In this original study, Hilde Hasselgård discusses the use of adverbials in English, through examining examples found in everyday texts. Adverbials - clause elements that typically refer to circumstances of time, space, reason and manner - cover a range of meanings and can be placed at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of a sentence. The description of the frequency of meaning types and discussion of the reasons for selecting positions show that the use of adverbials differs across text types. Adverbial usage is often linked to the general build-up of a text and part of its content and purpose. In using real texts, Hasselgård identifies a challenge for the classification of adjuncts, and also highlights that some adjuncts have uses that extend into the textual and interpersonal domains, obscuring the traditional divisions between adjuncts, disjuncts and conjuncts.

This book proposes a theory of the distribution of adverbial adjuncts in a Principles and Parameters framework, claiming that there are few syntactic principles specific to adverbials; rather, for the most part, adverbials adjoin freely to any projection. Adjuncts' possible hierarchical positions are determined by whether they can receive a proper interpretation, according to their selectional (including scope) requirements and general compositional rules, while linear order is determined by hierarchical position along with a system of directionality principles and morphological weight, both of which apply generally to adjuncts and all other syntactic elements. A wide range of adverbial types is analysed; predicational adverbs (such as manner, and modal adverbs), domain expressions like financially, temporal, frequency, duration and focusing adverbials; participant PPs (e.g. locatives and benefactives); resultative and conditional clauses, and others, taken primarily from English, Chinese, French and Italian, with occasional reference to others (such as German and Japanese).

Free adjuncts and absolutes typically function as adverbial clauses which are not overtly specified for any particular adverbial relation. The book is a non-formal, corpus based study of their current use in English. Its particular focus is on a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of their semantic indeterminacy and the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic factors that help resolve it.

Syntax – the study of sentence structure – has been at the centre of generative linguistics from its inception and has developed rapidly and in various directions. The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax provides a historical context for what is happening in the field of generative syntax today, a survey of the various generative approaches to syntactic structure available in the literature and an overview of the state of the art in the principal modules of the theory and the interfaces with semantics, phonology, information structure and sentence processing, as well as linguistic variation and language acquisition. This indispensable resource for advanced students, professional linguists (generative and non-generative alike) and scholars in related fields of inquiry presents a comprehensive survey of the field of generative syntactic research in all its variety, written by leading experts and providing a proper sense of the range of syntactic theories calling themselves generative.

This new edition of Andrew Radford's outstanding resource for students is a step-by-step, practical introduction to English syntax and syntactic principles, written by a globally-renowned expert in the field. Assuming little or no prior background in syntax, Radford outlines key concepts and how they can be used to describe various aspects of English sentence structure. Each chapter contains core modules focusing on a specific topic, a summary recapitulating the main points of the chapter, and a bibliographical section providing references to original source material. This edition has been extensively updated, with new analyses, exercise materials, references and a brand-new chapter on adjuncts. Students will benefit from the online workbook, which contains a vast amount of exercise material for each module, including self-study materials and a student answerbook for these. Teachers will value the extensive PowerPoints outlining module contents and the comprehensive teacher answerbook, which covers all workbook and PowerPoint exercises.

A Glossary of English Grammar presents a wide range of terms used to describe the way the English language is structured. Grammatical terms can be a problem for students, especially when there are alternative names for the same thing (for example, 'past tense' and 'preterite'). This book therefore provides a basic and accessible guide, focusing on the English language. Definitions of grammatical terms are given in simple language, with clear examples, many from authentic texts and spoken sources, showing how they are used. The terms used in the Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language are widely seen as standard, and form the basis of grammatical terminology in this book. At the same time, this glossary does not neglect other variants of English grammar, such as that of Huddleston and Pullum's influential Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, whose most important terms are also covered here. This book is indispensable for anyone wishing to understand present-day terminology of English grammar more fully.