About this Site
I wrote the materials on this web site as supplemental reading for my Modern English grammar class at the College of DuPage. I keep most of my materials freely available for everyone interested in English language studies, but teachers, publishers, schools, web masters, and bloggers wishing to use my work should read the terms of use.
The contents below are divided into
- general information for my students,
- a review of the structure of Modern English grammar,
- a study of some of the most common usage errors among first-year university students
- links to some of my work in linguistic stylistics,
- links to some of my work in linguistics and English language studies,
- some tools for text analysis, and
- some examples of student work prepared for this web site.
General Information for my Students
The Syllabus for Modern English Grammar
English 2126 A survey of English syntax and its associated usage issues.
Frequently Asked Questions
Got questions? Perhaps the HyperTextBooks' frequently asked questions page can help.
Tour the HyperTextBook
A quick overview of the features of the HyperTextBook.
A Bibliography for English 2126
A selected bibliography of the College's holdings in linguistics and English language studies at the College of DuPage Library.
Browser Information
Describing which browsers work best with the HyperTextBooks.
Email Information
Explains why students should use their college-assigned email accounts for online courses.
eForum
How we plan to use eForum.
eForum Directions
How to use eForum.
Accolades
The New Century Handbook cites the HyperTextBooks as "one of the best composition courses on the Web."
A Review of the Structure of Modern English Grammar
Note: Labels of the clause-level functions have changed. These pages use both
- the terminology of Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., and Svartvik, J. (1985) Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, Longman. (CGEL)
and
- the teminology of the most recent version of that grammar — Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., and Finegan, E. (2021) Grammar of Spoken and Written English, John Benjamins. (GSWE)
since many textbooks and school grammars currently use either one set of terminology or the other.
In these pages, I will place the GSWE labels in square brackets after the CGEL labels, as in subject complement [subject predicative] and SC [SP].
Mapping clause function labels between CGEL and GSWE
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CGEL (1985)
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GSWE (2021)
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Subject[S] |
Subject[S]
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Verb[V] |
Verb[V]
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Direct object[DO] |
Object |
Direct object[DO] |
Indirect object[IO] |
Indirect object[IO] |
Subject complement[SC] |
Predicative |
Subject predicative[SP] |
Object complement[OC] |
Object predicative[OP] |
Adverbial[A] |
Adverbial |
Optional adverbial[OpA] |
Adverbial complement[AC] |
Obligatory adverbial[ObA] |
A short handout on the terminology and grammatical basics of the clause (the simple sentence)
Exploring the functions of the lexicon, morphology, and word order in helping humans recognize constituency and grammatical structure.
The Clause in English, which includes these topics, divided into separate pages below:
A look at the five English phrase structures and the role of inflectional morphology, function words, and word order.
The Phrase in English, which includes these topics, divided into separate pages below:
The Word Rank:
An Introduction
A discussion of the structures within and constituents of the word.
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Word Classes
A discussion of the two primary properties of language that allow us to recognize word classes word endings and word context.
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Learning to distinguish main from subordinate clauses, coordination and subordination, relative clauses, and the various forms of reduced subordinate clauses, such as reduced relative clauses, -ing clause, absolute clauses, -ed clauses, infinitive clauses, and verbless clauses.
Coordination and Subordination, which includes these topics, divided into separate pages below:
The Foundations of Style
Introducing the concept of metafunction, the central idea in understanding style in language.
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Coherence
A discussion of the grammatical properties that create coherent writing.
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Final Matters
Metaphor, Indeterminacy, and Gradience
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References
A list of references for the style pages.
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Some Common Usage Errors among First-year University Students
Download a few of my papers applying linguistics and grammatical analyses to literary art. Some of these are published; some are forthcoming.
- Contemporary English Usage: Style and Usage Issues in Modern English (in development)
- Describing and explaining some of the common grammar and usage
problems, including punctuation, agreement, case errors, sentence structure errors, and more, with advice for finding, editing, and preventing errors.
- Evaluating Grammar Checkers
- Comparing the grammar checking abilities of two popular word processors Corel's WordPerfect and Microsoft's Word. Can those programs find twenty common usage errors?
- Indeterminacy in Sentence Structure
- A study of the discourse functions served by thematic organization and information focus in the prose of college writers, originally published in Linguistics and Education 2, 231-258 (1990).
- Adverbial but
- A study of the syntactic and semantic changes in the usage of the word. A study in gradience, originally published in The Twentieth LACUS Forum 1993, Lake Bluff, IL: Jupiter Press, 1994, pp. 315-332.
- The Principle of Compensating Complexity
- An argument in favor of a linguistic principle suggesting that, as languages change over time, simiplification in one system will generate compensating complexity in another system so that the semantic potential of the whole language remains stable. Originally prepared for the Thirteenth International Systemic Congress, Canterbury, England, July 17, 1986.
- Hearing Voices: On the Mismatch between Perception and Reality in U.S. Attitudes Toward English as a Global Language
- A paper originally presented as a plenary lecture for the International TESOL-ELT Conference at Moscow City Pedagogical University, Samara, Russia, 6 May 2002.
- The Ebonics Debate
- Read what professional linguists and educators are saying about this recent version of an old debate.
- What Should English Teachers Teach and Why?
- Several professors of English discuss, quite specifically, the issues surrounding the teaching of English grammar: what should be taught, why and how. An interesting informal discussion from the Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar email list.
- Language Development in Children
- Originally published in 1991 in an introductory linguistics textbook, my chapter on child language acquisition presents an overview of language development from the cradle to adulthood. I present this here since many students of modern English grammar are also interested in questions about the development of grammatical structures. Although now out of date, this chapter may still provide some background to this area of study.
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Tools for Text Analysis and Tree Diagramming
- Concordancer
- A concordance program can be a handy tool for you to learn about the patterns of vocabulary, grammar, and style in your work or the work of others. This concordancer allows you to search a text file for a "key word in context." Sample texts and suggested exercises are presented as well.
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- Using jsSyntaxTree
- Software for creating phrase structure tree diagrams.
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- Find and Replace Text
- This tool will allow you to search for and replace any letter, word, or phrase in a sample of text that you supply. Such a tool can help you discover how changes in the lexicon or even punctuation can influence style. Suggestions for use are presented.
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Some Examples of Student Work
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