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Part of
Grammar of Spoken and Written English
Douglas Biber, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey N. Leech, Susan Conrad and Edward Finegan
[Not in series 232] 2021
► pp. 51–122

Chapter 2
Word and phrase grammar

Article outline
  • 2.1The nature of grammatical units
  • 2.2Words and their characteristics
    • 2.2.1Word types and word tokens
      • 2.2.1.1Use of words in text examples
      • 2.2.1.2TTR across the registers
        • corpus findings
        • discussion of findings
    • 2.2.2Orthographic words, grammatical words, and lexemes
    • 2.2.3The three major word classes
      • 2.2.3.1Lexical words
      • 2.2.3.2Function words
      • 2.2.3.3Inserts
    • 2.2.4Closed systems v. open classes
    • 2.2.5The structure of words: Morphology
      • 2.2.5.1Inflection
      • 2.2.5.2Derivation
      • 2.2.5.3Compounding
      • 2.2.5.4Multi-word lexical units
    • 2.2.6Core v. peripheral members of word classes
    • 2.2.7Multiple class membership
    • 2.2.8Use of lexical words, function words, and inserts
    • 2.2.9Lexical density
      • corpus findings ,
      • discussion of findings
  • 2.3Survey of lexical words
    • 2.3.1Nouns
    • 2.3.2Lexical verbs
    • 2.3.3Adjectives
    • 2.3.4Adverbs
    • 2.3.5Lexical word classes
      • corpus findings
      • discussion of findings
    • 2.3.6Borderline cases of lexical word class membership
  • 2.4Survey of function words
    • 2.4.1Determiners
    • 2.4.2Pronouns
      • 2.4.2.1Overlap of pronoun, determiner, and adverb classes
      • 2.4.2.2Other pro-forms
    • 2.4.3Primary auxiliaries
    • 2.4.4Modal auxiliaries
    • 2.4.5Prepositions
      • 2.4.5.1Free v. bound prepositions
      • 2.4.5.2Complex prepositions
      • 2.4.5.3Overlap between prepositions and other word classes
    • 2.4.6Adverbial particles
      • 2.4.6.1Adverbial particles v. adverbs
      • 2.4.6.2Adverbial particles v. prepositions
    • 2.4.7Coordinators
      • 2.4.7.1Correlative coordinators
      • 2.4.7.2Coordinators v. other word classes
      • 2.4.7.3Simple coordinators: Distribution
        • corpus findings
        • discussion of findings
      • 2.4.7.4Sentence/turn-initial coordinators
        • corpus findings ,
        • discussion of findings
      • 2.4.7.5Correlative coordinators: Distribution
        • corpus findings
        • discussion of findings
      • 2.4.8Subordinators
        • 2.4.8.1Complex subordinators
        • 2.4.8.2Correlative subordinators
        • 2.4.8.3Overlap between subordinators and other word classes
      • 2.4.9 Wh-words
      • 2.4.10Existential there
      • 2.4.11The negator not
      • 2.4.12The infinitive marker to
      • 2.4.13Numerals
        • 2.4.13.1Cardinals
        • 2.4.13.2Ordinals
        • 2.4.13.3Numerals: Distribution
          • corpus findings
        • discussion of findings
      • 2.4.14Major function word classes: Distribution
        • corpus findings
        • discussion of findings
  • 2.5Survey of inserts
  • 2.6Phrases and their characteristics
    • 2.6.1Constituency
    • 2.6.2Form v. syntactic role of phrases
    • 2.6.3Phrases in text samples
  • 2.7Types of phrases
    • 2.7.1Noun phrases
      • 2.7.1.1The syntactic roles of noun phrases
      • 2.7.1.2Discontinuous noun phrases
    • 2.7.2Verb phrases
      • 2.7.2.1The syntactic role of verb phrases
      • 2.7.2.2Discontinuous verb phrases
      • 2.7.2.3Auxiliary-only verb phrases
    • 2.7.3Adjective phrases
      • 2.7.3.1The syntactic roles of adjective phrases
      • 2.7.3.2Discontinuous adjective phrases
    • 2.7.4Adverb phrases
      • 2.7.4.1The syntactic roles of adverb phrases
    • 2.7.5Prepositional phrases
      • 2.7.5.1Extended prepositional phrases
      • 2.7.5.2The syntactic roles of prepositional phrases
      • 2.7.5.3Stranded prepositions
      • 2.7.5.4Stranded prepositions in independent wh-questions
        • corpus findings
        • discussion of findings
    • 2.7.6Genitive phrases
    • 2.7.7Numeral phrases
      • 2.7.7.1Complex numbers
      • 2.7.7.2Types of numerical expressions
        • A.Clock time
        • B.Dates
        • C.Currency
        • D.Temperature
        • E.Decimals, percentages, fractions
        • F.Mathematical expressions
      • 2.7.7.3Approximate numbers
        • A.The derivational suffix -ish
        • B.Combinations with odd
        • C.Approximating adverbs
        • D.Coordination tags
      • 2.7.7.4Approximating numeral expressions
        • corpus findings
        • discussion of findings
  • 2.8Embedding of phrases
  • 2.9Coordination of phrases
    • 2.9.1Phrasal v. clausal coordination
    • 2.9.2Coordination tags
      • 2.9.2.1Distribution of coordination tags
        • corpus findings
        • discussion of findings
  • 2.10Simple v. complex phrases
    • corpus findings