English grammar [antikvár]

The original Teach Yourself English Grammar, by Gordon Humphreys, was published in 1945 and enjoyed considerable success. It adopted the conventional format of grammar books in devoting chapters to the principal parts of speech, and then dealing with the analysis of sentence-structure, including punctuation. Every piece of explanation was followed by exercises, the intention being that the student should be able to work his way through the book without any other aid. When 1 was invited to revise the book, I was asked to retain this basic structure. The teaching of formal grammar in schools, and the testing of grammar in public examinations, have both declined, and have sometimes seemed in danger of disappearing, in favour of alternative, less structured (and by common consent less satisfactory) methods of teaching literacy and testing it. None the less, this book - however heavily revised and up-dated - continues to be based on the assumption that an understanding of the English Language must begin with a working knowledge of its components - the parts of speech - and with the way they fit together into the basic units of sense, notably the sentence. This knowledge is offered to the student not as an arid exercise, to enable him merely to distinguish a preposition from an adverb or a phrase from a clause, as a circus animal might jump through hoops, but as a means of gaining access to the richness and complexity of English expression, so as to be able to write and speak not only correctiy but with variety, resourcefulness