TheLongmanGrammarofSpokenandWrittenEnglishisanentirelynewgrammarofAmericanandBritishEnglish-fromthelanguageofconversationtothelanguageofacademictextbooks.Therearenomade-upexamplesinthisgroundbreakingnew-gramar.Theauthorsbegan.NotwithpreconceivednotionsofthegrmmarofEnglish.Butwithahugebankoflanguagedata,theLongmanCorpusNetwork.
Asix-yearresearchprojectbroughttogetherthelinguisticexpertiseofanintenationalauthorteam-allacknowledgedexpertsinthefieldofcorpuslinguisticsandgrammar.
Theresultofthisresearchisthepresentvolume.Manypointsoftraditionalgrammarareconfirmed.Butnowonthebasisofmuchlargeramountsofstatisticaldatathaneverbefore.Someaspectsoftraditionalgrammararechallengedbythisbook,andsomenewfindings.Notevensuspectedbeforenow,willsurpriseandinterestthereader.
WhatmakesthisbooksospecialisthatitturnsEnglishinsideout.ProfessorDouglasBibersresearchteamtaggedandparsedthestructuresintheCorpus.Thisanalysisrevealedthedegreetowhichdifferentgrammaticalfeaturesoflanguagevaryaccordingtothetypeoflanguage.Thewaylanguageisusedinconversationisquitedifferentfromthewaylanguageisusedinfiction,whichinturnisoftenverydifferentfromthegrammaticalcharacteristicsofnewspapersoracademicbooks.
Entirelycorpus-basedgrammarofEnglish
Over350tablesandgraphsshowingthefrequencyofconstructionsacrossdifferentregisters,fromconversationtofictiontoacademicprose
6,000authenticexamplesfromtheLongmanCorpusNetwork
BritishEnglishandAmericanEnglishgrammarcompared
Newandchallengingfindings
RevealsthedifferencesbetweenspodenandwrittenEnglish.