The Millenium Grammar

	Dieter Mindt An Empirical Grammar of the English Verb System. Cornelsen Verlag. 657 pp. DM 148,00 ISBN 3-464-37110-7 Order number 371107 Review 1 Review 2

• The grammar takes full advantage of the corpus revolution. It is based on the largest collection of authentic language data ever used for a grammar – more than 240 million words of spoken and written English.
• The grammar covers three important text types: spoken conversation, fictional texts, expository prose.
• There has been no borrowing from previous grammars. Original research was carried out for the description of each item using computational tools for all steps of the analysis.
• All examples in the grammar are authentic. Frequencies are given throughout for all formal, syntactic, and semantic features of the English verb system.
• Grammatical rules are presented in the order of their importance for communication and language teaching and learning. The grammar distinguishes grammatical prototypes from marginal cases.
• The grammar is based on a revolutionary structural model of the verb phrase. Where other grammars have to resort to numerous exceptions, all verb pattern of English can now be explained as cases of rule-governed grammatical behaviour.
• There is a new distinction between finite and non-finite verb phrases offering a ground-breaking description of the non-finite verb phrase.
• The grammar is a state-of-the-art product of the most recent developments in computer aided language research.
• The grammar is a must for anyone interested in new and reliable evidence about the English verb system. For learners and teachers of English it offers a wealth of information previously unavailable.