One Language, Two Grammars?
One Language, Two Grammars?
Julia Schlüter, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, Germany
It is well known that British and American English differ substantially in their pronunciation and vocabulary - but differences in their grammar have largely been underestimated. This volume focuses on British–American differences in the structure of words and sentences and supports them with computer-aided studies of large text collections. Present-day as well as earlier forms of the two varieties are included in the analyses. This makes it the first book-length treatment of British and American English grammar in contrast, with topics ranging from compound verbs to word order differences and tag questions. The authors explore some of the better-known contrasts, as well as a great variety of innovative themes that have so far received little or no consideration. Bringing together the work of a team of leading scholars in the field, this book will be of interest to those working within the fields of English historical linguistics, language variation and change, and dialectology.
- Was the first volume explicitly focusing on differences between British and American English grammar
- Contains original contributions by leading experts in the field
- Features extensive tables and figures drawing on electronic corpora and dictionaries
Reviews & endorsements
Review of the hardback: '… an important book …' Journal of English Language and Linguistics
'… an important and stimulating read for researchers of diverse areas of linguistic research … a great contribution to growing literature on variation studies using large-scale corpus data.' Studies in English Literature
Product details
February 2009Adobe eBook Reader
9780511474224
0 pages
0kg
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
- Introduction Günter Rohdenburg and Julia Schlüter
- 1. Colonial lag, colonial innovation or simply language change? Marianne Hundt
- 2. Compound verbs Peter Erdmann
- 3. The formation of the preterite and the past participle Magnus Levin
- 4. Comparatives Britta Mondorf
- 5. Phonology and grammar Julia Schlüter
- 6. Prepositions and postpositions Eva Berlage
- 7. Argument structure David Denison
- 8. Reflexive structures Günter Rohdenburg
- 9. Noun phrase modification Douglas Biber, Jack Grieve and Gina Iberri-Shea
- 10. Nominal complements Günter Rohdenburg
- 11. Non-finite complements Uwe Vosberg
- 12. The present perfect and the preterite Johan Elsness
- 13. The revived subjunctive Göran Kjellmer
- 14. The mandative subjunctive William J. Crawford
- 15. The conditional subjunctive Julia Schlüter
- 16. Tag questions D. J. Allerton
- 17. The pragmatics of adverbs Karin Aijmer
- 18. How different are American and British grammar? And how are they different? Gunnel Tottie
- 19. New departures Günter Rohdenburg and Julia Schlüter.
