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Written by a leading authority on the subject, the fifth edition of this bestselling book provides students with a thorough grounding in the essentials of sentence structure and the fundamentals of syntactic argumentation.

Divided into four parts, it begins by examining the basic concepts that underpin the study of syntax, before moving on to more complex issues. The first part introduces the foundations of syntax, namely clauses and sentences; the second looks at the internal structure of phrases and the bridge between syntax and semantics; the third deals with syntactic argumentation; and the fourth focuses on argumentation and its application. Chapters feature clear explanations of technical terms, easy-to-follow examples and interactive exercises to illustrate key ideas.
This theoretically-neutral text will be core reading for all students of English, Linguistics and Applied Linguistics who are encountering the study of syntax for the first time.

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PART I: FUNCTION AND FORM
1. Introduction
2. Function
3. From: words, word classes and phrases
4. More on form: clauses and sentences
5. The function-form interface
PART II: ELABORATION
6. Predicates, arguments and thematic roles
7. Cross-categorical generalisations: X-bar syntax
8. More on clauses
9. Movement
10. Tense, aspect and mood
PART III: ARGUMENTATION
11. Syntactic argumentation
12. Constituency: movement and substitution
13. Constituency: some additional tests
14. Predicates and arguments revisited
PART IV: APPLICATION
15. Information structuring
16. Grammatical indeterminacy
17. Case studies

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Bas Aarts is Professor of English Linguistics and Director of the Survey of English Usage at University College London, UK. His research interest is in the field of syntax, more specifically verbal syntax. His recent publications include: Syntactic gradience (2007, OUP), Oxford modern English grammar (2011, OUP), The English verb phrase (2013, edited with J. Close, G. Leech and S. Wallis, CUP), Oxford dictionary of English Grammar (2nd edition 2014; edited with S. Chalker and E. Weiner, OUP), as well as articles in books and journals. He is a founding editor of the journal English Language and Linguistics (CUP).

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