Grammar

RANDOLPH QUIRK

A GRAMMAR OF
SIDNEY GREENBAUM

CONTEMPORARY
GEOFFREY LEECH

ENGLISH
JAN SVARTVIK
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LONGMAN GROUP UK LIMITED
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Essex CM20 2JE, England and Associated Companies throughout the world.
© Longman Group Ltd 1972
All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Copyright owner.
First published 1972
Ninth impression (corrected) 1980
Twentieth impression 1992
ISBN 0 582 52444 X
Produced by Longman Singapore Publishers Pte Ltd
Printed in Singapore

PREFACE

The first attempts at producing a grammar of English were made when there were less than ten million speakers of English in the world, almost all of them living within
100 miles or so of London. Grammars of English have gone on being written during the intervening 400 years reflecting a variety (and growing complexity) of needs, while speakers of English have multiplied several hundredfold and dispersed themselves so that the language has achieved a uniquely wide spread throughout the world and, with that, a unique importance.
We make no apology for adding one more to the succession of English grammars. In the first place, though fairly brief synopses are common enough, there have been very few attempts at so comprehensive a coverage as is offered in the present work. Fewer still in terms of synchronic description. And none at all so comprehensive or in such depth has been produced within an English-speaking country. Moreover, our
Grammar aims at this comprehensiveness and depth in treating English irrespective
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of frontiers: our field is no less than the grammar of educated English current in the second half of the twentieth century in the world's major English-speaking communities. Only where a feature belongs specifically