Fowler’s Modern English Usage at the interface of lexis and grammar
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Ulrich Busse
Abstract
The relationship between lexicon and syntax poses a problem to theoretical linguistics but also to the normal language user as the theoretical division is reflected in a division of labour between dictionaries on the one hand and grammars on the other; and it seems as if only usage guides deal with aspects of both grammar and lexis. In this paper we will therefore discuss and investigate the position of a prototypical usage guide, i.e. Fowler’s Modern English Usage, between those of dictionaries and reference grammars by looking at instances of divided usage at the lexis-grammar interface and how they are dealt with in this reference work as compared to dictionaries and reference grammars of the English language.
Abstract
The relationship between lexicon and syntax poses a problem to theoretical linguistics but also to the normal language user as the theoretical division is reflected in a division of labour between dictionaries on the one hand and grammars on the other; and it seems as if only usage guides deal with aspects of both grammar and lexis. In this paper we will therefore discuss and investigate the position of a prototypical usage guide, i.e. Fowler’s Modern English Usage, between those of dictionaries and reference grammars by looking at instances of divided usage at the lexis-grammar interface and how they are dealt with in this reference work as compared to dictionaries and reference grammars of the English language.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
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Part I. Setting the scene
- Technology and phraseology 15
- Corpus-driven approaches to grammar 33
- Valency – item-specificity and idiom principle 49
- Fowler’s Modern English Usage at the interface of lexis and grammar 69
- The psycholinguistic reality of collocation and semantic prosody (1) 89
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Part II. Considering the particulars
- The lexicogrammar of present-day Indian English 117
- The semantic and grammatical overlap of as and that 137
- The historical development of the verb doubt and its various patterns of complementation 153
- The grammatical properties of recurrent phrases with body-part nouns 171
- A corpus-based investigation of cognate object constructions 189
- Revisiting the evidence for objects in English 211
- Lexico-functional categories and complex collocations 229
- Polysemy and lexical priming 247
- Local textual functions of move in newspaper story patterns 265
- Loud signatures 289
- Index 317
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Setting the scene
- Technology and phraseology 15
- Corpus-driven approaches to grammar 33
- Valency – item-specificity and idiom principle 49
- Fowler’s Modern English Usage at the interface of lexis and grammar 69
- The psycholinguistic reality of collocation and semantic prosody (1) 89
-
Part II. Considering the particulars
- The lexicogrammar of present-day Indian English 117
- The semantic and grammatical overlap of as and that 137
- The historical development of the verb doubt and its various patterns of complementation 153
- The grammatical properties of recurrent phrases with body-part nouns 171
- A corpus-based investigation of cognate object constructions 189
- Revisiting the evidence for objects in English 211
- Lexico-functional categories and complex collocations 229
- Polysemy and lexical priming 247
- Local textual functions of move in newspaper story patterns 265
- Loud signatures 289
- Index 317
