Scientific grammars

These descriptive works are aimed at academics. There are three that stand out for their authoritative and comprehensive nature; the first two are about 1800 pages long:

A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, by Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik (1985, Longman: Harlow). This is the most influential of the three, though it is not always easy reading.

Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, by Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum (2002, Cambridge: CUP). This uses a somewhat different theoretical framework from Quirk et al., and some fairly arcane terminology, e.g. ‘preterite’ instead of ‘past’ (tense).

Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English by Douglas Biber, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad and Edward Finnegan (1999, Harlow: Pearson Education).
This is very much corpus- and register-based (focussing on four registers: conversation, fiction, newspaper language, and academic prose); it also gives corpus-based frequency data. Its descriptive framework and terminology are based on Quirk et al.

All the areas discussed in this book are covered in the above, though sometimes in rather obscure terms. Of the three the Longman Grammar is the most user-friendly. There are numerous other descriptive grammars which are shorter and more accessible to a wider audience; one is The Oxford English Grammar by Sidney Greenbaum (1996, Oxford: OUP).

Pedagogic grammars

These are aimed at advanced L2 learners (and their teachers). They cover most of the areas in this book but are not designed to be used as a course in English grammar for university students (though they may supplement one). Here are three well-known examples:

Cambridge Grammar of English, by Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy (2006, Cambridge: CUP). This approaches the scientific grammars above its length and depth of coverage, but it is firmly aimed at learners and teachers of EFL, with some innovative aspects.

Collins Cobuild English Grammar (2011 3rd edition, Glasgow: HarperCollins).

A Communicative Grammar of English, by Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik (2003 3rd edition, Harlow: Pearson Education).

These last two are organised along semantic grounds with chapter headings such as ‘Referring to people and things’, though they also contain a reference section where the most formal aspects of grammar are described.

There are also numerous books aimed at EFL teachers. One such book is The Grammar Book by Marianne Celce-Murcia and Diane Larsen-Freeman (1999, 2nd edition, Heinle and Heinle). It is excellent on some of the misleading pedagogic rules discussed in the book.

Reference grammars for learners

These are alphabetically ordered around small topics that can be read in one go, as opposed to the system-oriented grammars above. For the learner of English they are more practical to use but do not (cannot) present English grammar as a unified system. They generally deal with more than just grammar, e.g. the use of punctuation and issues of usage. Here are two examples:

Practical English Usage, by Michael Swan (2005 3rd edition, Oxford: OUP).

An A – Z of English Grammar and Usage, by Geoffrey Leech, Benita Cruickshank and Roz Ivanić (2009 2nd edition, Harlow: Pearson Education).

There are many other types of grammar books, such as practice grammars intended for learners which contain brief, simple introductions to a small area followed by exercises on it.

A1

For an excellent practical discussion of the descriptive verses prescriptive debate see The Fight for English by David Crystal (2006, Oxford: OUP), especially from Chapter 15 onwards, though it is mainly directed at native speakers.

The distinction between primary and secondary grammar is taken from A Foundation Course for Language Teachers, by Tom McArthur (1983, Cambridge: CUP).

For a useful introduction to the concept of grammar see Michael Swan’s Grammar (2005, Oxford: OUP), the source of the reading in D1, though it is not just limited to English.

A2

The Collins Cobuild English Grammar (see above) is very good on plural nouns.

A3

The Collins Cobuild English Grammar (see above) is good on complements in noun phrases; a more detailed account can be found in Collins Cobuild Grammar Patterns 2: Nouns and Adjectives (1998, London: HarperCollins).

B3

A fairly comprehensive account of article usage written for a pedagogic audience can be found in my Collins Cobuild English Guides 3: Articles (1993, London: HarperCollins).

C3

An accessible survey of determiners for a pedagogic audience can be found in my Collins Cobuild English Guides 10: Determiners and Quantifiers (1997, London: HarperCollins).

A4

The Collins Cobuild English Grammar (see above) is good on complements in adjective phrases; a more detailed account can be found in Collins Cobuild Grammar Patterns 2: Nouns and Adjectives (1998, London: HarperCollins).

C5

A good, if brief, discussion on the different word classes involved in -ing and -ed forms can be found in the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (see above), pages 66–69.

B8

An extensive account of verb patterns can be found in Collins Cobuild Grammar Patterns 1: Verbs (1996, London: HarperCollins). See also A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (see above), pages 1168–1220 (under the heading ‘verb complementation’). A briefer account can be found in the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, pages 380–392 (under the heading ‘valency’).

A12

For a full account of the interaction between grammar and speech see Brazil, D. 1995. A Grammar of Speech (Oxford: OUP).

An important article on the status of spoken English is Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy (1995), Grammar and the spoken language, Applied Linguistics 16/2, 14–158.

For more spoken texts and accompanying analysis (not just grammatical) see Exploring Spoken English by Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy (1997, Cambridge: CUP) this is the source of one of the recordings used in C12.

B12

An excellent introduction to this topic is Reporting by Geoff Thompson (1994, London: HarperCollins).