英语语法大全Cobuild_English_Usage.doc

COLLINS COBUILDCOLLINS Birmingham University International Language DatabaseENGLISH GRAMMARCOLLINS PUBLISHERSTHE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAMCOLLINS London and GlasgowCollins ELT8 Grafton StreetLondon W1X 3LACOBUILD is a trademark of William Collins Sons & Co LtdWilliam Collins Sons & Co Ltd 1990First published 199010 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1Alt rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the Publisher.ISBN 0 00 370257 X PaperbackISBN 0 00 375025 6 CasedPrinted and bound in Great Britain by Richard Clay Ltd, Bungay, SuffolkNOTE Entered words that we have reason to believe constitute trademarks have been designated as such. However, neither the presence nor absence of such designation should be lrAfyed as affecting the legal status of any trademark.ContentsEditorial team2Introduction2Note on Examples7Guide to the Use of the Grammar8Glossary of Grammatical Terms9Cobuild Grammar Chart18Chapter 1 Referring to people and things19Nouns21Pronouns38Determiners48Chapter 2 Giving information about people and things61Adjectives62Possessives89Quantifiers91Numbers97Qualifiers107Chapter 3 Making a message113Transitivity113Complementation139Phase147Chapter 4 Varying the message153Mood153Negation162Modality169Chapter 5 Expressing time188Verb tenses189Adjuncts of time197Chapter 6 Expressing manner and place213Adjuncts213Manner216Place223Chapter 7 Reporting what people say or think235Chapter 8 Combining messages254Subordination255Coordination274Chapter 9 Making texts282Cohesion282Ellipsis290Chapter 10 The structure of information293The Reference Section317Index338Editorial teamEditor-in-ChiefJohn SinclairManaging EditorGwyneth FoxEditorsStephen Bullon Ramesh Krishnamurthy Elizabeth Manning John ToddAssistant EditorsMona Baker Jane Bradbury Richard Fay Deborah YuillSenior researcherRosamund MoonComputer OfficerTim LaneClerical StaffSue Smith Jane WinnConsultantsGottfried Graustein M.A.K. HallidayCollins PublishersAnnette Capel, Lorna Heaslip, Douglas WilliamsonMany other people have been involved with the project at both research and editing stages. Patrick Hanks, who was the Editorial Director of Cobuild throughout the project, made a valuable contribution both in policy and in detail. Dominic Bree, Jane Cullen, and Clare Ramsey worked as researchers in the early stages, and Ron Hardie helped from the beginning until quite late in the editing process. David Brazil gave us great help and encouragement during the early editing of the book. Without his support, this would have been a more difficult task. Helen Liebeck and Christina Rammell were influential in the early stages of editing. Michael Hoey and Charles Owen, members of the Department of English, University of Birmingham, and PhD and MA students in the department, in particular Richard Francis, Agnes Molnar, Iria Garcia, Ramiro Restrepo, Christopher Royal-Dawson, and Bob Walter, worked on and read drafts of the text.The publishers and editorial team would also like to thank the following people who read and commented on the text John Curtin: Brazil; Henri Bejoint, John Hall, Sue Inkster, and Anne Pradeilles: France; Georgina Pearce and Herman Wekker: Germany; Marcel Lemmens: Holland; Nicholas Brownloes, Tony Buckby, Anthony Harvey, and Georgina Pert: Italy; Roger Hunt, Andy Kennedy, Christopher Pratt, and Tony Sanchez: Spain; Mary Snell-Hornby: Switzerland; Katy Shaw and Tom Stableford: UK; Adriana Bolivar: Venezuela.Teachers from many countries participated in workshops where material from the Grammar was presented. We are grateful to all of them for taking part in these workshops, especially those organized by the British Council, Singapore, the British Council, Paris, the Britannia School, Rio de Janeiro, the ENPULJ Conference, Natal, Brazil, and the JALT Conference, Okayama, Japan.IntroductionThis grammar is for anyone who is interested in the English language and how it works. Many people will come to this book because they are learning English and trying to master the structure of the language. As soon as they have enough practical English to master the text, they will find this grammar helpful to them although it has been written primarily for students of advanced level.The information the book contains, however, will also engage the attention of a different sort of studentthose who make a study of English because they are simply interested in language and languages. They include teachers, examiners, syllabus planners and materials writers. The grammar has several unique features which will give them very useful information.The information in this book is taken from a long and careful study of present-day English. Many millions of words from speech and writing have been gathered together in a computer and analyzed, partly by the computer and partly by a team of expert compilers. It is the first grammar of its kind, and it is deferent in many respects from other kinds of grammar.This grammar attempts to make accurate statements about English, as seen in the huge Birmingham Collection of English Texts. The main patterns of English are picked out and described, and the typical words and phrases found in each pattern are listed.This is what a grammar ought to do, but only very recently has it been possible. For a long time there has been a credibility gap between a grammar and the language that it is supposed to describe. Many of the rules seem too abstract to apply to actual examples. There is no room to show how the strong structural patterns can be varied and developed to allow users great freedom of expression.A Grammar of FunctionsPeople who study and use a language are mainly interested in how they can do things with the languagehow they can make meanings, get attention to their problems and interests, influence their friends and colleagues and create a rich social life for themselves. They are only interested in the grammatical structure of the language as a means to getting things done.A grammar which puts together the patterns of the language and the things you can do with them is called a functional grammar.This is a functional grammar: each chapter is built around a major function of language, such as concept building, making up messages, and reporting what someone said. Each of these functions is regularly expressed in English by one particular structure. For example, concept building is usually expressed structures built around a noun, called noun groups; messages are very often expressed in clauses; and reports typically involve a pair of clauses, with one of them containing a reporting verb such as say, and the other one beginning with that or having quote marks ( ) round it.This grammar is based on these important correspondences between structure and function, which are set out in the Cobuild Grammar Chart on the following pages. The skeleton of English grammar is seen in this chart.However, there are many minor features of English that cannot appear on a simple summary chart. The grammar of a language is flexible, and with the passage of time there are changes in meaning and use of grammatical forms.For example, although it is true to say that the noun group is the structure we choose for the things we want to talk about, it is not the only one. Sometimes we want to talk about an event or an idea that is not easy to express in a noun group. Instead we can use a clause as the subject of another clause.All I want is a holiday.We can also use a clause as the object or complement of another clause.Thats what weve always longed for.By extending the basic grammar occasionally, speakers of English can express themselves more easily and spontaneously.The same kind of extension works in the other direction also: noun groups are not only used as subjects, objects and complements. They can function as adjuncts of time, for example, among a range of minor uses.He phoned back with the information the very next day.But there is a major area of English grammar based on prepositions (see Chapter 6), which allows noun groups to be used in all sorts of subsidiary functions in the clause.I went to a village school.This has been my home for ten years now.With a click, the door opened.So it can be seen that the structural patterns can have more than one function, and that different structures can have similar functions. This may sound confusing, and it can be confusing if the grammar is not carefully organized around the major structures and functions.This grammar follows up each major statement (often called rule in other grammars) with a detailed description of the usages surrounding that statementincluding exceptions. Other ways of achieving the same sort of effect are then presented, with cross-references to the main structural patterns involved. Later in the chapter, the various extensions of use of a structure are set out, with cross-references to places where those functions are thoroughly treated.These extensions and additions to the functions of a structure are not just random. Usually they can be presented as ways of widening the scope of the original function. For example, the basic, central function of reporting verbs (Chapter 7) is to introduce what someone has said.He said he would be back soon.It can easily be extended to include what someone has written:His mother wrote that he had finally arrived home.Then it can be widened to include thoughts and feelings; these do not need to be expressed in words, but the report structure is very convenient.The boys thought he was dead.From this we can see the reporting clause as a more general way of introducing another clause. The reporting clause becomes a kind of preface, commenting on the other clause, which contains the main message.It is true that some children are late talkers.The subject of the reporting clause is the pronoun it, which refers forward to the that-clause. The verb is now a link verb (Chapter 3) and not a special reporting verb.A Grammar of ExamplesAll the examples are taken from texts, usually with no editing at all. It is now generally accepted that it is extremely difficult to invent examples which sound realistic, and which have all the features of natural examples. I am convinced that it is essential for a learner of English to learn from actual examples, examples that can be trusted because they have been used in real communication.From a Cobuild perspective, no argument is needed. At Cobuild there are file stores bulging with examples, and we do not need to invent any. By examining these real examples closely, we are gradually finding out some of the ways they differ from made-up examples. Until we know a lot more about naturalness in language we do not think it is safe to use invented examples.There is a special note developing this point, which can be found immediately after this Introduction.A Grammar of ClassesThe actual words and phrases that are regularly used in each structure are printed in the grammar in a series of lists. Instead of just a few illustrative examples, this grammar gives information about the grammar of a large number of words. The student can get a good idea of how large or small a grammatical class is, how many words a certain rule applies to. The teacher has the raw material for making up exercises that suit a particular group of students, and can point to general features of a grammatical class.Most of these lists, as far as we know, have never been available before. They are worth detailed investigation by student and teacher, because these lists provide the main link between the abstractions of grammar and the realities of texts.In grammar lists of this kind are called classes; a class is the grouping together of words and phrases which all behave in the same way. Hence this grammar is very much a grammar of classes because it features so many lists of words and phrases.The job of preparing the lists has been one of the most interesting and challenging problems in the preparation of this book. The computer does the first stage, and produces a fist by searching out all the words that fit a pattern it is given. For example, it might be asked to pick all the words that end in -ing and do not have a corresponding form without the -ing. The first list it produces includes such words as overweening, and pettifogging, which are not very common, and which in our view can be left to a later stage of language learning. Also found are blithering and whopping, which have a special function and are treated in a separate paragraph 2.41. A few words fit the pattern well but are only found in very restricted combinations, or collocations. Piping goes with voice, and gangling goes with youth or boy. Since grammar mostly deals with generalities, we feel that it could be misleading to print them in fists which are intended to encourage composition.At present the computer has difficulties in detecting similarities and differences of meaning. But in the Cobuild database notes on meaning are made by the compilers, and the computer can also report back on this information. So, for example, it will know that in the case of fetching, there is a verb to fetch, but it does not have the same meaning. In most cases we omit a word like fetching from our lists, to avoid confusion; otherwise the grammar would be full of special notes. If we put it in, we give an appropriate warning.In the summer of 1989 I worked with a large number of English teachers in Europe, South East Asia and South America, to find out their reactions to our lists and to have their suggestions for revising them and editing them. The clear message was that the lists, to be teachable, should be orderly and comprehensive. Problem cases, on the whole, should be omitted rather than explained in a grammar at this level: on the other hand words which an experienced teacher would expect to find in a list should be there, or there should be an explanation.The results of aft this careful editing can be found in the lists at, for example, 2.77, 2.78, and 2.79.Wherever we can see a good reason, we put the words and phrases in a list in a meaningful arrangement. This approach was suggested in the teachers workshops, and on that basis, for example, we put verbs with a prefix (2.79) in a different list from other verbs (2.78) which behave in the same way.Another good example of this can be found at 1.21, where in a single list we put in separate groups animals, fish, words ending in -craft, foreign words ending in -s, and a miscellaneous list. These all share the same feature, namely that they can be either singular or plural nouns without any change of formmoose, salmon, aircraft, corps, crossroads. From a purely grammatical point of view they could all go in a single alphabetical list: however from a teaching and learning point of view it is helpful to have them further classified.A Grammar of MeaningsMany English words have several meanings and uses. This is particularly true of the common words which make up most of our everyday language. Because of this it is difficult to make statements about the grammatical behaviour of a word, as this can vary according to its meaning. For example, in one meaning a verb may be transitive, and in another meaning intransitive.An instance of this is manage, which in its meaning of be responsible for controlling an organization, business, or system is transitive, and in its meaning of be able to continue with a reasonable way of life, even though you do not have much money is intransitive, usually followed by an adverbial phrase.Drouet returned to Ecuador to manage a travel agency.I dont know if I can manage much longer.Each meaning of a word may well have its own grammar, and it is unlikely that the statements about a word will cover all its meanings. However, the grammar would be very long and cumbersome if each statement had to indicate which meaning was being referred to. Throughout this grammar, therefore, the examples and the lists have been chosen so that the relevant meaning is the one that should first come to mind.Many users will need a little time to adjust to this; we have lived so long with the assumption that grammar is independent of lexical meaning that it will be surprising to many people to see that grammar and lexis are very closely related. Where the choice of one word in a structure is very closely connected with the choice of another, this is pointed out. For example, the preposition aboard is almost always used with a singular count noun referring to a form of transport such as ship, plane, train, or bus.two weeks aboard the royal yacht Britannia.Another example is a verb referring to physical senses such as see, feel, near, and smell. When such a verb is used to refer to the present time, it is typically preceded by the modal can or cant rather than being in the simple present tense:I can see Georges face as clearly as if he were here with me.When we come down, I can smell the aroma from the frying trout.However, some of the verbs can be used with other, non-physical meanings, and in the other meanings the simple present tense is much used.I see you had a good trip.Many people feel that he should resign immediately.This grammar is a halfway house between grammars which ignore the meaning of words, and dictionaries which give some grammatical information. We have left out reference to unc