Organization

Complex forms of organization, often found in modern grammars, have been avoided Before they begin the study of English, many students are familiar with the idea of sentence formation and word order and the

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idea of 'parts of speech' the use of nouns, verbs, prepositions, and so on And this is the pattern this grammar follows A glance at the Contents pages will give the user an overview of the way the book has been organized

The main chapters are followed by an Appendix, which contains useful lists (e g of phrasal verbs) that would otherwise clutter the text and make it unreadable Or they contain detailed notes on e g prepositions, dealing with such problems as the similarities and differences between over and above, which there is not normally room for in a grammar of this size

Style

Writing about language is difficult because the object of study (language) is also the medium through which it is discussed There has been a conscious avoidance of passive constructions so that the descriptions of how the English language works are as simple and direct as possible, given the complexity of the subject

The usual sequence in each section is to present form first, followed by use Paradigms, where they occur, are given in full, in traditional style, as this may be the way students have already encountered them in their own languages These are often followed by notes which focus on particular problems 'Rules' are descriptive, rather than prescriptive, and are written as simply and accurately as possible

Technical terms

The book defines common technical terms, such as noun, verb, etc that are probably familiar to the user While it avoids complex terms, it does introduce (and define) terms which are necessary for an accurate description of what is happening The index uses the symbol D to refer the user to the point where such terms are defined An intelligent discussion of English requires the use of terms like determiner, stative verb, the causative, the zero article, and so on If we avoid such terms, descriptions will be unnecessarily wordy, repetitive and/or inaccurate For example, to speak of 'the omission of the article' in e g 'Life is difficult' is a misrepresentation of what happens We actively use the zero article here, we do not 'omit' anything