Written sentences and spoken clause-complexes

Abstract

A course book on the grammar of English is an attempt to demonstrate how language works — to reduce to some kind of order the complex ways in which we use the English language to ‘make meanings’ in speech and writing. Every statement about the structure of English is open to judgement, and there are often alternative ways of describing and naming. This is because, as was said in Chapter 1, language is abstract, and in trying to understand the system, or ‘network of choices’, which makes up language, everything said about it is a hypothesis, or guess based upon principles. If the principles seem sound, then the hypothesis will be acceptable and likely to be true.