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OverviewLinguists often portray grammar as a kind of self-sufficient algebra. R. M. W. Dixon offers a new approach, starting from the premiss that a speaker codes a 'meaning' into grammatical forms in order to communicate them to a hearer, who recovers the 'meaning'. He investigates the interrelation of grammar and meaning, and uncovers a rationale for the varying grammatical properties of different words-why, for instance, we can say I wish to go and I wish that he would go, and then I want to go but not I want that he should go. In the first part of the book there is a review of some of the main points of English syntax, followed by a discussion of English verbs in terms of 'semantic types'. About thirty of these types are examined, including verbs of Motion, of Giving, of Thinking, of Speaking, of Liking, and of Typing. In the last part of the book the author looks in detail at five grammatical topics: complement clauses, which can fill subject or object slot in a main clause; the question of transitivity and causatives; passives of all kinds; promotion of a non-subject to subject slot, as in Dictionaries sell wellR; and the relation between constructions such as They walked and They had a walk, She punched him and She gave him a punchR, and He looked and He took a look. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Robert M. W. DixonPublisher: Oxford University Press Imprint: Clarendon Press Edition: New edition Dimensions: Width: 13.80cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 21.60cm Weight: 0.580kg ISBN: 9780198240570ISBN 10: 0198240570 Pages: 416 Publication Date: 01 October 1992 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Replaced By: 9780199247400 Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Out of Print Availability: Out of print, replaced by POD We will order this item for you from a manufatured on demand supplier. Table of ContentsReviewsan ambitious and extensive account of English grammar ... Books which take a semantic approach to grammar or syntactic approach to semantics are increasingly common ... but I have no hesitation in saying that I find Dixon's book by far the most informative, the one most likely to startle readers repeatedly by telling them what they knew all along but hadn t realized they knew. Georgetown Journal of Languages and Linguistics will certainly repay repeated reading ... deserves the attention of any serious grammarian of English Times Literary Supplement Author InformationTab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |