Includes Glossary of Grammatical Terms and Index.

1. Referring to people and things: Nouns. - Pronouns. - Determiners. — 2. Giving information about people and things: Adjectives. - Possessives. - Quantifiers. - Numbers. - Qualifiers. — 3. Making a message: Transitivity. - Complementation. - Phase. — 4. Varying the message: Mood. - Negation. - Modals. — 5. Expressing time: Verb tenses. - Adjuncts of time. — 6. Expressing manner and place: Adjuncts. - Manner: Adverbs. - Place: Prepositions. — 7. Reporting what people say or think. — 8. Combining messages: Subordination. Adverbial clauses. Relative clauses. Non-finite clauses. - Coordination. — 9. Making texts: Cohesion. - Ellipsis. — 10. The structure of information. Passive voice. It. There. Clauses using adjuncts. Other information structures. — The Reference Section.

This authoritative new reference grammar presents a fresh description of the language, concentrating on the real patterns of use in today's English. This book builds up the picture systematically from word to discourse level. Structures are explained in terms of their meanings and functions.

Specially developed for advanced students and teachers of English.