Randolph Quirk

A Grammar of contemporary English

The publication of this important volume fills the need for an up-to-date survey of the entire scope of English syntax. Though it falls short of a perfectly balanced treatment of the whole system, it touches upon all the essential topics and treats in depth a number of crucial problems of current interest such as case, ellipsis, and information focus. Even the publishers’ claims are vindicated to a surprising degree. The statement that it “constitutes a standard reference grammar” is reasonably well justified. Recent investigations, including the authors’ own research, are integrated into the “accumulated grammatical tradition” quite effectively. But whether it is “the fullest and most comprehensive synchronic description of English grammar ever written” is arguable. No one acquainted with Poutsma’s work would agree with that. Very advanced foreign students o r native speakers of English who want to learn about basic grammar will find some of thel sections suitable for their needs, such as the lesson about restrictive and nonrestrictive relative clauses, though even here some of the explanations require very intensive study. Most of the chapters are rather like an advanced textbook for teachers or linguists. The organization and viewpoint give the impression of a carefully planned university lecture supplemented by diagrams, charts, and lists. A good example is the lesson on auxiliaries and verb phrases, which starts with a set of sample sentences demonstrating that “should see” and “happen to see” behave differently under various transformations and expansions. After the essential concepts are explained and exemplified-lexical verb, semi-auxiliary, operator, and the like-lists and paradigms are given as in the usual reference work. A particularly useful feature of this chapter is the outline of modal auxiliaries with examples of their divergent meanings.

THE SOCIAL IMPACT OF DICTIONARIES IN THE UK

It is hazardous to embark on topics as enmeshed in folklore as the influence of the dictionary or Anglo-American differences; to embark on both simultaneously is little short of foolhardy. There is a widespread belief that the dictionary exerts more influence in English-speaking societies than elsewhere and like other widespread beliefs there may be something in it. But it is easier to hypothesize on the reasons (our very large and mixed romance, classical and native vocabulary; our irregular spelling, etc.) than it is to substantiate the premise. There is also a a widespread belief that the dictionary’s Diktat is more insistent and more obeyed in the United States, and again it is easier to find plausible explanations than it is to find solid foundations for the claim. It may be true that the educational and social systems in America create a predisposition for dictionary power, and I have no answer to Uriel Weinreich’s rhetorical question, “Where else do high-school teachers of the native language work to instill in their pupils ‘the dictionary habit’?’’ But predisposition does not inevitably trigger off results, and just because high schools work to instill habits, it does not follow that the habits get instilled. I am of course merely pleading for more objective evidence rather than venturing to deny the folkloristic beliefs. And indeed a good deal of evidence transcending mere anecdote exists already of the totemic relation of the dictionary to American society. Consider the outburst over the Webster Third, reminding us of the way Uzzah, the son of Abinadab, was struck down for laying his hands on the Ark of the Lord: Dr. Gove nearly suffered the same fate for laying his hands on the sacred book that we might call Noah’s Ark. The story of Uzzah is told in what the Authorized Version calls one of the Books of Samuel, and this may serve to remind us that the Pax Britannica has never been analogously disturbed by a feeling of sacrilege perpetrated against any of the books that have sprung directly or indirectly from the loins of Samuel Johnson. Doubtless the dictionary has indeed less symbolic or emotional power in the UK than in America, but if so it is a matter of degree and not of kind; and the difference should not be exaggerated. In Britain too it seems that the dictionary is the language’s bible and its only bible. It is the recourse of the faithful protestant who is able thereby to prove-for example-that “there is no such word.” There is the same twist to the opening of St. John, with the belief that In the Beginning was, not the Word, but the Dictionary. The dictionary, of course, not a dictionary: just as you can buy bibles of different sizes and in different bindings, so dictionaries can look different but they are just different editions of the dictionary. And if all this (cf Pyles and Algeo 2 ) is just a sarcastic academic allegation, it is no more an allegation for Britain than for America. More seriously, for some 350 years dictionaries have had two outstanding emblematic values in Britain. First, as repositories of information and truth. The metaphor “a walking dictionary” for a supremely well-informed person

Types and uses of non‐finite clause in Chaucer

(1970). Types and uses of non‐finite clause in Chaucer. English Studies: Vol. 51, No. 5, pp. 393-411.

Taking a deep smell

The Survey of English Usage uses Compliance and Selection tests (Quirk & Svartvik, I966: I9 f.) to establish the distribution of inflexional forms known to be in divided usage. The preterite and past participle forms of smell are in this situation, and since there are several distinct meanings of smell, more than one test sentence was necessary for eliciting the relevant forms. A set of six tests and their results are discussed in Greenbaum and Quirk (I970). 1 It is necessary here to say only that the tests suggested a distribution of forms corresponding to the following three-term categorization of the meanings: