ABSTRACT

American English Grammar introduces students to American English in detail, from parts of speech, phrases, and clauses to punctuation and explaining (and debunking) numerous "rules of correctness," integrating its discussion of Standard American grammar with thorough coverage of the past sixty years’ worth of work on African American English and other ethnic and regional non-Standard varieties. The book’s examples and exercises include 500 real-world sentences and longer texts, drawn from newspapers, film, song lyrics, and online media as well as from Mark Twain, Stephen King, academic texts, translations of the Bible, poetry, drama, children’s literature, and transcribed conversation and TV and radio shows. Based on twenty years of classroom testing and revision, American English Grammar will serve as a classroom text or reference that teaches students how to think and talk not only about the mechanics of sentences but also about the deep and detailed soul and nuance of the most widely used language in human history.

chapter |17 pages

Introduction

chapter Chapter 1|12 pages

Sentences; Parts of Speech and Their Phrases

chapter Chapter 2|15 pages

Nouns (N) and Noun Phrases (NP)

chapter Chapter 3|15 pages

Prepositions (P) and Prepositional Phrases (PP)

chapter Chapter 5|18 pages

Pronouns (PRON) and Pronoun Phrases (PRONP)

chapter Chapter 6|44 pages

Verbs (V)

chapter Chapter 7|29 pages

Verb Phrases (VP)

chapter Chapter 8|17 pages

Adverbs (ADV) and Adverb Phrases (ADVP)

chapter Chapter 9|21 pages

Conjunctions (CONJ)

chapter Chapter 10|42 pages

Clauses

chapter Chapter 11|15 pages

Nominals, Adjectivals, and Adverbials

chapter Chapter 12|44 pages

Non-Finite Verb Phrases

chapter Chapter 13|5 pages

A Grand Review Exercise