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1 results

  • 3 - The Need for New Descriptions

  • Roger Berry, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
  • Book:
    Doing English Grammar
    Published online:
    02 March 2021
    Print publication:
    11 March 2021, pp 43-67

  • Summary

    The chapter outlines five reasons behind the need for new grammatical descriptions: language change, misconceptions about grammar (often based on incorrect rules of thumb), the discovery of new phenomena, the extension of the scope of grammar, and alternative ways of looking at old problems. Then two problems hampering new descriptions are discussed: metalinguistic relativity (the claim that the current grammatical framework and associated terminology is too rigid and prevents novel insights), and poor transmission – a lack of communication between different constituencies of grammarian. Thus many ‘facts’ about English grammar have been known for some time, but have not reached the pedagogic domain.