Grammar, etymologically speaking, is related to glamour. Though few people might claim that grammar is glamorous in the modern sense, there is considerable interest in English grammar today and no shortage of grammar books, ranging from small basic books aimed at children or elementarylevel foreign learners, through more advancedmanuals to large scholarly works. The trouble is—they may be about the same language,but they do not always speak the same language. The very range of the grammar bookson offer presents problems.
The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar SECOND EDITION B A S A A RT S S YL V I A C H A L K E R EDMUND WEINER Bas Aarts is Professor of English Linguistics at University College London He has published many books and articles on English grammar, most recently the Oxford Modern English Grammar The late Sylvia Chalker was the author of several grammar books, including Current English Grammar and the Little Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar She was also a contributor to the Oxford Companion to the English Language Edmund Weiner is Deputy Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary and co-author (with Andrew Delahunty) of the Oxford Guide to English Usage A This is a web-linked dictionary There is a list of recommended web links in the Appendix, on page 454 To access the websites, go to the dictionary’s web page at www.oup.com/uk/reference/ resources/englishgrammar, click on Web links in the Resources section, and click straight through to the relevant websites Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Original material: # Sylvia Chalker and Edmund Weiner 1994 New and revised material: # Oxford University Press 2014 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First edition published 1994 First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback 1994 Reissued, with corrections, in new covers 1998 Second edition published 2014 Impression: All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available ISBN: 978–0–19–965823–7 Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work Contents Preface to the First Edition v Preface to the Second Edition Organization vii Notational Conventions Abbreviations x Dictionary References 448 Useful Web Links 454 ix vi Preface to the First Edition Grammar, etymologically speaking, is related to glamour Though few people might claim that grammar is glamorous in the modern sense, there is considerable interest in English grammar today and no shortage of grammar books, ranging from small basic books aimed at children or elementary-level foreign learners, through more advanced manuals to large scholarly works The trouble is—they may be about the same language, but they not always speak the same language The very range of the grammar books on offer presents problems There are many ways of describing grammar, and a wealth of terminology Some of it strikes the layman as jargon (disjunct, matrix, pro-form, stative); other words appear ordinary enough but conceal specialized meanings (comment, focus, specific) Worse, the same terms, old or new—comparison, formal, pronoun, reported speech, root, stress—are used by different grammarians with different meanings Such difficulties are not entirely avoidable Any subject of study needs specialist words Different grammarians are entitled to analyse language in different ways, and fresh viewpoints may call for new terms But while grammarians sometimes explain what they mean by a new or unusual term, it is rarer for them to point out that they are using an existing term in a different way This is a cause of real confusion Another problem is that new terms may in the end turn out simply to be alternatives for an old concept—a synonym in fact (e.g progressive, continuous) We have tried in this dictionary to indicate the range and variety of meanings that may lie behind a single term The main emphasis is on the terminology of current mainstream grammar, but we have also included a considerable number of entries on the related areas of speech and meaning—more grandly known as phonetics and semantics Users will also find some terms from Generative Grammar, which has greatly influenced mainstream grammar in recent years—but some of the more theoretical terminology of linguistics and semantics is excluded We have also on the whole excluded outdated grammatical terminology, apart from a few traditional terms which may be familiar to the general reader The authors would like to thank Professor Flor Aarts, of the Katholieke Universiteit, Nijmegen, who read an early draft of the book: his comments, we believe, have led to many improvements, but the authors are alone responsible for any blemishes that remain We would also like to thank our families for their support, encouragement, and, at times, forbearance sc escw London, Oxford 1993 Preface to the Second Edition Students of English are faced with an ever-expanding list of terms when studying the grammar of present-day English The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar offers help by defining current terminology clearly with the help of numerous example sentences and quotations from the scholarly linguistic literature Where the same terminology is used differently by linguists, these differences are explained, and where different terminology is used in the same way, this is also clearly signalled This new edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar differs from the first edition in many ways: All entries have been completely revised and updated There are many new entries covering recent terminology, for example from The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language There are new short entries on the most important grammars of English published since the beginning of the twentieth century Usage advice is given where appropriate, though it is never prescriptive Advice is sometimes given regarding the use of terminology that most linguists would agree is best avoided Readers familiar with the first edition will notice that the entries on English phonetics have been removed The reason for this is that it is very unusual for phonetics to be covered under the heading of ‘grammar’, and this terminology is best dealt with elsewhere The term ‘grammar’ is conceived of in this dictionary as encompassing syntax and morphology, and the aim is to cover terminology that is used in the current literature on English grammar The dictionary also has entries on related fields of study, such as corpus linguistics, historical linguistics, lexicology, (lexical) semantics, sociolinguistics, stylistics, and so on, but only when this terminology is broadly relevant to grammar Terms from theoretical frameworks are also covered to some extent, especially those from Generative Grammar and Systemic Grammar, though for a fuller treatment the reader is referred to Peter Matthews’s Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics I am grateful to the late Sylvia Chalker and to Edmund Weiner for their excellent work on the first edition of this book, and to Rebecca Lane and Jamie Crowther at OUP for their support during the writing process Finally, thanks are due to Jill Bowie for her meticulous copy-editing and to Donald Watt for proofreading bas aarts University College London Organization Entries are strictly alphabetical Thus: agent agentive agentless passive agent noun Cross-references to other entries are signalled by an asterisk when they occur in running text, e.g Aktionsart The lexical expression of *aspect In formal cross-references, the entry referred to is indicated in small capitals, e.g focusing subjunct See focusing adverb A cross-reference to a phrase listed within an entry is given in a mixture of small capitals (for the entry headword) and italics (for the remainder of the phrase), e.g complex sentence When a cross-reference relates to a particular numbered sense in another entry, the number of the relevant sense is indicated, e.g *base (2) or base (2) Where a word is not a grammatical term in itself, but forms part of a phrase which is dealt with elsewhere, this is indicated, e.g act See speech act Where a term is dealt with at the entry for some larger term, this is indicated, e.g formulaic subjunctive See subjunctive Where two or more terms are synonyms, the definition appears under the preferred term, usually with a reference to the alternative term, e.g folk etymology Also called popular etymology and the other term is cross-referenced with an asterisk, e.g popular etymology The same as *folk etymology Where two or more terms are in a contrastive relationship, this is stated at the beginning of both entries, e.g abstract Contrasted with *concrete concrete Contrasted with *abstract See (also) at the end of (part of) an entry indicates that further information will be found at the entry indicated Sometimes the user is referred to a closely related word, e.g coordinate See also coordination At other times the reference is to a ‘background’ concept, e.g discord Organization viii See agreement 10 Compare at the end of (part of) an entry indicates that although the entry is complete, it may be useful to read entries for related or overlapping terms, or terms with which this term could be confused, e.g abbreviated Compare block language; reduced clause These particular entries show that certain types of language that might reasonably be described as abbreviated are in fact given special labels 11 Words are marked with word class labels (n = noun, adj = adjective, v = verb, etc.) only when they can belong to more than one class 12 Where word class labels are conjoined (e.g n & adj.), the definition is framed so as to cover both uses, with parentheses surrounding the part of the definition that applies to only one of the two uses, e.g countable (n & adj.) (Designating) a noun with singular and plural forms which is equivalent to: (n.) A noun with singular and plural forms (adj.) Designating a noun with singular and plural forms 13 In certain entries, words and phrases quoted as examples are given abbreviated dates indicating their earliest known recorded appearance in English In these, the number is that of the century and the preceding E, M, L mean ‘early’, ‘mid’, and ‘late’: ‘E19’ means ‘1800–1829’, ‘M19’ means 1830–1869’, and ‘L19’ means ‘1870–1899’ OE means ‘Old English’ (before 1150), ME ‘Middle English’ (1150–1349), and LME ‘late Middle English’ (1350–1469) 14 In many entries, quotations from works on language and linguistics are given in order to illustrate the use of the word being defined Only the author’s name and the date of the work are cited: fuller details are given in the References section 15 Meanings are signalled by single inverted commas: e.g Wherever you go, you’ll be covered by this insurance (‘No matter where you go ’) 16 Derivatives of a headword are listed at the end of the entry and indicated by a single preceding dot They are undefined if their meaning is plain once that of the parent word is known, and if they are not found in ‘extended terms’ (special phrasal combinations) For example, at the end of the entry for syntax we have: syntactic, syntactically 17 Extended terms are listed alphabetically at the end of the entry following any derivatives, and indicated by two preceding dots They are given brief definitions or fuller discussion as appropriate For example, in the entry for modifier we have: modifier clause: a clause that postmodifies a head, e.g a *relative clause sentence modifier: a modifier that modifies a complete sentence or clause Notational Conventions * ? Ø arrows An asterisk used before a citation of a linguistic form indicates an impossible structure, i.e a structure that does not conform to the grammatical rules of English Example: *They likes to read In this example the third person plural subject they is followed by a verb with a third person singular inflectional ending A question mark used before a citation of a linguistic form indicates a structure that is of doubtful acceptability Example: ?Give it me This symbol is used to indicate an implicit subject Example: I want [Ø to read it] These indicate movement, For example, in What did you see? the pronoun what functions as the direct object of the verb see and has been moved to the beginning of the sentence to form an interrogative structure: What did you see_? The underscore symbol is explained below brackets [ ] co-indexing italics Brackets are used: (1) to indicate words that together form a constituent phrase, clause, etc A labelled bracketing includes a subscript indicator of the syntactic status of the constituent Example: [NP Cats][VP eat [NP fish]]; (2) to indicate that a lexical item, usually a verb, is followed by a complement which contains a particular word Example: have [to] indicates that the verb have is followed by a complement that contains the word to, e.g I have to leave Items that are co-referential can be co-indexed, i.e bear the same subscript letter, usually an ‘i’ Example: Hei shaves himselfi twice every day These are used: (1) to cite words, sentences, etc as linguistic forms; (2) to indicate words, phrases, etc that require highlighting For underlined italics, see below underlined italics Within italicized citations of linguistic forms, underlining is used to highlight particular words (or other elements) for attention underscore (‘_’) This symbol indicates a ‘gap’ in the clause with which a displaced element is associated For example, in What did you see _ ? the pronoun what has been moved to the beginning of the sentence from the position indicated by ‘_’ to form an interrogative structure [...]... CaGEL CGEL D/DP det DO IO N/NP OMEG P/PP S V/VP adjective/adjective phrase adverb/adverb phrase American English British English The Cambridge grammar of the English language, by Rodney Huddleston, Geoffrey K Pullum, et al Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002 A comprehensive grammar of the English language, by Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik London: Longman,... sometimes used in connection with mother-tongue English speakers Thus standard British English spoken with a standard accent may be considered an acrolect (see also hyperlect) It is also used of varieties of English in regions where English is a second (or third) language 1977 J T PLATT I feel that in the case of Singapore English a very distinct non-British English acrolect is gradually emerging acrolectal... Svartvik London: Longman, 1985 determinative/determinative phrase (or determiner/ determiner phrase) determinative (or determiner) Direct Object Indirect Object noun/noun phrase Oxford Modern English grammar, by Bas Aarts Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011 preposition/prepositional phrase sentence verb/verb phrase A A *Adverbial as an *element of *clause structure The symbol is used in some modern analyses... older grammar. ) The part of grammar that deals with the *inflections of words; the way words change to indicate different grammatical roles a accusative a 6 This category traditionally contrasts with *syntax For example, the differences between: drive, drives, driving, drove, and driven or between: driver, driver’s, drivers, and drivers’ would come under the heading of accidence in a traditional grammar. .. ablative (n & adj.) (In older grammar. ) (A case) that expresses meanings such as ‘by N’, ‘with N’, or ‘from N’ (where N = *noun) This case, occurring and originally named in Latin, is not relevant to English, where such meanings are expressed by *prepositional phrases The corresponding semantic categories include *agent, *instrument, and *means The nearest equivalent in English to the ablative absolute... term is used of any verb, but this is best avoided 1884 New English Dictionary Action of a verb, verbal action: The action expressed by a verb; properly of verbs which assert acting, but conveniently extended to the thing asserted by a verb, whether action, state, or mere existence, as I strike, I stand, I live, I am See also case (1); case grammar; semantic role actional passive See passive action... CURME The absolute comparative is not as common as the absolute superlative higher education; a better-class cafe See also absolute clause absolutely (in older usage, as 4(i) above.) 1884 New English Dictionary In ‘the public are informed’, ‘the young are invited’, public and young are adjectives used absolutely absolute clause A *non-finite or *verbless *clause containing its own subject, attached... feature of English is the use of *nouns in attributive position to modify other nouns (e.g greenhouse effect, holiday camp, wind instrument) This usage is sometimes called adjectivalization, but it is best avoided; see adjectival adjective A major *word class, traditionally (i.e *notionally) defined as containing ‘describing’ words, or ‘words that tell us something about a noun’ In modern grammar adjectives... and involuntary In popular grammar, agent contrasts principally with *instrument and *means The label agent is often used interchangeably with actor, though a distinction is sometimes made: 1997 R VAN VALIN & R J LAPOLLA The generalized agent-type role will be termed actor and the generalized patient-type role will be called undergoer Accordingly, in an active sentence in English, the actor is the subject,... his homework at night; Does she support your plans?) Prescriptivists favour strict grammatical agreement But notional concord, where agreement follows the meaning, is a common feature of English, and acceptable to most grammarians: Everybody knows this, don’t they? Neither of them approve (more strictly: approves) The committee have decided (has decided ) £10 is all I have A minor type of verb agreement, ... on English grammar, most recently the Oxford Modern English Grammar The late Sylvia Chalker was the author of several grammar books, including Current English Grammar and the Little Oxford Dictionary. .. Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar She was also a contributor to the Oxford Companion to the English Language Edmund Weiner is Deputy Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary and co-author... London, Oxford 1993 Preface to the Second Edition Students of English are faced with an ever-expanding list of terms when studying the grammar of present-day English The Oxford Dictionary of English