
A Semantic Approach to English Grammar
R. M. W. Dixon(Author)
Oxford University Press
Published on 30. June 2005
Book
Hardback
562 pages
978-0-19-928307-1 (ISBN)
Description
This book shows how grammar helps people communicate and looks at the ways grammar and meaning interrelate. The author starts from the notion that a speaker codes a meaning into grammatical forms which the listener is then able to recover: each word, he shows, has its own meaning and each bit of grammar its own function, their combinations creating and limiting the possibilities for different words. He uncovers a rationale for the varying grammatical properties of different words and in the process explains many facts about English - such as why we can say I wish to go, I wish that he would go, and I want to go but not I want that he would go.
The first part of the book reviews the main points of English syntax and discusses English verbs in terms of their semantic types including those of Motion, Giving, Speaking, Liking, and Trying. In the second part Professor Dixon looks at eight grammatical topics, including complement clauses, transitivity and causatives, passives, and the promotion of a non-subject to subject, as in Dictionaries sell well.
This is the updated and revised edition of A New Approach to English Grammar on Semantic Principles. It includes new chapters on tense and aspect, nominalizations and possession, and adverbs and negation, and contains a new discussion of comparative forms of adjectives. It also explains recent changes in English grammar, including how they has replaced the tabooed he as a pronoun referring to either gender, as in When a student reads this book, they will learn a lot about English grammar in a most enjoyable manner.
The first part of the book reviews the main points of English syntax and discusses English verbs in terms of their semantic types including those of Motion, Giving, Speaking, Liking, and Trying. In the second part Professor Dixon looks at eight grammatical topics, including complement clauses, transitivity and causatives, passives, and the promotion of a non-subject to subject, as in Dictionaries sell well.
This is the updated and revised edition of A New Approach to English Grammar on Semantic Principles. It includes new chapters on tense and aspect, nominalizations and possession, and adverbs and negation, and contains a new discussion of comparative forms of adjectives. It also explains recent changes in English grammar, including how they has replaced the tabooed he as a pronoun referring to either gender, as in When a student reads this book, they will learn a lot about English grammar in a most enjoyable manner.
Reviews / Votes
This new edition is a very welcome addition to the ever-growing number of texts dealing with the complexities of English grammar * Martin J. Endley, Studies in Language, vol. 32:4 *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Undergraduate and graduate courses on English linguistics and grammar. Also suitable for advanced English as a second language courses and for use in courses for trainee teachers in ESL
Illustrations
numerous tables
Dimensions
Height: 254 mm
Width: 180 mm
Thickness: 37 mm
Weight
1152 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-928307-1 (9780199283071)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

R. M. W. Dixon
A Semantic Approach to English Grammar
Book
06/2005
2nd Edition
Oxford University Press
€74.40
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
R.M.W. Dixon is Professor and Director of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University. His books include The Dyirbal Language of North Queensland (1972), Where have all the adjectives gone? and Other Essays in Semantics and Syntax (1982), Ergativity (1994), The Rise and Fall of Languages (1997), Australian Languages: their Nature and Development (2002), and The Jarawara Language of Southern Amazonia (2004). He is the co-editor, with Alexandra Aikhenvald, of the Oxford series Explorations in Linguistic Typology.
Content
PART I INTRODUCTION; PART II THE SEMANTIC TYPES; PART III SOME GRAMMATICAL TOPICS