the-oxford-dictionary-of-english-grammar-oxford-quick-reference-2nd_edition

465 Pages·2013·2.67 MB·English

The Oxford Dictionary of

English

Grammar

SECOND EDITION

BAS AARTS

SYLVIA CHALKER

EDMUND WEINER

Bas Aarts is Professor of English Linguistics at University College
London. He has published many books and articles on English
grammar, most recently the Oxford Modern English Grammar.

The late Sylvia Chalker was the author of several grammar
books, including Current English Grammar and the Little Oxford
Dictionary of English Grammar. She was also a contributor to
the Oxford Companion to the English Language.

Edmund Weiner is Deputy Chief Editor of the Oxford English
Dictionary and co-author (with Andrew Delahunty) of the Oxford
Guide to English Usage.
A
This is a web-linked dictionary. There is a list of recommended
web links in the Appendix, on page 454. To access the websites,
go to the dictionary’s web page at www.oup.com/uk/reference/
resources/englishgrammar, click on Web links in the Resources
section, and click straight through to the relevant websites.

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3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
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Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
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Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries

Original material: # Sylvia Chalker and Edmund Weiner 1994
New and revised material: # Oxford University Press 2014

The moral rights of the authors have been asserted

First edition published 1994
First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback 1994
Reissued, with corrections, in new covers 1998
Second edition published 2014
Impression: 1

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and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer

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198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available

ISBN: 978–0–19–965823–7

Printed in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

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Contents

Preface to the First Edition
v

Preface to the Second Edition
vi

Organization
vii

Notational Conventions
ix

Abbreviations
x

Dictionary
1

References
448

Useful Web Links
454

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Preface to the First Edition

Grammar, etymologically speaking, is related to glamour. Though few people might
claim that grammar is glamorous in the modern sense, there is considerable interest in
English grammar today and no shortage of grammar books, ranging from small basic
books aimed at children or elementary-level foreign learners, through more advanced
manuals to large scholarly works. The trouble is—they may be about the same language,
but they do not always speak the same language. The very range of the grammar books
on offer presents problems.

There are many ways of describing grammar, and a wealth of terminology. Some of it

strikes the layman as jargon (disjunct, matrix, pro-form, stative); other words appear
ordinary enough but conceal specialized meanings (comment, focus, specific). Worse, the
same terms, old or new—comparison, formal, pronoun, reported speech, root, stress—are
used by different grammarians with different meanings.

Such difficulties are not entirely avoidable. Any subject of study needs specialist

words. Different grammarians are entitled to analyse language in different ways, and
fresh viewpoints may call for new terms. But while grammarians sometimes explain
what they mean by a new or unusual term, it is rarer for them to point out that they
are using an existing term in a different way. This is a cause of real confusion. Another
problem is that new terms may in the end turn out simply to be alternatives for an old
concept—a synonym in fact (e.g. progressive, continuous).

We have tried in this dictionary to indicate the range and variety of meanings that

may lie behind a single term. The main emphasis is on the terminology of current
mainstream grammar, but we have also included a considerable number of entries on
the related areas of speech and meaning—more grandly known as phonetics and
semantics. Users will also find some terms from Generative Grammar, which has
greatly influenced mainstream grammar in recent years—but some of the more
theoretical terminology of linguistics and semantics is excluded. We have also on the
whole excluded outdated grammatical terminology, apart from a few traditional terms
which may be familiar to the general reader.

The authors would like to thank Professor Flor Aarts, of the Katholieke Universiteit,

Nijmegen, who read an early draft of the book: his comments, we believe, have led to
many improvements, but the authors are alone responsible for any blemishes that
remain. We would also like to thank our families for their support, encouragement,
and, at times, forbearance.

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London, Oxford 1993

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Preface to the Second Edition

Students of English are faced with an ever-expanding list of terms when studying the
grammar of present-day English. The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar offers help
by defining current terminology clearly with the help of numerous example sentences
and quotations from the scholarly linguistic literature. Where the same terminology is
used differently by linguists, these differences are explained, and where different
terminology is used in the same way, this is also clearly signalled.

This new edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar differs from the first

edition in many ways:
� All entries have been completely revised and updated.
� There are many new entries covering recent terminology, for example from The

Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.

� There are new short entries on the most important grammars of English published

since the beginning of the twentieth century.

� Usage advice is given where appropriate, though it is never prescriptive.
� Advice is sometimes given regarding the use of terminology that most linguists would

agree is best avoided.

Readers familiar with the first edition will notice that the entries on English phonetics
have been removed. The reason for this is that it is very unusual for phonetics to be
covered under the heading of ‘grammar’, and this terminology is best dealt with
elsewhere.

The term ‘grammar’ is conceived of in this dictionary as encompassing syntax and

morphology, and the aim is to cover terminology that is used in the current literature on
English grammar. The dictionary also has entries on related fields of study, such as
corpus linguistics, historical linguistics, lexicology, (lexical) semantics, sociolinguistics,
stylistics, and so on, but only when this terminology is broadly relevant to grammar.
Terms from theoretical frameworks are also covered to some extent, especially those
from Generative Grammar and Systemic Grammar, though for a fuller treatment the
reader is referred to Peter Matthews’s Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics.

I am grateful to the late Sylvia Chalker and to Edmund Weiner for their excellent

work on the first edition of this book, and to Rebecca Lane and Jamie Crowther at OUP for
their support during the writing process. Finally, thanks are due to Jill Bowie for her
meticulous copy-editing and to Donald Watt for proofreading.

bas aarts

University College London

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Organization

1. Entries are strictly alphabetical. Thus:

agent
agentive
agentless passive
agent noun

2. Cross-references to other entries are signalled by an asterisk when they occur in

running text, e.g.
Aktionsart
The lexical expression of *aspect . . .

3. In formal cross-references, the entry referred to is indicated in small capitals, e.g.

focusing subjunct See focusing adverb.
A cross-reference to a phrase listed within an entry is given in a mixture of small
capitals (for the entry headword) and italics (for the remainder of the phrase),
e.g. complex sentence.

4. When a cross-reference relates to a particular numbered sense in another entry, the

number of the relevant sense is indicated, e.g. *base (2) or base (2).

5. Where a word is not a grammatical term in itself, but forms part of a phrase which is

dealt with elsewhere, this is indicated, e.g.
act See speech act.

6. Where a term is dealt with at the entry for some larger term, this is indicated, e.g.

formulaic subjunctive See subjunctive.

7. Where two or more terms are synonyms, the definition appears under the preferred

term, usually with a reference to the alternative term, e.g.
folk etymology
. . . Also called popular etymology.
and the other term is cross-referenced with an asterisk, e.g.
popular etymology
The same as *folk etymology.

8. Where two or more terms are in a contrastive relationship, this is stated at the

beginning of both entries, e.g.
abstract . . .
. . . Contrasted with *concrete.
concrete . . .
. . . Contrasted with *abstract.

9. See (also) at the end of (part of) an entry indicates that further information will be

found at the entry indicated. Sometimes the user is referred to a closely related
word, e.g.
coordinate . . .
. . . See also coordination.
At other times the reference is to a ‘background’ concept, e.g.
discord . . .

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. . . See agreement.

10. Compare at the end of (part of) an entry indicates that although the entry is

complete, it may be useful to read entries for related or overlapping terms, or terms
with which this term could be confused, e.g.
abbreviated . . .
. . . Compare block language; reduced clause.
These particular entries show that certain types of language that might
reasonably be described as abbreviated are in fact given special labels.

11. Words are marked with word class labels (n. = noun, adj. = adjective,

v. = verb, etc.) only when they can belong to more than one class.

12. Where word class labels are conjoined (e.g. n. & adj.), the definition is framed

so as to cover both uses, with parentheses surrounding the part of the definition
that applies to only one of the two uses, e.g.
countable
(n. & adj.) (Designating) a noun with singular and plural forms.
which is equivalent to:
(n.) A noun with singular and plural forms.
(adj.) Designating a noun with singular and plural forms.

13. In certain entries, words and phrases quoted as examples are given abbreviated dates

indicating their earliest known recorded appearance in English. In these, the number
is that of the century and the preceding E, M, L mean ‘early’, ‘mid’, and ‘late’: ‘E19’
means ‘1800–1829’, ‘M19’ means 1830–1869’, and ‘L19’ means ‘1870–1899’. OE
means ‘Old English’ (before 1150), ME ‘Middle English’ (1150–1349), and LME ‘late
Middle English’ (1350–1469).

14. In many entries, quotations from works on language and linguistics are given in

order to illustrate the use of the word being defined. Only the author’s name and the
date of the work are cited: fuller details are given in the References section.

15. Meanings are signalled by single inverted commas: e.g. Wherever you go, you’ll be

covered by this insurance (‘No matter where you go . . . ’).

16. Derivatives of a headword are listed at the end of the entry and indicated by a single

preceding dot. They are undefined if their meaning is plain once that of the parent
word is known, and if they are not found in ‘extended terms’ (special phrasal
combinations). For example, at the end of the entry for syntax we have:
� syntactic, syntactically.

17. Extended terms are listed alphabetically at the end of the entry following any

derivatives, and indicated by two preceding dots. They are given brief definitions or
fuller discussion as appropriate. For example, in the entry for modifier we have:
�� modifier clause: a clause that postmodifies a head, e.g. a *relative clause.
�� sentence modifier: a modifier that modifies a complete sentence or clause.

Organization
viii

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Notational Conventions

*
An asterisk used before a citation of a linguistic form indicates an
impossible structure, i.e. a structure that does not conform to the
grammatical rules of English. Example: *They likes to read. In this
example the third person plural subject they is followed by a verb with a
third person singular inflectional ending.

?
A question mark used before a citation of a linguistic form indicates a
structure that is of doubtful acceptability. Example: ?Give it me.

Ø
This symbol is used to indicate an implicit subject. Example: I want [Ø to
read it].

arrows
These indicate movement, For example, in What did you see? the
pronoun what functions as the direct object of the verb see and has been
moved to the beginning of the sentence to form an interrogative
structure:
What did you see_?

The underscore symbol is explained below.

brackets [ . . . ]
Brackets are used:
(1) to indicate words that together form a constituent phrase, clause, etc.
A labelled bracketing includes a subscript indicator of the syntactic
status of the constituent. Example: [NP Cats][VP eat [NP fish]];
(2) to indicate that a lexical item, usually a verb, is followed by a
complement which contains a particular word. Example: have [to]
indicates that the verb have is followed by a complement that contains
the word to, e.g. I have to leave.

co-indexing
Items that are co-referential can be co-indexed, i.e. bear the same
subscript letter, usually an ‘i’. Example: Hei shaves himselfi twice every
day.

italics
These are used:
(1) to cite words, sentences, etc. as linguistic forms;

(2) to indicate words, phrases, etc. that require highlighting.

For underlined italics, see below.

underlined
italics

Within italicized citations of linguistic forms, underlining is used to
highlight particular words (or other elements) for attention.

underscore
(‘_’)

This symbol indicates a ‘gap’ in the clause with which a displaced
element is associated. For example, in What did you see _ ? the pronoun
what has been moved to the beginning of the sentence from the position
indicated by ‘_’ to form an interrogative structure.

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Abbreviations

A/AP (or Adj/AdjP)
adjective/adjective phrase

Adv/AdvP
adverb/adverb phrase

AmE
American English

BrE
British English

CaGEL
The Cambridge grammar of the English language, by Rod-
ney Huddleston, Geoffrey K. Pullum, et al. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002.

CGEL
A comprehensive grammar of the English language, by
Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and
Jan Svartvik. London: Longman, 1985.

D/DP
determinative/determinative phrase (or determiner/
determiner phrase)

det
determinative (or determiner)

DO
Direct Object

IO
Indirect Object

N/NP
noun/noun phrase

OMEG
Oxford Modern English grammar, by Bas Aarts. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2011.

P/PP
preposition/prepositional phrase

S
sentence

V/VP
verb/verb phrase

A

A *Adverbial as an *element of *clause structure.

The symbol is used in some modern analyses of clause structure

(e.g. CGEL). See adverbial (1).

Compare c; s; o; v.
See also adjunct.

A-bar category See x-bar syntax.

abbreviated Shortened or contracted so that a part stands for the
whole.

This term is used to designate language (a clause, phrase, word, etc.) in

which words inessential to the message are omitted and the grammar
sometimes deviates from standard rules. It is a very general term, since
individuals will vary in how severely they abridge, and exactly how they
do it when writing diary entries, notes, etc.

Abbreviated sentences of a more predictable kind are a frequent

feature of informal writing (e.g. text messages, handwritten notices) and
conversation. Here the subject and part of the verb are often omitted.

Having a wonderful time here
See you soon
All news then
Back at 5
More tea?
(= Would you like . . . ?, Do you want . . . ?)

Abbreviated language overlaps with *ellipsis, but is less subject to
constraints. For example, there is no need for the ‘missing words’ to be
‘recoverable’.

Labels and printed instructions, too, often use abbreviated language;

and here not only subjects but objects also are typically omitted, e.g.

Contains natural herb extracts
Avoid getting into the eyes

Other forms of abbreviated language appear in titles and newspaper
headlines.
�� abbreviated clause: the same as *reduced clause.

�� abbreviated form: the same as *contraction (2).

Compare block language; reduced clause.
See also abbreviation.

abbreviation A shortened form of a *word or *phrase, standing for the
whole.

This term is applied in three different ways.
1. A string of letters—often spoken as such—formed from the initial

letters of the (main) words of a phrase. Also called *initialism, e.g.

BBC
(British Broadcasting Corporation)

CBI
(Confederation of British Industry)

ERM
(Exchange Rate Mechanism)

OTT
(over the top)

PC
(personal computer)

UK
(United Kingdom)

Sometimes the letters represent syllables of a word:

ID
(identity or identification card)

TB
(tuberculosis)

2. A word (sometimes called a *clipping) standing for the whole, re-

taining at least one syllable of the original word.

ad
(advertisement) (M19)

demo
(demonstration) (M20)

flu
(influenza) (M19)

pub
(public house) (M19)

phone
(telephone) (L19)

sitcom
(situation comedy) (M20)

Clippings vary in their level of formality; mike (microphone) and wellies
(wellington boots) are at the informal end of the scale. Other abbreviations
are acceptable in formal contexts, e.g. bus (omnibus), maths (US math)
(mathematics); or their origin may even be virtually forgotten, e.g. mob
(from Latin mobile vulgus).

3. A written convention which is unpronounceable in its shortened form.

This includes abbreviations of personal titles, e.g. Col., Dr, Mrs, Sgt., etc.

Also:

St.
(street)
etc.
(etcetera)
MS
(manuscript)

Fr.
(French)
kg
(kilogram)

Gk
(Greek)
rpt
(repeat)

a

abbreviation
2

There are a few special written conventions for plurals:

pp
(pages)
MSS or mss (manuscripts)

ff.
(following pages)

Written Latin abbreviations are sometimes read out in their English
equivalents, but some are only pronounced as letter strings, e.g.

e.g.
(exempli gratia) (‘for example’, /ˌiːˈdʒiː/)

i.e.
(id est) (‘that is’, /ˌaɪ ˈiː/)

cf.
(confer) (‘compare’, /ˌsiː ˈef/)

a.m. and p.m.
(ante meridiem and post meridiem: /ˈeɪ ˌem/, /ˈpiː ˌem/).

Chemical formulae and other symbols can be regarded as a special type
of abbreviation:

H2O
(water)
Fe
(iron)
&
(and)

�
(minus)
þ
(plus)

Compare acronym; blend; contraction; initialism.

ability One of the semantic categories used in the classification of
*modal verbs.

The term is particularly applied to the *dynamic (2) meaning of can and

could. It contrasts with other meanings of these verbs such as *permission
and *possibility.

See also modal; modality.

ablative (n. & adj.) (In older grammar.) (A case) that expresses mean-
ings such as ‘by N’, ‘with N’, or ‘from N’ (where N = *noun).

This case, occurring and originally named in Latin, is not relevant to

English, where such meanings are expressed by *prepositional phrases.
The corresponding semantic categories include *agent, *instrument, and
*means. The nearest equivalent in English to the ablative absolute of
Latin (ablativus absolutus) is the *absolute clause.

Compare case.

absolute

1. (n. & adj.) (Designating) the *unmarked *degree (1) in the three-way

system of comparing *adjectives and *adverbs (e.g. kind, soon), in contrast
to the *comparative forms (kinder, sooner) and the *superlative forms
(kindest, soonest). Also called plain grade or positive.

2. Non-gradable. See gradable.
3. Used for *possessive *pronouns that can stand on their own (mine,

yours, his, ours, theirs), contrasted with my, your, etc. which are placed
before nouns (the latter being variously analysed as pronouns or as
determinatives (1)). Also called independent possessive pronouns.

a

3
absolute

4. (In older usage.) Designating an *adjective or *verb which occurs in

certain unusual constructions or syntactic relationships, e.g.

(i) an adjective used without a following noun (e.g. the poor);
(ii) a normally transitive verb used intransitively (e.g. Have you eaten?); and
(iii) a comparative or superlative form of an adjective used without the specific

mention of a relationship (e.g. I only want the best).

1931 G. O. CURME The absolute comparative is not as common as the
absolute superlative . . . higher education; a better-class cafe.
See also absolute clause.

� absolutely (in older usage, as 4(i) above.)

1884 New English Dictionary In ‘the public are informed’, ‘the young are
invited’, public and young are adjectives used absolutely.

absolute clause A *non-finite or *verbless *clause containing its own
subject, attached to a sentence from which it is separated by a comma
(or commas), and not introduced by a subordinator. Also called absolute
construction.

A verb, if used, can be an -ing or an -ed/-en form. Examples:

The fight to board the train—the women crushed against the doors, the children
desperately clutching their mothers—repeated itself at this provincial station

The platform empty once more, I settled down for the night

Except for a few set phrases (weather permitting, present company ex-
cepted) absolute clauses tend to be formal and written. If the subject
is a pronoun it must be in the *nominative (i.e. the subjective (1)), not the
*accusative (i.e. the objective (1)), case (e.g. I refusing to go, Nicholas went
alone), so absolute clauses are sometimes called nominative absolutes.
(This contrasts with the *ablative absolute of Latin grammar, where the
comparable noun is in the ablative case.)

See also small clause.

absolutive case See ergative.

abstract Used mainly of *nouns that denote an action, idea, quality, or
state; contrasted with *concrete.

The traditional division of common nouns into abstract and concrete

nouns is semantic. It therefore cuts across the more strictly grammatical
classification into *uncount and *count nouns. It is unsatisfactory as a way
of trying to deal with syntactic differences: the abstract label does fit many
uncount nouns (e.g. Everybody needs advice/fun/luck; not *an advice/

a

absolute clause
4