British or American English?
A Handbook of Word and Grammar Patterns

A detailed guide to the differences between British and American English grammar, with authentic examples.

John Algeo (Author)

9780521371377, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 10 August 2006

364 pages
23.6 x 15.8 x 2.8 cm, 0.686 kg

'… no other book covers quite the same ground. It will be useful for lexicographers, translators, editors, and material writers, as well as linguists and researchers. Not least, it will provide many ideas for students who are beginning research into the varieties …' Journal of English Linguistics

Speakers of British and American English display some striking differences in their use of grammar. In this detailed survey, John Algeo considers questions such as: •Who lives on a street, and who lives in a street? •Who takes a bath, and who has a bath? •Who says Neither do I, and who says Nor do I? •After 'thank you', who says Not at all and who says You're welcome? •Whose team are on the ball, and whose team isn't? Containing extensive quotations from real-life English on both sides of the Atlantic, collected over the past twenty years, this is a clear and highly organized guide to the differences - and the similarities - between the grammar of British and American speakers. Written for those with no prior knowledge of linguistics, it shows how these grammatical differences are linked mainly to particular words, and provides an accessible account of contemporary English in use.

Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I. Parts of Speech: 1. Verbs
2. Determiners
3. Nouns
4. Pronouns
5. Adjectives
6. Adverbs
7. Qualifiers
8. Prepositions
9. Conjunctions
10. Interjections
Part II. Syntactic Constructions: 11. Complementation
12. Mandative constructions
13. Expanded predicates
14. Concord
15. Propredicates
16. Tag questions
17. Miscellaneous
Bibliography of British book citation sources
Bibliography of studies, dictionaries and corpora
Index of words.

Subject Areas: Linguistics [CF]