ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the further implications of typologically-defined English grammar and their relation to language learning. The learner's persistent tendency to leave hierarchically distributed pronominal traces in relative clauses is not to be regarded as linguistic perversity on his part. The chapter examines other aspects of consciousness-raising wherein the learner may be helped to a more rapid understanding of how meaningful use of English is achieved within a system where form and meaning are often far apart. General analyses of English syntax can thus appeal for descriptive power to one or another of at least four typological frameworks: canonical word order, topic-/subject-prominence, pragmatic/grammatical word order, and syntactic-semantic distance. The commonest construction allowing a non-agentive subject is the passive. The most frequently occurring, or basic, passive is that triggered by selection of objective as the semantic relation to be mapped onto subject-verb.
