaneous
speech.

The bibliography lists only works by the authors and their co-researchers based round the CANCODE spoken
corpus. Although there are two pages of acknowledgements, no mention is made of any linguistic works by
others that have influenced this grammar.

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In their discussion of different kinds or degrees of acceptability (pp. 5, 168, 235) they
have a category non-occurring and unacceptable in all varieties of British English
but they do not include the indispensable category of occurring but nevertheless
unacceptable in all varieties. They recognise clausal blends such as In fact, thats
why last year they rented a nice house, in er Spain, was it, is that it was near the
airport, saying that they are usually communicatively complete, effective and easily
understood (p. 171), and go on to say that such recastings are perfectly normal in
spontaneous speech, and . . . not to be taken as a sign of sloppy or lazy performance
(p. 173). That, however, doesnt make them acceptable in the sense in which that
term is standardly used in grammar. It wont do to put such examples in the category
acceptable in standard spoken English, with the same status as, for example, The
teacher with glasses, he seems very nice (p. 193). And in practice C&Ms account
of the grammar does not in fact cover such blends and recastings. Moreover, they
explicitly mark as unacceptable certain structures which undoubtedly do occur. For
example, they say that the head noun of a subject noun phrase determines number [of
the verb], not other nouns in the noun phrase, thus excluding The general quality
of supermarket vegetables are very poor (p. 496). But it is well known that violations
of this rule are quite often attested (in both writing and speech), as in In this case
a woman may continue to use both names provided the use of both commonly used
names are disclosed (from a credit unions rules). The mere fact that someone wrote
this doesnt suffice to make it acceptable: the writer simply made a mistake. Such
examples thus do not invalidate C&Ms rule, but they do show that we have to allow
that occurrence is not a guarantee of acceptability.2
I turn now to the core of the book, the grammatical description and analysis, and have
to say at the outset that it is characterised by a quite amazing degree of inconsistency.
Consider, as an initial example, the first two sentences of the section on tags (p. 547):
(1) Tags are a type of clause without a lexical verb but which relate to the verb in the
main clause of a sentence.
Tags consist of auxiliary be, do, have, lexical verb be or a modal verb and a subject
(most typically a pronoun).

The first sentence says a tag has no lexical verb while the second says that it may
contain the lexical verb be; six of the ten illustrations contain this be and hence
are counterexamples to the first statement in (1). This example is untypical only in
2

For further examples and discussion of such agreement errors see Huddleston & Pullum et al. (2002: 5001;
henceforth H&P). This type of case is to be distinguished from that where attested violations of a proposed
rule do in fact show that the rule is unsound. Thus C&M say on p. 764 that in the construction illustrated by
My sister is prettier than __ the object forms of personal pronouns are used: than me, not than I. And on
p. 356 they claim that less may only be used with a singular non-count noun. Both of these rules are wildly
implausible: the former implies that no one follows the traditional prescriptive rule while the latter implies that
everyone does. In fact, of course, there is variation, or divided usage, in both constructions. Subject pronouns
are certainly found as complement of than for example, in Dick Francis novels (as in I was four years younger
than he, from Shattered, p. 4). As for less, C&M themselves later contradict the above rule, noting that less is
increasingly used with plural countable nouns (p. 772).

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the immediate adjacency of the contradictory statements. I have never seen a largescale work on English grammar with anything remotely comparable to the amount of
inconsistency and confusion to be found in the present work. It seems evident that the
authors have not first worked out and assimilated an outline grammatical account of
the major constructions and classes of English which they could then systematically
apply in writing up the various chapters of grammatical description. The work is clearly
intended as a major publication in the ESL field, and the CANCODE project is still
ongoing: the authors envisage subsequent editions of the book incorporating the results
of further research. For these reasons I believe it is appropriate to substantiate the above
harsh criticism by demonstrating in detail how serious and pervasive the deficiencies
are, though limitations of space mean that the account must be very far from exhaustive.
Verb inflection. In the introductory discussion of verbs (p. 302) C&M distinguish six
forms: base form, present form, -s form, -ing form, past form, and -ed participle; on
the same page they use -ed form as a variant of -ed participle. Apart from the issue
of terminology, this six-form analysis is, I believe, the right one for all except a small
number of verbs. But this is not the analysis that they follow in the rest of the text.
Most importantly, they present on p. 421 a table incorporating a quite different
account. It distinguishes between forms and functions, and instead of the earlier six
forms, the table has just four: base form, -s form, -ing form, and -ed form. The -ed form
is assigned four functions: past tense, -ed participle (as in Ive looked everywhere), nontensed in non-finite clauses (as in Looked at in that way, it seemed less problematic),
and -ed form adjectives. Thus -ed form is here used more broadly than before, covering
the past form as well as the -ed participle/-ed form of the earlier analysis (and also
adjectives). Conversely, -ed participle (now a function) is used more narrowly, being
restricted apparently to uses of traditional grammars past participle that are preceded by
the perfect or passive auxiliary; this restriction, however, is not maintained elsewhere:
for example, buried is called an -ed participle in They want him buried there (p. 526).
The fact that with many irregular verbs the past tense function of the -ed form is overtly
distinct from the other functions is handled by confusingly using form in a second
sense, so that come,3 for example, is said to have the same form for the base and -ed
form as -ed participle/adjective/non-tensed [namely come], but a different form for the
-ed form as past tense [namely came] (p. 421).
The table gives only two functions for the base form, present tense (a distinct form
in the earlier analysis) and the infinitive: unaccountably it omits the imperative and
subjunctive uses. It is true that these are mentioned on p. 422, but they are again
omitted in the glossary definition (p. 893) and also on p. 398. Furthermore, the
distinction between forms and functions is not maintained later. For example, while
C&M say on p. 422 that the base form functions as the subjunctive mood for all
persons, they elsewhere talk of the subjunctive verb form (e.g. p. 509).

I use bold italics to represent lexemes as opposed to particular inflectional forms.

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Two further problems arise in their treatment of the subjunctive. First, in the
Modality chapter they analyse the came of Id rather she came on Tuesday than
Monday as a past subjunctive form (p. 669). This is of course traditional grammars
analysis, but C&M must have forgotten that the accounts of verb inflection they present
elsewhere differ radically from that of traditional grammar and in particular do not
recognise a past subjunctive form (or function): the analysis is thus inconsistent with
the rest of the book, where traditional past subjunctives, other than were (and modals),
are treated as ordinary (indicative) past tense forms. Secondly, C&M say that the
subjunctive form of the verb be may occur as the base form be or as hypothetical were
(p. 308). But be and were are not variant realisations of a single subjunctive form; if
(erroneously, in my view) they are both regarded as instances of the subjunctive mood,
then it is necessary to distinguish two subcategories of subjunctive. C&M dont do this,
but elsewhere generally forget about were, using subjunctive to apply exclusively to
the base-form type and that is how it is defined in the glossary (p. 924).
The chapter on word structure and word formation contains a section on inflection
less than a page long (p. 473), but there are two points in it that are inconsistent with
the rest of the book. Firstly, they list -nt as a negative verb inflection, so that cant
and wont are negative forms of can and will. This is fine, but elsewhere in the book
such forms are treated as contractions, just like Im or shed note, for example, the
statement on p. 639 that modals have only one form. Secondly, they treat advice as an
inflectional form of the verb advise: it is included, along with pairs like hung and hang,
as an instance of inflection through vowel or consonant change. This is inconsistent
with the statement on p. 297 that forms of a single lexeme must belong to the same
word class and can only be regarded as a thoughtless mistake.
Finiteness and tensed verbs. A finite clause is defined as one which has a tensed verb
form (p. 532). There is, however, inconsistency and confusion over what counts as a
tensed verb. There are two cases to consider: modals on the one hand, and base-form
subjunctives and imperatives on the other.
C&M say repeatedly that modals dont inflect for tense (e.g. pp. 303, 398, 405, 896,
928), but having said on p. 398 that might break has no tense they go on, on the very
next page, to cite They may get here by six oclock as an example containing a tensed
verb phrase and to say that core modals do not occur in non-tensed verb phrases!
And they treat clauses containing such modals as finite. When they say on p. 303 that
modals dont inflect for tense, they add that modals only display historical remains
of tense contrasts, such as cancould, willwould. It is a serious mistake, however,
to dismiss the relationship between pairs like can and could as merely historical,
irrelevant to their inflectional status in Present-day English. Not only does this lead
to the contradictions just noted concerning tensed verbs and finite clauses, it leads to
further inconsistencies and complexities. Thus they say on p. 644 that could is used
as the past tense form of can when clauses with can are reported as past time events,
as in such examples as We could hear that dog barking all through the night. They are
right in saying that this could is a past tense form, but they cannot simultaneously claim

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that the modals dont inflect for tense. Or take the glossary entry for backshifting,
where they say that when an indirect report is perceived as referring to the past, the
tense in the reported clause usually changes to a past form of the tense of the direct
report. One of the examples given has can changing to could, which is compelling
evidence that could is the past of can. All these contradictions involving the modals
can be avoided if we simply recognise that they are indeed tensed verbs, with the past
tense forms, however, displaying a quite considerable amount of irregularity in their
meaning and use.
Consider next the case of the base-form subjunctive and the imperative. C&M treat
these clauses as finite, but the verb forms are explicitly said to be NON-TENSED on p. 305.
This time we cant remove the inconsistencies by saying that the verb forms should
be treated as tensed, for there is compelling evidence against the traditional analysis
of the base-form subjunctive as a present tense form. It does not undergo backshift,
and it can occur in contexts where a genuine present tense form is inadmissible, as in
They insisted that he finish the job before he went home. Thus on the assumption that
subjunctive clauses are correctly classified as finite it will be necessary to refine the
definition of finiteness so that it is not simply a matter of the presence or absence of a
tensed verb (see H&P 2005: 367).
Verb phrase structure. There are a good number of different analyses found in the
literature of expressions like that underlined in She was writing a letter, but for present
purposes I will begin with the contrast shown in (2), where the bracketed constituent
is a VP and its head is marked by underlining:
(2) (a) She [was writing] a letter.
(b) She [was writing a letter].

[auxiliaries as dependents]
[auxiliaries as heads]

In (a) auxiliary was is a dependent of writing, the latter being a main verb functioning
as head of the VP. In (b) was is head of the bracketed VP while writing belongs within
its complement, writing a letter; within the latter writing is head, so each of the verbs
is head of its respective VP. Analysis (b) tends to be favoured in more theoreticallyoriented works, and I do not think it would be appropriate to criticise C&M for not
adopting it in an ESL-oriented grammar. It is valid to criticise them, however, for
further inconsistency and unclarity and for adopting an idiosyncratic analysis that is
an untenable compromise between (a) and (b). According to the analysis presented on
p. 304, the VP in my example will be just was writing, as in (a), yet the head is not
writing but was, as in (b). Note first that this is contradicted by the glossary, where verb
phrase is defined as a phrase with a lexical verb as its head, as in We [should have
phoned] you (p. 928): the glossary follows analysis (a). Moreover, when presenting
their analysis on p. 304, C&M introduce the concept of main verb, applying it to
the last overtly expressed verb, so that the main verb is writing in She [was writing] a
letter, but was in elliptical She [was]. No further explanation is given of what a main
verb is; a few pages earlier (p. 299), however, main word was used as an alternative to
head in describing the structure of the noun phrase, whereas we have just noted that

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they take was, not the main verb writing, as head of was writing. Main verb does not
appear in the index or glossary, but it is used in three other sections of the book: again
with no explanation, but with three different interpretations. On p. 42 it must refer to
the first verb in the verb phrase; on p. 583 it contrasts with modal and auxiliary and
is equivalent to lexical verb; on p. 786 it refers to the verb of the main clause.
The reason C&M take the first verb as head of the VP is that it determines the
form of what may follow. But in fact it only determines the form of the verb that
IMMEDIATELY follows. Thus in their example must have been talking the form have is
determined by must, but the forms been and talking are not, so there are no grounds for
taking these as dependents of must. They assume a flat rather than a layered structure
for the verb phrase, giving for this example a head followed by three dependents, but
the argument from determining the form of what may follow implies a layering of
binary structures: [[must] [[have] [[been] [talking]]]]. The problem now is that it is the
last verb, not the first, that determines what may follow the whole, with the lexeme
talk permitting, for example, a to phrase: must have been talking to Ed. The same
reasoning would therefore require to Ed to be bracketed with talking: [[must] [[have]
[[been] [[talking] [to Ed]]]]]. This, however, is what we have in analysis (2b), for a
more detailed representation of the VP in (2b) is [[was] [[writing] [a letter]]]. If one
wants a structure in which was writing forms a constituent, the only viable analysis is
to take writing as head and was as dependent, as in (2a), not the other way round, as
C&M propose.
NICE verbs. I use this acronym as a label for the small class of verbs distinguished
from others by their well-known properties relating to negation (He cant swim),
inversion with the subject (Can he swim?), code (or ellipsis, Yes, he can), emphatic
polarity (He CAN swim). From the perspective of analysis (2a) the class comprises those
verbs generally regarded as filling the dependent positions in VP structure, together
with be and, in certain senses, have in head function lexical be and have in C&Ms
terminology (He isnt ready, Have you any money?). C&M dont discuss the NICE
properties all together, and dont have a name for this class of verbs; they dont even
have a name for the non-lexical verbs that function in VPs, for they use auxiliary only
for be, have, and do, calling can, may, will, etc. modal verbs (or just modals), not
modal auxiliaries. It follows that in the numerous places where they are dealing with
constructions involving the NICE verbs they have to resort to a disjunctive description.
But they dont do this in a consistent way. In the discussion of interrogatives (pp. 5346)
they deal with lexical have, but for the most part they omit it and talk just of auxiliary or
modal or lexical verb be and there are times when they even omit lexical be too (e.g.
When there is no auxiliary or modal verb in the main clause, auxiliary do/does/did is
used in the tag, p. 548, a statement which incorrectly excludes not only He hasnt any
money, has he? but also He isnt here, is he?).
Modal verbs. These constitute one of three main grammatical classes of verb (p. 303),
the others being auxiliary and lexical verbs. They are defined at this point as a closed
class consisting of core modal verbs (can, could, shall, should, will, would, must,

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might, may), semi-modal verbs (dare, need, ought to, used to), and modal expressions
(be able to, have (got) to). In the Types of verb chapter, however, there is no mention
of modal expressions and on p. 420 the semi-modals are included among the core
members of the class of modal verbs. The Modality chapter doesnt talk of modal
verbs and there is no glossary definition for this term. It is clear that modal verbs
as defined above do not form a GRAMMATICAL class at all: it is a semantic grouping of
expressions. Thus most of the grammatical statements made in terms of modal verbs
are patently false if the term is understood as including the modal expressions. Note,
for example, that on the page following the above definition C&M say that a VP cant
contain more than one modal verb, whereas examples like We may have to postpone it
clearly contain two, a core modal and a modal expression. Indeed the same statement
is made on p. 396 and actually illustrated by the contrast between He will can get a lift
and Hell be able to get a lift (which contrary to what is implied likewise contains two
modal verbs). Again, the statement that modal verbs do not show person or number
(p. 398) doesnt apply to modal expressions; and so on. The grammatically relevant
class is that subset of NICE verbs that have only tensed forms, show no person/number
variation and take a following infinitival (in most cases without to): I will henceforth
use the term modal auxiliary for this class to make clear that it excludes C&Ms
modal expressions.
There is also inconsistency and confusion relating to semi-modal verbs. They are
said to behave in similar ways to core modal verbs but share some characteristics
with lexical verbs (p. 638). Note, however, that with dare and need C&M recognise
that there are (partially) homonymous lexemes to be distinguished (pp. 6579): in
I darent ring Linda again and She neednt take the exam if she doesnt want to the
underlined items are said to be semi-modal verbs, whereas in Nobody ever dares to say
it and He needs to take more care they are lexical verbs. In the case of dare, however,
they confuse the two lexemes; most importantly, they treat that in he didnt dare go
out as semi-modal, whereas it is clearly lexical. If the distinction between lexical and
non-lexical dare and need is drawn correctly, there is no need to call the non-lexical
ones SEMI-modal: they can simply be classified as modal auxiliaries. So can ought;
the glossary definition of semi-modals (p. 922) says that they behave like lexical verbs
as they allow an auxiliary to precede them, but this is obviously not true for ought
in Standard English. As for use, this is not syntactically a modal auxiliary and the
meaning it expresses is aspectual, not modal. The fact that there is no person/number
variation in She/They used to like it is irrelevant because used is unquestionably a past
tense form one which, unlike that of the modal auxiliaries, invariably has the basic
past tense meaning of past time reference. While it is found (though quite infrequently)
with the first two of the NICE properties, it does not have the last two; in particular, the
emphatic positive requires auxiliary do (as in She DID use(d) to like it), so that it also
differs from the modal auxiliaries in having a base form.
Multi-word verbs. C&M take over from Quirk et al. (1985: 115068; henceforth
Q et al.) the concept of multi-word verb, together with the subdivision into phrasal,
prepositional and phrasal-prepositional verbs illustrated in sort out, approve of, look

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forward to respectively. They claim that [i]n all respects multi-word verbs behave in
the same way as single-word verbs (p. 303), but that is clearly not true. In the only
method [of which he approved], for example, of appears in front position along with the
relative pronoun, not after approved: nothing remotely comparable to this fronting of
the prepositional component of approve of is found with any single-word verb. The only
viable analysis here has of as part of a PP rather than as part of a multi-word verb, and
that should be generalised to clauses without fronting: He | approved | of that method.
It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that we find inconsistency in the description
of clauses containing so-called prepositional verbs. According to the multi-word verb
analysis given in the Types of verb chapter (p. 434), for example, that method would
be direct object of the verb approved of. But in the Prepositions and prepositional
phrases chapter (p. 467) they write: Prepositional phrases . . . commonly function as
the complements of verbs. Where a special preposition is required to introduce the
complement of the verb, such verbs are called prepositional verbs. Applying this
to our example, we get approved as a single-word verb and of that method as a PP
functioning as its complement.
I should add that although they say there are three kinds of multi-word verbs (p. 911),
there are numerous multi-word expressions that C&M call verbs at various places in
the book which dont belong to any of the above three types. Many, such as be able
to and ought to, are assigned to the class of modal verbs discussed above. But it is a
mistake to say that such expressions belong to the syntactic class of verbs. It is ought,
for example, that is a modal auxiliary, not ought to, as evident from the fact that ought
alone inverts with the subject: Ought we to tell them?, not Ought to we tell them? It is
certainly useful, particularly in an ESL context, to have some convenient way of giving
information about the constructions verbs enter into perhaps by using parentheses,
approve (of ) or ought (to) but saying that approve takes an of PP as complement
or that ought takes an infinitive with to is quite different from saying, mistakenly, that
of combines with approve or to with ought to form syntactic constituents, multi-word
verbs.
Functions in clause structure. The major functions in clause structure that C&M
distinguish are S (subject), V (verb), O (object direct or indirect), C (complement
subject complement or object complement) and A (adjunct). But, again, their treatment
of these functions is riddled with inconsistency and error.
In the first place, the term complement is used in two distinct senses, without
attention being drawn to the dual usage. It is sometimes used in the sense of predicative
complement (a term which is sporadically used instead), and sometimes in the broader
sense of an element involved in the complementation of a head in this second
sense it applies to elements in the structure of phrases as well as clauses. Moreover,
neither predicative complement nor complement in the broad sense is satisfactorily
defined. Predicative is said in the glossary (p. 916) to refer to a clause element
that occurs in the predicate, but that of course covers objects and adjuncts too,
though these are not predicative complements. Another glossary entry says that a

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predicative complement completes a clause with such verbs as be, become, look
(p. 896); this applies, however, only to subject complements, whereas predicative
complement covers object complements too (e.g. p. 491). Complement in the broad
sense is defined in the glossary (p. 896) as a word or phrase which is required to
complete the meaning of another word or phrase. The first correction to be made here
is to allow for a complement to have the form of a clause (not just a word or phrase), as in
numerous examples in the Verb complementation chapter. A more general weakness
in the definition, however, concerns the claim that complements are required. This
implies that they are obligatory elements see, for example, p. 502, where adjuncts
are contrasted with complements as optional, not required elements.4 But it is not even
approximately true that complements in English are obligatory: most verbs that take an
object, for example, can also be used intransitively (as indeed C&M acknowledge on
p. 505), and there do not appear to be any convincing examples at all of nouns that take
a complement which is obligatory.5 Furthermore, the idea of completing the meaning
of the head word is too vague to provide a workable criterion. Note here that in the
discussion of verbs that may be used transitively or intransitively C&M observe that
sometimes the meaning remains the same in the two constructions (p. 505): it doesnt
make sense to say that the complement is required to complete the meaning of the verb
if the meaning of the verb is the same whether the complement is present or not. To
avoid these contradictions in the explanation of complementation we need to replace
the criterion of being required by that of being licensed: verbs, nouns, etc., can be
classified according to the dependents that they require OR PERMIT, and the dependents
that are relevant to this classification are complements.6
Secondly, C&M say on p. 502 that all elements in basic clauses which are not S, V, O,
or C are A, but this is inconsistent with their recognition of other types of complement
(in the broad sense) than O and C, namely prepositional complements and locative
complements (e.g. pp. 497, 526). Both of these are involved in further inconsistencies.
In examples like She gave it to me (p. 784) the PP to me is called a prepositional
complement and in the Verb complementation chapter such clauses are classified as
ditransitive (with the PP now called oblique complement); in the glossary, however, a
ditransitive verb is defined as one with two objects, indirect and direct. As for locative
4
5

In the glossary entry for clause, however, adjuncts are inconsistently included among possible required elements
(p. 894).
In H&P (2000: 440), we claimed that denizen was an exceptional noun requiring a complement, but we have
subsequently come across examples with no complement, such as this sentence from The Weekend Australian
(1920/04/03), following comments about the central Queensland town of Rockhampton: As the denizens danced
and gossiped about Natasha Ryans re-emergence from the grave, Rockhampton seemed the perfect setting for
one of David Lynchs bizarre film studies into the psyche of small-town existence.
C&M also use verb in two different senses, again without drawing attention to the dual usage. It is used for
a part of speech, i.e. a word class, and also for a function in clause structure. This is less serious, for works in
linguistics often use notations like S V O in talking of the order of elements in clause structure. In C&Ms
grammar, however, the V function is realised not by a word but by a phrase and we thus find confusing statements
like A clause . . . most typically consists of a subject (which is a noun phrase), A VERB (WHICH IS A VERB PHRASE),
and other elements . . . (p. 491, emphasis added).The inconsistency could easily be avoided by using a term
like predicator for the clause function, keeping verb for the word class.

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complement, this is illustrated in the Verb complementation chapter with Did you
put your stuff in our bedroom? (p. 527); on p. 468, however, the PP in Just put it
on my desk, please is analysed not as a locative but as a predicative complement. In
addition, the Verb complementation chapter only allows for locative complements in
transitive clauses, yet it is inconsistent to treat to school as a locative complement in I
took her to school, but not in She went to school.
Thirdly, one of the things that shocks most in this book is the treatment of the relation
between clause functions and semantic roles, such as agent. Thus C&M say that the
subject is a noun phrase or its equivalent . . . which indicates the doer or agent of an
action, state or event (p. 486; the glossary entry for subject uses virtually the same
wording, p. 924). This is the sort of gross oversimplification one finds in many school
textbooks, but not what one would expect in a serious work in applied linguistics in
the twenty-first century. It makes no sense to talk of the agent or doer in clauses like
Grass is green, The problem looks serious, and so on indeed the glossary definition
of agent omits state or event and talks just of the performer or doer of an action.
And of course the above description of the subject is inconsistent with their discussion
of passives (e.g. pp. 784, 929), and various other constructions (e.g. p. 506), where the
subject is explicitly said not to indicate the doer/agent. Surely it is not beyond the grasp
of the intended audience to say that the subject is associated with the agent role in an
important but limited range of cases (approximately active clauses expressing actions),
and that a definition of subject that covers the full range of English clauses must be
based on syntactic properties.
Dependent clauses. In the Clause combination chapter C&M distinguish two kinds
of dependent clause, embedded and subordinate. EMBEDDED clauses are constituents
of higher-level phrases or clauses (p. 902) and comprise relative clauses, nominal
clauses, and some adverbial clauses, including comparative clauses. SUBORDINATE
clauses combine with main clauses to form sentences (p. 553); the examples discussed
in this chapter are all adverbial clauses. Again there are inconsistencies in the use
of these terms. In the preceding chapter, subordinate clause is used in the sense
of dependent clause, covering both the above subtypes (p. 545). When subordinate
clauses are first introduced in the Clause combination chapter itself, on p. 553 (before
embedded clauses) they are said to include nominal and relative clauses as well as
adverbial clauses, but certainly nominal clauses, by glossary definition (p. 911) and
according to the treatment in this chapter, will always be embedded. The definition
of embedded clauses given above is based on the glossary and the examples in this
chapter (which include, for example, a nominal clause functioning as subject, p. 565),
but the definition given in this chapter says they are constituents of PHRASES (pp. 553,
564), instead of PHRASES OR CLAUSES. Adverbial clauses are said to be elements of
sentence structure, rather than as adjuncts . . . in the clause structure (p. 579), but the
glossary definition of adjunct says this function can be realised by adverbial clauses
(p. 890) and on p. 561 the underlined part of Your evening class tonight has had to
be cancelled because the lecturers ill is analysed as an adverbial clause functioning as

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adjunct of reason. Comparative clauses are defined as clauses expressing the second
part of a comparison of degree, functioning as complements of comparative expressions
(p. 773), making them embedded clauses, as above, but two pages later C&M apply
the term to the MAIN clause in examples like They are just too upset to speak about
it. And while subordinate clauses are first said to combine with main clauses to form
sentences, as reported above, it is later recognised that they can also be subordinate to
another dependent clause rather than a main clause, as in She worked there for some
time, although, as she herself has told you, she was not happy in her job (p. 555: I use
double underlining for the lower subordinate clause, and single for the clause on which
it is dependent).
This brings us to a major problem with C&Ms concept of subordinate clause. When a
subordinate clause combines with a main clause the result is a sentence, but C&M have
no term for the combination of a subordinate clause with another dependent clause (e.g.
for although, as she herself has told you, she was not happy in her job in the above). This
means that there is no way of drawing a normal tree diagram the one C&M provide for
this example has a branch going from subordinate clause above the lowest clause up
to (. . .) following although in the upper subordinate clause. And suppose you take a
sentence consisting of main clause + subordinate clause, such as Roman soldiers could
settle there with their families after they had retired from the army and embed it within
an NP, as in Lindum was a town where Roman soldiers could settle with their families
after they had retired from the army. The doubly underlined clause is now classified as
embedded rather than subordinate, and the tree they provide (p. 565) is uninterpretable.
The relevant part is given in (3):
(3)

postmodifier
adverbial clause
of place


where Roman soldiers could settle with their families
(embedded)


adverbial clause
of time


after they had retired from the army
(embedded)

Branches in normal tree diagrams have function or class terms labelling the upper
node, but in this tree the branch above adverbial clause of time has an actual clause
at the upper node and hence cannot be interpreted in the standard way. C&M give
no reason for their decision not to treat adverbial clauses as adjuncts, but they pay a
huge price for it in terms of unnecessary complexity and loss of consistency with the
implicit principles that elsewhere govern permitted tree structures. It would be much
better to abandon the distinction between subordinate and embedded clauses, treating
all dependent clauses as embedded.

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I should add that C&Ms treatment of non-finite dependent clauses is seriously


limited and unsystematic. There is one section labelled Non-finite clauses, located in
the Clause types chapter, but it is little over half a page in length (p. 546), and deals only
with the issue of their temporal interpretation.7 Nowhere do they deal with the infinitival
construction introduced by the subordinator for followed by the subject, as in Its
important for the job to be finished this week. In the section Central clause functions
they say that the subject is most typically a noun phrase, though it may sometimes be
a wh-nominal clause, or, very occasionally, a prepositional phrase (p. 495): they fail to
mention other possibilities more important than PPs, in particular non-finite clauses, as
in To turn back now would be a mistake. In the Verb complementation chapter they
mainly deal in turn with monotransitive, ditransitive, complex-transitive, and copular
constructions, and include lists of verbs which can take non-finite clauses as one of the
complements in the first three of these, omitting mention of non-finite complements
in copular clauses like His favourite pastime was reading novels or These changes
are to increase security. For the three constructions where non-finite complements are
said to occur, not one word of commentary is given concerning syntactic or semantic
differences between them, and there are numerous aspects of the verb classification
that are quite implausible. Consider the following examples containing verbs from the
three lists given on pp. 51617, 523, 524:
(4) (a) They chose Kim to chair the meeting.
(b) They ordered Kim to chair the meeting.
(c) They allowed Kim to chair the meeting.

[monotransitive]
[ditransitive]
[complex-transitive]

(5) (a) They intended to win the match.


(b) They intended her to win the match.

[monotransitive]
[complex-transitive]

Why should choose differ from order and allow in having Kim as subject in the
dependent clause rather than object in the main clause, and why should the function
of to chair the meeting be different in (4b) and (c)? (In (c) it is object complement,
whereas in (b) no functional label is assigned, but as the clause is ditransitive it could
not be an object complement.) And why with intend in (5) is to win the match a
direct object in (a) but an object complement in (b)? Theres no point in classifying
verbs with non-finite complements according to which of the three constructions they
enter into unless some explanation is given of the differences between them: readers
are in effect asked to accept the verb classification as an ex cathedra statement with
no evident relevance to the way they construct or interpret sentences. It would be
far more useful to deal with non-finite complementation of verbs separately rather
than treating the complements as functionally equivalent to NPs. And again we find
inconsistency between the analysis presented in this chapter and that found elsewhere in
the book. Thus fail and manage are said to take infinitival direct objects (pp. 51617),
as in I failed/managed to solve the problem, but on p. 401 such examples are
7

The section begins, moreover, by saying that non-finite clauses contain a lexical verb which does not indicate
tense; this is inconsistent with the definition given on p. 532 and the definition of finite clause on p. 545, and
would incorrectly include as non-finite the doubly underlined clause while excluding the singly underlined one
in, for example, He hasnt been charged yet, but he expects to be.

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analysed as simple sentences with failed/managed to solve classified as catenative verb


phrases.8
Declaratives vs interrogatives. The major source of inconsistency in this area stems
from a failure to distinguish clearly between the clause types on the one hand and their
characteristic constituent order on the other. Thus C&M talk not only of declarative
and interrogative CLAUSES, but also of declarative and interrogative WORD ORDER (e.g.
p. 547). They say several times, without qualification, that declarative clauses have the
order S V X (e.g. pp. 532, 899) and call this declarative word order. Interrogative
word order is Modal/Aux S X (or variants allowing for lexical be or have to
precede S: see the discussion of NICE verbs above). But of course the latter order
can occur in declaratives that have fronting of various kinds, as in Not once did she
thank me (p. 781), and wh-interrogatives like Who wants more coffee? (p. 538) have
the former order. The inconsistency and confusion is particularly striking in the case
of dependent interrogatives. In the Clause types chapter they are called indirect
interrogatives (pp. 53941), but elsewhere the term generally used is wh-clause,
defined as A DECLARATIVE clause that is introduced by question words who(m) [etc.]
(p. 929, emphasis added). This inconsistency should surely be resolved in favour of
the former term, so that the contrast between declaratives and interrogatives in main
clauses will apply also to their dependent clause counterparts and so that we can
avoid such anomalies as saying that who told him is interrogative when it stands alone
but declarative when it occurs in contexts like I wonder who told him. Note also that
in the rules concerning the distribution of polarity-sensitive items like yet (p. 159)
interrogative must cover dependent as well as main clauses: Has he finished yet?, I
wonder if he has finished yet, He has finished yet, I know that he has finished yet. It
is important to see that the major distinctive property of wh-interrogatives is that they
contain an interrogative wh-word, not that they have a particular constituent order, for
the order is variable, depending on whether the wh-constituent precedes the subject and
whether the interrogative is a main clause. Confusion between clause categories and
word order could be avoided by talking not of declarative word order but of basic word
order, and not of interrogative word order but of inversion of subject and whatever term
is used for NICE verbs.9
Other inconsistencies in this area concern the term polar and the classification of
whether clauses. Polar is sometimes used in contrast with alternative (e.g. p. 805),
sometimes (and inappropriately, given its relation to polarity) to cover both yes/no
and alternative interrogatives (e.g. p. 534). A dependent interrogative with whether is
classified as a wh-clause on pp. 329, 513, but excluded from this category by glossary
definitions (pp. 907, 929) and also excluded from the category of wh-interrogatives
(pp. 53940).
8
9

This inconsistency is carried over from Q et al. (1985: 146, 1187), along with the particular concept of catenative
verb phrase involved here and much of the detailed classification of verbs with non-finite complements.
My preference is for auxiliary. Within a grammar that adopts analysis (2a) for the VP, one could then distinguish
between dependent auxiliaries (those with dependent function within the VP) and independent auxiliaries
for copular be and relevant uses of have.

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Wh-constructions. There is an important set of constructions in English marked by


the presence of one (or in some cases more) of the wh-words who, whoever, whom,
whomever, etc. For present purposes I will refer to them informally as wh-constructions.
The set consists of wh-interrogatives, main and dependent; exclamatives, main and
dependent; exhaustive conditionals (aka concessives or conditional-concessives), as in
Theyll go ahead, whatever you say; wh-relatives, as in the book which she was reading,
and fused relatives (aka headless, free or nominal relatives), as in What you gave me
was not enough. This set is of course much larger than C&Ms wh-clause. The whword, or rather the phrase containing it, may have a variety of functions, including a
function within a clause embedded in the wh-construction (compare Who said that?,
subject; What do you want?, object; Who do you think will win?, subject of embedded
clause), but C&M dont bring this out. And they devote little attention to comparing
the structures of the different wh-constructions.
Nothing further need be said about wh-interrogatives. As for exclamatives, C&M
distinguish this syntactic category from the speech act category of exclamations
(pp. 531, 682), but the distinction is not applied consistently. Thus Oh God, was I
exhausted by the time I got home! is correctly described as an interrogative clause used
as an exclamation (p. 683), but Oh isnt that nice! is classified as exclamative rather
than interrogative on p. 717. Dependent exclamatives are not mentioned as such the
Verb complementation chapter is unsystematic in that it lists various verb classes
that take interrogative complements but ignores exclamative complements, as in She
remarked what a beautiful house it was. That example, however, is cited on p. 804 as a
wh-clause reporting an exclamation, which is of course inconsistent with the definition
of wh-clause cited above, as this what is not a question word.
Exhaustive conditionals are dealt with twice, as though there were two quite separate
constructions here there isnt even a cross-reference between the two sections
concerned. On p. 562 they are included as examples of a larger class of adverbial
clauses of concession, while on p. 752 they are analysed as wh-conditional clauses.
There is no basis for this dual analysis: Whatever I do, Im compromised (illustrating
the former) and Whatever she says, dont believe it (illustrating the latter) belong to a
single syntactic construction. Notice, moreover, that C&M classify the wh-words in the
concessive construction as subordinators, like although (pp. 558, 562), but whatever
in the above examples is clearly a pronoun, functioning as head of the object NP, just
like what in What did she say?
C&Ms treatment of relatives is one of the worst features of the book, involving
as it does two inexcusable omissions. In the first place, for non-fused relatives
(pp. 56676) they allow only for relative PRONOUNS (including that and zero). There
is no mention of the relative determiner which, though it occurs in an example
they cite on p. 40 (By which time, it will be too late . . .). Nor do they recognise
traditional grammars relative adverbs; two examples are in fact cited with an incorrect
analysis. Thus the relative clause in Thats part of the reason why we bought it
(p. 329) is wrongly classified as a defining wh-interrogative clause functioning as
complement of a noun: its status as relative (modifier) rather than interrogative

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(complement) is evident from the fact that why can be replaced by that or omitted,
and that reason cant take obvious interrogative complements such as what we
bought. The other example I have already quoted in another connection: Lindum
was a town where Roman soldiers could settle with their families . . . (p. 565), where
the underlined clause is said to be an adverbial clause of place, as shown in (3). Theres
nothing adverbial about this clause: traditional grammar would call it adjectival
since its function is to modify the noun town (and, as we noted, C&M do in fact label it
postmodifier). Its status as a relative can easily be seen from the fact that we can replace
where by in which, where which couldnt be anything other than a relative pronoun.
The second omission concerns fused relatives: this is not recognised as a distinct
construction at all. A good number occur in the examples cited at various places in the
book, but in the few cases where they are classified they are called wh-clauses (e.g. Its
not quite what Im looking for, p. 128, She went back to where she used to work, p. 462
and in wh-clefts, as in What you need is a telephone bank account, p. 786). This
classification is inconsistent with the definition of wh-clause quoted above, since
the wh-words here are not question words. But it would not of course do to simply
modify the definition (e.g. by replacing question words by wh-words), for fused
relatives must be distinguished from dependent interrogatives on well-known syntactic
and semantic grounds.10
Determiners, pronouns, and possessives pronouns. C&Ms section on possessive
pronouns gets off to a terrible start: There are two classes of possessive pronoun:
possessive determiners and possessive pronouns (p. 382). This is to treat possessive
pronoun as ambiguous, having one sense in which possessive pronouns contrast
with possessive determiners and another, more general, sense in which they include
possessive determiners as a subclass. This is inconsistent with the principle implicit
elsewhere in the book that the parts of speech are mutually exclusive, i.e. that no
word in an unambiguous sentence can belong simultaneously to more than one part of
speech. What they presumably meant was something like this: Possessive counterparts
to the personal pronouns fall into two classes: possessive determiners and possessive
pronouns.
Inconsistencies abound in the discussion of these forms, as illustrated in C&Ms
analysis of the following examples, where the annotation on the right gives their
classification of the underlined form:
(6) (a) My dad would beat yours in a fight. (p. 358)
(b) My dad would beat yours in a fight. (p. 358)
(c) I always forget birthdays. I have enough trouble
remembering my own. (p. 359)
(d) the schools development plan (p. 361)
10

[possessive determiner]
[possessive pronoun]
[possessive pronoun]
[possessive determiner]

See, for example, Q et al. (1985: 105661) or H&P (2002: 106873). To put into an ESL context the omissions
in C&Ms account of relative constructions it is perhaps worth noting that in Swan (1980), a smaller and more
modest but very widely used ESL manual, we find paragraphs on relative determiner which (529:6), relative
when, where, and why (526:5), and the distinction, though not under this terminology, between non-fused and
fused relatives (531).

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(e) the people whose car it was (p. 572)


(f) she would object to his coming here (p. 515)

[possessive pronoun]
[pronoun in possessive form]

Examples (ab) illustrate the basic uses of possessive determiners and possessive
pronouns respectively. C&M treat own as a dependent of a preceding possessive (though
they are inconsistent as to what kind of dependent it is, treating it now as a complement
(e.g. p. 383), now as a postmodifier (same page!)). This makes my in (c) head of the NP,
and it is therefore treated as a pronoun (p. 359), but this is inconsistent with the table
of forms given, where my appears only in the determiner column. I should add that
the table of possessive determiners and pronouns is given twice, but in two mutually
inconsistent versions. On p. 358 the pronoun entries corresponding to the determiners
its and ones are (no form), whereas on p. 382 they are given as its and ones, with a
note saying that these pronouns occur only when complemented by (very) own.11 But
if its and ones qualify as pronouns on the strength of their occurrence in the NPs its
own and ones own, then my, your, etc. should likewise figure in the pronoun column.
C&Ms analysis of examples like (c) requires two sets of possessive pronouns, one of
them homonymous with the determiners.
The analysis of expressions like the schools in (6d) as determiners is inconsistent
with: (a) the account of determiners as a closed class of function words (p. 894); (b)
the definition of genitive as a case that denotes a possessive relationship with ANOTHER
NOUN PHRASE in a sentence, as in the womans husband (p. 905, emphasis added);
(c) the statement that when a possessive determiner and a possessive s form modify
the same head noun, the possessive determiner normally comes second, as in Janes
and my wedding (p. 383). It is of course a highly unorthodox analysis and cant have
been thought through carefully. C&M take those as a determiner in those videos but
as a pronoun in Ill need those (p. 357), which matches the classification of my as
a determiner and mine as a pronoun in (6ab), but they fail to mention the use of
expressions like the schools without a following head, as in The colleges reputation
isnt as good as the schools. They couldnt say that the schools is a pronoun here but
a determiner in (6d): the difference must be accounted for in terms of the STRUCTURE
of the topmost NP, not in terms of the CLASS of the possessive expressions, for they are
systematically identical in form. And of course they couldnt say that the schools was
a determiner in both constructions.
The classification of relative whose in (6e) as a pronoun is inconsistent with the
inclusion of whose in the list of determiners on p. 353, and with the analysis of all other
possessive expressions as determiners when they occur as dependent to a following
head noun.
The construction illustrated in (6f) is not mentioned in the Pronouns chapter,
and the discussion in the Verb complementation chapter (p. 515) implies a different
treatment of possessive forms from that in the earlier chapter: C&M say that if the
11

As far as its is concerned, the statement they are attempting to make here is empirically false. The use of its as
forming an NP by itself is rare, but such examples of its as we have in the following are surely quite impeccable:
Australia, he agrees, seems to have less problem with alienation among its Muslim community than Britain has
with its [The Weekend Australian 1617.09.06:25]; cf. also H&P (2002: 471, 489n).

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subject of a verb in the -ing form is a pronoun it occurs in the object form, except that
in formal styles it may occur as a possessive form. This suggests that his is considered
as an inflectional form of the personal pronoun he, which matches the glossary entry
for case, but not the account of personal pronouns in the text (pp. 37682). The only
other example of this construction that is discussed (pp. 4667) likewise involves his:
C&M dont point out that where we have an overt difference between my and mine,
your and yours, etc., it is the former member of the pair that is required here, and the
pronoun analysis is again inconsistent with the tables of possessive determiners and
pronouns on pp. 358 and 382, mentioned above.
There are two things we need to do to get rid of these inconsistencies. The first is to
apply the distinction between classes (or categories) and functions to the description of
determiners. C&M are inconsistent as to whether determiner is a class or a function
term. In the glossary definition of class (p. 894), determiner is included among the
closed word classes, as noted above, and in the Introduction to Word classes and phrase
classes they write: A noun phrase usually consists of a head along with modifiers
or a complement. . . . Premodifiers include determiners . . . , adjectives . . . , and other
nouns (p. 299), implying that determiner is a class with the function premodifier.
But in the next chapter they say that noun heads may have three types of dependent
element: determiners, modifiers and complements (p. 322), with determiner now
a function term. Importantly, however, to the extent that they are conscious of the
distinction, they tacitly assume that there is a one-to-one relation between the determiner
CLASS and the determiner FUNCTION. This is a mistake: we need to recognise that the
determiner function can be filled by other kinds of expression than members of the
determiner class.12 The most obvious are genitive NPs, like the schools in (6d):13
the inconsistencies described above are avoided if we say this has determiner function,
but belongs to the class NP. This solution extends naturally to NPs with pronouns
as head. Thus in (6e) whose likewise belongs to the class of genitive NPs and has
determiner function. With the personal pronouns there are two sets of genitive forms,
dependent (my, your, etc.) and independent (mine, yours, etc.): the dependent genitives
function as dependent (determiner), not head, in NP structure and as subject in clauses
like his coming here in (6f) (subject being arguably also a dependent function, relative
to the VP, which can be considered as head of the clause).14
The second change we need to make concerns the analysis of the adjective own. In
my own birthday it is a premodifier of birthday, not a postmodifier (or complement) of
my. C&M claim (p. 125) that own cant occur alone (i.e. with no determiner) or after
12

13
14

In H&P we distinguish terminologically between determiner as a function term and determinative as a class
term, but for present purposes it will be clearer to distinguish between determiner function and determiner
class.
Other types involve certain kinds of non-genitive NP, as in What size shoes do you take?, and PPs, as in
Between thirty and forty demonstrators were arrested; C&M do not cover these constructions.
This is, of course, a quite traditional analysis except that the traditional terms for the two sets of possessive
pronouns are conjoint (or attributive) and absolute. The traditional analysis of the dependent forms as
pronouns is often criticised in modern works, such as Hurford (1994: 181) and Trask (2000: 104), but it is
significant that these works do not mention the construction illustrated in (6f), where the forms in question
function as subject, and where the determiner class analysis wont work.

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a or the, but although it usually follows a genitive it is not required to do so, as shown
in these examples from Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene, which provide evidence
against taking own as dependent of a preceding genitive:
(7) When we talked about flukes and snails we accustomed ourselves to the idea that a
parasites genes could have phenotypic effects on the hosts body, in the same way
as any animals genes have phenotypic effects on its own body. We showed that the
very idea of an own body was a loaded assumption. (2nd edition, p. 250; see also
p. 247)

Further evidence for the treatment of own as modifier of the following noun in NPs
like my own birthday (which again is the traditional analysis) is that it explains why
own cannot occur in (6f): coming here is a VP, not a noun, and hence cannot take an
adjectival premodifier. C&Ms my own in (6c) is thus like my youngest in My eldest son
is twelve years older than my youngest, where there is no overt noun following, and
my is a dependent genitive pronoun functioning as determiner in accordance with the
rule given above. Their analysis of my own here may be due to their belief that noun
phrases consist minimally of a noun or pronoun, which acts as the head of the noun
phrase (p. 318). This, however, is clearly not true, and it is another serious gap in the
coverage of the book that it fails to deal with the structure of NPs not headed by a noun
or pronoun, like my youngest, the latter, the very rich, etc.
I confess it is a mystery to me how so much inconsistency and confusion could remain
in a book seven years in the making especially as the research project involved a
twelve-member Reference Panel credited with having contributed to workshops and
commented on draft chapters (six of them are singled out for their most thorough and
meticulously detailed reports on the various versions of the manuscript, p. v). In his
(very magnanimous) review of H&P, Leech (2004: 126) suggests a scale of abstraction
for grammars ranging from the most data-oriented, through descriptive, to the most
theoretical works, placing H&P towards the theory-oriented section of the descriptive
area on the scale and Q et al. towards the data-oriented section of that area. C&M would
then occupy a position somewhat further removed from the theory-oriented end of the
scale than Q et al. I would emphasise, however, that the criticisms I have made here
have not been made from a theoretically oriented position. This would not have been the
place, for example, to argue for some of the more radical departures from traditional
grammar that H&P adopt, and in fact some of the main criticisms I have made of
C&Ms grammatical analysis concern issues where traditional grammars account is
superior to theirs: modal auxiliaries as tensed verbs, dependent interrogatives, the part
of speech classification of possessives like my, your, etc. Moreover, the serious gaps
in coverage I have drawn attention to involve common constructions dealt with in Q
et al.: infinitivals introduced by for, NPs without a noun or pronoun as head, and various
relative constructions. And of course the bulk of my criticisms have been concerned
with the extraordinary amount of inconsistency in C&Ms account of the grammar, a
failure to meet elementary standards that apply to any grammar, whatever its position
on Leechs scale. Readers will undoubtedly be able to derive much of benefit from
the book, but to a significant extent this will result from their ability to generalise for
themselves from the great number of examples provided rather than from struggling

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to work out and assimilate what C&M say about the grammatical analysis. It is very
much to be regretted that what is likely to be regarded as an important work in applied
linguistics should have such a weak foundation in descriptive linguistics.
One final complaint concerns the index, which is nothing short of a disaster. Firstly,
there are over sixty entries where the sole reference is to the glossary case, gender,
person, polarity, stem, tense, topic, etc. This is useless: what we need is information
about where the concept is dealt with in the main text. Secondly, there are a good few
terms that dont appear in the index at all: allomorph, commissive, conjunct, -ed form,
-ed participle, hypothetical conditional, oblique complement, syncretism, tensed verb
(phrase), and so on. Thirdly, where an item is listed and given references other than to
the glossary, they are often very incomplete. For example, just two references are given
for non-finite clauses but there are another sixteen sections where we find relevant
mention of such clauses. Or take the form none: the index gives four references, but
there are a further eight instances that should have been included. If the plans for a
second edition materialise, there will need to be not only a large-scale overhaul of the
grammatical description, but also a complete rethinking of how to compile the index
for a book of this kind.
Reviewers address:
rhuddleston@aapt.net.au
References
Huddleston, R. & G. K. Pullum et al. 2002. The Cambridge grammar of the English language.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hurford, J. R. 1994. Grammar: A students guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leech, G. 2004. A new Grays Anatomy of English grammar. On Rodney Huddleston &
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(Received 22 January 2007)

doi:10.1017/S1360674307002547
Geert Booij, The grammar of words: An introduction to linguistic morphology, 2nd
edition (Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
xiv + 345 pp.
Reviewed by Ana Daz-Negrillo and Salvador Valera Hernandez, University of Jaen1
The second edition of Laurie Bauers Introducing Linguistic Morphology and Ingo
Plags Word-formation in English, both published in 2003, were followed closely by
1

The authors would like to thank Professor Bas Aarts for his valuable comments on earlier versions of this
review.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

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