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Fowler’s Modern English Usage at the interface of lexis and grammar

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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

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Setting the scene
  5. Technology and phraseology 15
  6. Corpus-driven approaches to grammar 33
  7. Valency – item-specificity and idiom principle 49
  8. Fowler’s Modern English Usage at the interface of lexis and grammar 69
  9. The psycholinguistic reality of collocation and semantic prosody (1) 89
  10. Part II. Considering the particulars
  11. The lexicogrammar of present-day Indian English 117
  12. The semantic and grammatical overlap of as and that 137
  13. The historical development of the verb doubt and its various patterns of complementation 153
  14. The grammatical properties of recurrent phrases with body-part nouns 171
  15. A corpus-based investigation of cognate object constructions 189
  16. Revisiting the evidence for objects in English 211
  17. Lexico-functional categories and complex collocations 229
  18. Polysemy and lexical priming 247
  19. Local textual functions of move in newspaper story patterns 265
  20. Loud signatures 289
  21. Index 317
Exploring the Lexis–Grammar Interface
This chapter is in the book Exploring the Lexis–Grammar Interface
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.35.06bus

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Setting the scene
  5. Technology and phraseology 15
  6. Corpus-driven approaches to grammar 33
  7. Valency – item-specificity and idiom principle 49
  8. Fowler’s Modern English Usage at the interface of lexis and grammar 69
  9. The psycholinguistic reality of collocation and semantic prosody (1) 89
  10. Part II. Considering the particulars
  11. The lexicogrammar of present-day Indian English 117
  12. The semantic and grammatical overlap of as and that 137
  13. The historical development of the verb doubt and its various patterns of complementation 153
  14. The grammatical properties of recurrent phrases with body-part nouns 171
  15. A corpus-based investigation of cognate object constructions 189
  16. Revisiting the evidence for objects in English 211
  17. Lexico-functional categories and complex collocations 229
  18. Polysemy and lexical priming 247
  19. Local textual functions of move in newspaper story patterns 265
  20. Loud signatures 289
  21. Index 317
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