Advanced Grammar: A Manual For Students

This text takes a very basic, transformational-generative approach to grammar theory. Using tree diagrams in keeping with contemporary linguistic theory, Advanced Grammar: A Manual for Students recognizes that the infinite variety of sentences produced by every speaker is governed by a small set of rather simple rules.

The author provides more detail about a broader array of constructions and about the sentence structure (especially the auxiliary system) than any other, textbook. In addition, Advanced Grammar: A Manual for Students emphasizes important ways in which semantics and discourse determine syntactic structure.

Other features include:

• Two kinds of comments set aside in boxes:
  • HISTORICAL NOTES: facts about the history of certain grammatical and morphological features that add information for understanding peculiarities of contemporary English.
  • NOTES OF CLARIFICATION: emphasize details, already presented, which typically cause problems for some students.
• Discourse considerations for structure whenever appropriate.
• All subfields of linguistics are combined and presented in an integrated way so that students easily see how all of language is an interconnecting system.
• Chapter 11 treats word classes (parts of speech) in detail for students who have little background in grammar.
• Punctuation is presented in a separate chapter (Chapter 12), although it is also referred to throughout.
• A Companion Website^™ at www.prenhall.com/disterheft that will include more exercises that emphasize grammar theory.